Client
Private
Year
2018
Services
HomesThe Concept
Our clients’ brief was simple – replace a defunct sunroom on their 1980s bungalow with a garden-embracing drawing room that was absolutely unlike, but not at odds with, the existing house. It had to be cosy, centred around a large open fire. And, if possible, it had to incorporate some large and wonderful objects from the clients’ collection – including two oversize Moroccan jars and a pair of antique Indian arches. And have a verandah.
The new room is a familiar vernacular form, clad entirely in western red cedar shingles. Openings have been carefully placed to capture favourite views and light at particular times of the day, without losing a sense of cosiness and enclosure.
The new drawing room is connected to the house by a passageway that has been flanked at either end by the Indian arches, and lined in a sumptuous oriental wallpaper. On a perpendicular axis, a glazed link and verandah transect this tunnel, extending the distinction between old and new, and providing garden access to both sides.
The urns have found homes within purpose-made deeply recessed windows to either side of a large, inset fireplace. Additional heating is provided using innovative invisible ‘JouleTherm CeP electric paint’, applied to the vaulted ceilings. One feature oak truss enlivens the vaulted ceiling, below which an oversized Scandinavian sofa (from our friends at Maven) provides a bold and luxurious centre-piece.
The fireplace is adorned simply, with a barely-projecting mantle formed from a large, rough-cut slab of Mourne granite and a stone hearth that in a past life was the entrance step of a school.
