Dundalk couple talk us through their home renovation journey

Local couple Caroline Lee and Bryan Morris bought the period property of their dreams on the Dublin Road in Dundalk back in October 2017. The industrious pair began renovating the 1950's bungalow shortly afterwards and interior designer Caroline has been sharing their progress on the Instagram account: @dublin_rd_renovation_ where they have almost 400 followers.
The Dundalk Democrat sat down with Caroline and Bryan to quiz the couple on their renovation journey so far.

Q: When was your property built and when did you buy it?
A: The house was built in the 1950’s and we got the keys back in October 2017 after selling our previous home twice! Our first sale fell through.

Q: Why did you decide to go for an old property and go down the renovating route as opposed to buying a new house?
A: We decided on buying an older property as it offered us what we wanted which was a detached home and it was established as opposed to a building site on a housing estate. It’s in a great location, near to the motorway and town.
We identified the Dublin Road as somewhere we wanted to live and saw houses in the area were coming up for sale and being renovated which is a good sign. The character in an older house you will never get with the newer houses nowadays. It was this character that sold it to us the minute we viewed it.

Q: Is this the first property yourself and Bryan have renovated?
A: It is the first property we have renovated. We have done work before on our previous house, but it was more cosmetic rather than knocking walls and ripping up floors.

Q: When did you start the project?
A: We started doing bits to the house ourselves in December 2017. First of all was the job of stripping all the rooms of wallpaper and even some ceilings! We also lifted floorboards off one of the bedrooms to insulate underneath.
We took down an old car port and a metal shed. We did as much as we could do ourselves, as it didn’t cost us anything. The real renovation didn’t start until the end of August last year.
We had saved up some more money as we had since found out that the house needed new plumbing and new electrics. On top of needing new windows and doors throughout.

Q: When is the expected finish date?
A: We are expecting to have the majority of the house finished by Christmas 2019, but you are never finished when it comes to a house! We have garden landscaping plans too in the pipeline.

Q: What has been the most rewarding/exciting part of the process so far?
A: The most rewarding part of the renovation was watching your plans and designs on paper come to life. To stand back and say “yes I did that! “

Q: Have there been any stages of the project that were very stressful?
A: The most stressful parts of the renovation for us was having to move out of the house for four months! We were very lucky to have amazing friends Steven and Joanne who put us up for a “few weeks”. We couldn’t have done it without them!
Our dog Murphy was also sent to Bryan’s parents for that time too which was also hard for us. The juggle of work and tradesmen on a day to day basis was stressful too. After work we were at the house working on anything that made it quicker to get things moving.

Q: What kind of a feel/theme would you like the house to have when it's finished?
A: My taste is I’m told quite masculine. I don’t if it’s because I like darker colours and clean lines and dark ceilings. So I suppose the theme would be an eclectic mix of modern/lux. I want it to feel grown up and with simple design elements.

Q: you share your renovation journey on instagram, are there any other accounts that you got inspiration from?
A: I follow a serious amount of renovation and house accounts on Instagram. Here are my favourites:
oldvictorianew, brooklands_23, renovating_the_laurels, Reginasturrock and devolkitchens

Caroline Lee is a Interior Designer, Colour Consultant and Retail Manager at Colourtrend which is located in the North Link Retail Park on the Coe's Road, Dundalk. If you would like to book an in-store consultation with Caroline contact the store at 042 93 86300 or see: www.colourtrend.ie

Follow Caroline and Bryan's journey on Instagram: www.instagram.com/dublin_rd_renovation_/

Interior designer Caroline’s top tips for renovating your home 

1. Get good advice from someone who has been through a renovation or knows what they are doing
2. Get a good team of tradesmen to work for you and ideally have a project manager so you don’t have to worry about a lot of the decisions.
3. Take your time with designing what you want. We planned ours out for about eight months.
We also lived in the house so that gave us insight into how we used the house and where the sun was coming in so we utilized that in our design.
4. Check all the main issues that can arise first ie the plumbing, electrics, roofing, windows and insulation. These need to be addressed first before any of the “pretty things” can be done.
5. If you have a figure in mind of what you think it will cost....then double it! There is always hidden extras when it comes to an older house.
6. Dont underestimate the stress involved coming from two people who are in the business it became very stressful juggling the Reno and work.
7. Try not to skimp on finishes. I would even hold off on the rest of the work to achieve this. It’s not a race and the rest of the house can wait. As long as you have heat and water you can survive.
8. Take advantage of incentives like the Home Renovation Scheme.

INTERIOR DESIGN TIPS
As an interior Designer and someone who helps people every day with their houses I would recommend the following tips:
1. Figure out your decorating style and put together a digital mood board. Pinterest is brilliant for this.
2. Prioritize rooms that are going to be used the most. So this will more than likely be the kitchen and living room and also the main bathroom and bedroom. The rest you can do in time.
3. Always use good finishes on your walls. With new walls you need a good primer.
We used Colourtrend primer as the first coat and then Colourtrend Ceramic Matt for the walls in Subtle.
We still have to paint the final coats on the rest of the rooms but we will be using Colourtrend Paints for the rest.
4. Pick your colours according to the light in each room. So if you have a dark room use a darker colour.
This will make the room feel cosy and the use of nice side lamps etc with give a nice feel to the room. If you have a nice sunny area use a bright colour as this will enhance the nice bright and airy feel in these rooms.
Then accessorize with different colors and textures to make each room feel unique.