the white bookE s s e n t i a l I n t e r i o r s 2 0 0 9T H E U L T I M A T E C O L L E C T I O N O F S T Y L I S H I N T E R I O R S

T H E I N T E R I O R S B I B L ET H E I N T E R I O R S B I B L E

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g r a n d d e s i g nA deceptively spacious hall was the first feature

Ger and Mike Smyth noticed when they came

to view a run-down Victorian townhouse in

Ranelagh, County Dublin. “The house hadn’t

been lived in for four years, there were no

proper services and the windows, which had

been left open to keep the place aired, had

let the rain in. But despite all the decay, I could

see that the proportions were wonderful”,

recalls Ger, who as an interior designer, knows

a well laid-out house when she sees one.

Words: Tracy Biggam / Photography: Barry Murphy

For Mike and Ger, renovating a period house had been their dream

for many years, but they could never seem to find the right one.

“Although we were looking for an old house, we kept on ending up

in new developments,” says Ger. “Eventually we moved into a rented

apartment so that we wouldn’t be distracted from our mission.”

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The conclusion of their mission, however, was still an exhausting

three years away at this point. During their rental period, the couple

saw absolutely everything that came to market, with Mike’s architect

brother, John Smyth, giving each potential property a structural once-

over so they could move quickly if the right house came along. But

despite such intensive search efforts, the dream home still seemed

determined to elude its buyers, with the maelstrom of a soaring

Dublin property market in the early years of the 21st century now

adding an unwelcome extra dimension.

Just when they were about to give up on the dream, Ger and Mike

passed a house for auction in their favoured city suburb of Ranelagh.

Unlike many others they had seen in the area which had been turned

into cramped bed-sitter flats, this house built in 1882, had been

occupied by the same family for generations and had lain vacant

since its last occupant, an elderly gentleman, had passed away. The

dilapidated condition might have been enough to put some potential

buyers off, but it was the perfectly proportioned blank canvas the

Smyths had been looking for. “It was a modest looking house from

the outside but the minute we opened the front door the size and

graciousness of the hall hit me,” says Ger. With John’s subsequent

blessing of structural soundness they moved quickly and secured the

sale, eager to get going on the project they had waited decades to

tackle.

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The first key challenge according to Ger (pictured above) was to

avoid what she terms as the “separation anxiety” that comes with

a house arranged over five floors. “Very often with a period house

you end up separated from your children with everyone on different

floors,” she says. “The bedrooms are always on the top floors, the

basement is used for everything and the rooms in-between tend to

attract the lion’s share of decoration yet are never used.” Achieving

great functionality was the crucial star ting point for the couple as

they began to mull over how they would transform their long-awaited

acquisition. “We spent evening after evening in our local restaurant,

doodling on napkins and scraps of paper, planning different schemes

for the flow of the house,” Ger recalls.

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Untouched, save for superficial decoration, since its construction in the

late 19th century, the house, being a typical Ranelagh red brick, was

not originally intended to be a family home. Rather, its purpose was as

a “pied a terre” in the city – the family’s main residence would have

been in the country – and the house’s function was purely to

accommodate trips into town with a few servants in tow. If Ger was

to achieve her aim of creating a family home where the space would

“flow”, she realised they would have to make some radical changes to

the rear of the house where the dark and pokey rooms had been

designed to accommodate the ‘staff ’, who clearly had deserved neither

space nor light. A modern treatment for the back of the house was

part of the solution they arrived at and out of their restaurant doodles

emerged a glazed, double-height extension which would incorporate

a large kitchen and family area at the heart of the house “Part of my

dream was to be able to look at the back of the house from the inside,”

explains Ger. “I love the sense of spaciousness this gives but also the

wonderful cosy feeling that you’re connected with the whole house.”

The couple’s dreams might have remained just that however, if they

had not been able to persuade the local planning office that their

changes were justified, as the house had listed status both outside

and inside. Encouraged by Mike’s brother John who helped them to

interpret their scribbles architecturally, they decided to forge ahead

and develop their plans for presentation to the local council, hiring

architect Katherine Kelliher of Kelliher Miller Architects, together with

a conservation architect, who they instructed to produce a report

on the building. Credit must also be given to Katherine for sourcing

Declan Byrne of Shale Construction who carried out the build.

