'We bought a cheap bungalow that was damp and needed rewiring – but the mountain view was mesmerising'
Jane Chambers and Myles Lamberth had a very specific vision for the renovation of their Irish cottage, a bungalow at the foot of Knocknarea mountain in County Sligo: they wanted the house to ‘breathe’.
The couple had been on the move for several years, travelling and living in different places. They eventually settled in the village of Strandhill on the Atlantic coast, where they opened a beachside cafe, bakery and shop and planned a life built around surfing and walking their springer spaniel, Milkshake.
The business is called Shells (Sligo means ‘Place of the Shells’), and Myles’s background in fine art and his passion for food made this the ideal venture for them. Surrounded by fresh blue and white furnishings and the vintage finds they love to collect, they now serve up home-baked bread, cakes and other treats in a relaxed setting overlooking the sea.
They were happily renting nearby and not intending to buy a property of their own, but when friends from Dublin stumbled across the 1930s cottage while hunting for a weekend hideaway, Jane and Myles realised it was the perfect place. ‘It was damp and needed rewiring,’ Jane says, ‘and the surveyor thought we were mad – but the mountain view was mesmerising, and we knew there was character lurking somewhere beneath the layers of wallpaper. And besides, it was the cheapest house in the village!’ All it needed was opening up to really make the most of the views.
Working with local architect John Wiggins, they designed a new layout that retained the original brick and stone sides of the bungalow but added timber extensions at the front and back. They extended the ceiling in the main room to the full height of the roof apex and installed huge windows. Having stripped back the old plaster and wallpaper to ‘free the spirit’ of the place, they added concrete floors and worktops as well as rough scaffold-board panelling to give the little cottage a simple, industrial look.
The big kitchen-living space is now served by two bathrooms and two bedrooms – one of them built into the old 1960s extension, where a stone wall, originally part of the house exterior, has been stripped back to expose its natural surface. 'There was an old stone shed in the garden,’ Jane says, ‘which gave us a clue that the rest of the property must be stone, too, underneath it's 1960s plaster.’
It was a year in the making, but they took it slow and steady, checking in every day from work at the cafe half a mile away and were always on hand if the builders needed to consult with them.
The biggest challenge, recalls Jane, was staying true to their vision when people tried to dissuade them out of using concrete in the cold, grey Irish climate, and the builders would ‘tidy’ structural beams behind brickwork, not realising that Jane and Myles wanted them left exposed. ‘Or we’d arrive with a truckload of battered salvaged wood, and they couldn’t believe it was for our bedroom floor.’ Sourcing was difficult. They drove the length and breadth of Ireland looking for wide oak planks and had almost given up by the time they struck lucky at a Dublin reclamation yard.
And despite the lack of ornament – the planked kitchen table made from sports hall floorboards, the unshaded industrial lightbulbs, the salvaged hospital sink in the bathroom, and the rusted metal of its door – the interior is warm and welcoming.
Sage green tiles adorn the walls above the kitchen worktops and on the low hearth that supports the woodburning stove, and an Ikea cabinet adds a splash of sunshine yellow. A shelf of Waterford crystal is mixed with rose-patterned glasses found at a flea market, while idiosyncratic touches include a pair of vintage sugar tongs used as the pull handle on the loo chain.
It was all designed, says Jane, out of purely selfish motives, to suit the way she and Myles wanted to live when they moved here, but its sheer simplicity means it has adapted brilliantly to the arrival of their son Arlo. ‘He has changed the dynamic of the house,’ she explains, ‘but it still works so we can move his cot from one room to another and he can crawl out of the patio doors without coming to any harm.’
And their new home has given them the balance they craved. Their Shells business is all about the sea, and is always busy and energetic, but Cedar Rose Cottage – named for its timber cladding and the old rose bush that grows in the front garden – is about the mountain, with its peaceful spirit and unchanging views: ‘We love the contrast between the two places, especially now we’ve got Arlo – he’s drawn a line for us. The cafe was becoming addictive but I’m now part-time and Myles works four days a week.’
It’s tempting to think how wonderful it would be to have another room, Jane admits – especially as there’s no guest room now. ‘Before Arlo, we had people staying every weekend!’, but she rather feels that anything more would be greedy: ‘People used to be happy with what they had – and we have enough here.’
• Shells Seaside Bakery & Cafe, shellscafe.com
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