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Thankfully their plans went through first time – the Smyths’ careful

planning paying off as the planning office saw that the integrity of

the house would be maintained. The contemporary extension they

were proposing enabled the original building’s appearance to remain

unchanged, rather than adding a neo-Victorian addition which would

have spoiled the authenticity – in essence the new part of the house

could almost be lifted off leaving the original there. Renovating her own

house has been an informative process for her business, according to

Ger, “I feel I can now really empathise with what my clients are going

through,” she says. “I’m very passionate about interiors but I did find

that when I was working on my home it was hard to step outside

and make judgements objectively.” Her husband Mike, who, as a TV

director and producer is also visually orientated, was never concerned

about Ger’s objectivity and professionalism.

As well as providing living accommodation for the couple and their

two children still living at home, Simone, a graphic design student and

seven year old Jordi, the house is “head office” for each of the Smyths’

businesses. “We share an office on the lower ground floor”, says Ger,

“and the lay-out of the house has naturally lent itself to providing

space where we can meet clients in peace and quiet.” Said space is the

first room you reach off the hall, looking out to the street and situated

well away from the hubbub of family life below.

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Ger has created a serene silver-themed environment in here in which

to conduct business. “If you’re going to go with a metallic palette you

need to pick one metal,” she advises. “I decided upon silver for this

sitting room and so we have lots of silver finishes, carried through to

the fireplace, the curtains and wallpaper. I put a lot of work getting the

style and size right in here – it’s not a huge room, but an important one.

What we’ve created is a period-inspired room with a contemporary

twist. I wanted clean lines and classic shapes with a modern influence

that would inject light into the house.” Mike agrees, “What we’ve

strived to achieve is a house that’s informed by the period rather than

of the period,” he adds.

How to create a happy marriage of traditional and modern was the

key challenge where the contemporary extension joins the original

house at the foot of the stairway leading down off the back of the

hall. Here Ger had to come up with a solution to blend the meeting

of traditional hall with modern kitchen. The staircase at the rear of the

hall naturally draws the eye and she decided to make it the transition

point, halting the dado rail here but continuing the hall’s pale porcelain

tiles down into the kitchen below. As you descend the stairs, the

transition from period to modern becomes more apparent and the

mood becomes sharper and more minimalist with blue LEDs lighting

the way.

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There are over 50 lights in the contemporary kitchen which can be

controlled remotely to create different mood settings. Ger says that

the kitchen is an amalgamation of favourite styles and is very much

a bespoke room, created in a slick black gloss and white theme by

a cabinet maker to Ger’s designs. In line with modern living, the kitchen

opens out into a family sitting area, dominated by a vast L-shaped sofa

upholstered in charcoal fabric. Whilst the kitchen itself has taken over

the original cooking space of the house (which still contained an old

range and little else when the Smyths bought the property), the family

area is part of the new extension and is an atrium-like space with

unimpeded views up through the layers of the house and out into

the garden.

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Ger’s concept of family inclusion has meant that the children’s

bedrooms – Simone’s New York loft-style room, complete with

Manhattan skyline, and Jordi’s cosy, toy-filled room, both face into this

space from above and out into the garden, linked by a glass corridor.

Away from the kitchen extension, the house returns to a period-

inspired theme with the lay-out of the rooms very much as it would

have been over a hundred years ago. High above street level, the

formal drawing room has a similar feel to the sitting room below.

The dark wood of the solid walnut floor contrasts with pale grey

walls and Ger has tweaked the look she established downstairs with

a different palette of colours, combining pale painted furniture with

rich plums and dark browns dominating her choice of fabrics.

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“The furniture in here would fit anywhere in the house,” says Ger,

referring to the two comfortable sofas covered in Romo fabric, the

colour of strong espresso. In here again the glimmer of silver is picked

up sparingly – these metallic touches mean that even that modern

day evil, the flat-screen tv, blends amazingly well in a room with such

a period flavour.

At the very top of the house is Ger and Mike’s bedroom. Whilst the

children’s rooms are designed in contemporary fashion, the master

bedroom returns to the romance of the nineteenth century and is

decorated in a soft palette of whites and creams, with boldly patterned

wallpaper by Sheila Coombes offset by a painted Victorian fireplace

and Queen Anne bed. ©

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It’s a fitting end to a metaphorical journey through the house that

opens with a period flourish and then flits in and out of the 21st

century with time-traveller’s ease, the movement through the

centuries blurred through consistency of colours and materials and

ultimately the lay-out of the house Ger and Mike put so much effort

into, “The most important thing is the use of the space and how it all

connects.”

www.gersmythinteriors.com

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