The cottage front before the work, much as it had been left.

The cottage The cottage front, before the work began.

Section 1

The cottage as it was.

Before any of this began, the cottage was much as it had been left. The downstairs room (the one that’s now a bedroom) was called the good room. It was kept for visitors, the kind of room that hardly ever got sat in. At the other end, what’s now the kitchen was a bedroom.

We used to come up at the weekends and try to make the place feel like ours; one night we rigged up a cinema in the sitting room with an old white sheet pegged onto the curtain rail. Poppy and Daisy, the dogs, made themselves comfortable.

A film projected onto an old white sheet pegged across the sitting-room window, the dogs on the sofa — the cottage in family use before the work.

The cinema A white sheet on the curtain rail: the first cinema, before the work.

Poppy and Daisy, two small white dogs, settled together on a bench by the lit fire in the old sitting room.

Poppy and Daisy Making themselves comfortable by the fire.

The old good room before renovation — patterned wallpaper, a tiled fireplace, a floral settee and a dense patterned carpet.

The good room Kept for visitors, hardly ever sat in. Now the downstairs bedroom.

The old bedroom at the far end of the cottage, stripped back — the room that would become the kitchen.

The far end A bedroom at the other end, what’s now the kitchen.

Section 2

Stripping back.

The kitchen came out first: stainless steel sink, stainless steel countertops, the 1970s lot of it. Underneath the sink we found the bracket that had held it all up: an iron support DJ himself had welded, probably in an afternoon at the forge across the road. It went out with the rest. There wasn’t a place for it in the new kitchen, and we weren’t trying to keep everything. But finding it was a quiet moment in the dust.

Then the walls between the rooms came down, and the cottage started to read as one space instead of several small ones.

The old kitchen wall laid bare after the stainless steel sink and countertops were stripped out, pipework and wiring exposed.

Stripped out The stainless steel sink and countertops, gone.

The welded iron sink support left standing after the tiling came off — the bracket DJ made at the forge.

DJ’s bracket The iron sink support DJ welded, found in the dust.

A room opened up after the dividing wall was taken out, the ceiling back to its joists and the floor broken open.

Walls down The dividing walls out, the cottage reading as one space.

New galvanised metal studwork going up to dry-line the kitchen, the stone wall and stripped ceiling behind.

Dry lining The new framing going up to line the kitchen.

Section 3

The surprise window.

The lads were chipping plaster off the kitchen wall in preparation for dry lining when they realised what was underneath. Steven rang me (I was in Izmir at the time) to show me the stone they’d uncovered. He suggested we clean it down, repoint it, and make it the feature wall of the kitchen. We did.

As they kept going, chipping further down the same wall, the little window revealed itself: a small one, deep-set, sealed up years ago and forgotten about. We refurbished it: made it functional again, took the glass out, and boxed off the back to turn it into a wine store. Because we couldn’t put cupboards in front of it, we built a window seat around it instead. It’s where you can sit now to keep whoever’s cooking company. The cushion went out to Turkey to be covered.

The cottage was telling us things, and we were learning to listen.

The plaster stripped from the kitchen wall to reveal the original rubble stone and a small deep-set window, sealed up and forgotten.

Uncovered The little window, found behind the plaster.

The little timber sash window being restored on the workshop bench, clamped up in fresh softwood.

Restored The sash made functional again on the workshop bench.

The cleaned and repointed rubble-stone wall, cleared to become the feature wall of the kitchen.

The feature wall Cleaned and repointed, the kitchen’s stone wall taking shape.

The finished window seat and wine store — the little window boxed out and lit, bottles racked behind, a cushioned seat built around it in the stone wall.

The window seat The wine store, with a seat built around it, where you keep the cook company.

Section 4

The bones, kept.

Once the stripping was done, we started putting back. The roof now carries reclaimed railway sleepers, brought in not to look new, but to feel as if they’d always been there.

Outside, a dry-stone wall along one edge of the cottage really had been there. For years. Hidden under overgrowth and weather. We just uncovered it and pointed what needed pointing. Some of the bones we brought in; some were already there. We tried to make all of them legible.

Insulation and reclaimed timber going into the roof, a heavy retained beam strapped across, the original stone wall to one side.

The roof Reclaimed railway sleepers, brought in to feel as if they’d always been there.

The old drystone wall curving along the edge of the yard, uncovered during the works after years under overgrowth.

Uncovered The dry-stone wall that had been there for years, brought back to light.

The finished cottage interior, an industrial pendant hanging from a dark exposed timber beam — the cottage's old bones kept visible.

Kept legible The old beam left exposed in the finished room.

Section 5

The kitchen.

The new kitchen is birch ply, not oak, not painted MDF, not what you usually see in a country kitchen. The units came from Hillside Kitchens, with no visible handles, so the birch is what you see. The floor under them is ceramic tile that looks like timber planking, with a heated mat beneath. The countertops are quartz from MTM.

The craft moment was Tony Kelly. Tony is a next-door neighbour and a master carpenter. He scribed the quartz countertop into the stone feature wall, fitting a straight slab against uneven stone, with no gap. It’s the kind of work that gets noticed only by people who’ve tried to do it themselves.

Above the countertops, Alistair made the barn doors, a sliding pair that cover the working shelves behind. A country touch in an otherwise modern kitchen.

The new birch-ply kitchen units arriving on site against the exposed stone wall, the deep window reveal newly framed in timber.

Birch ply The units arriving: birch ply, no visible handles.

The kitchen being fitted — a carpenter cutting timber over a sawhorse amid part-built birch-ply carcasses.

Fitting Tony fitting the kitchen.

Detail of the new countertop scribed tight against the rough exposed stone wall, no gap between straight slab and uneven stone.

Scribed in The countertop fitted to the stone, with no gap.

The sliding barn door in situ in the cottage, an X-braced pine door on a black top-track.

Barn door Alistair’s sliding doors, covering the working shelves behind.

The finished cottage kitchen — birch-ply units, a cream Belling range under a chrome hood, white subway tiles and the exposed stone wall to the right.

The kitchen Finished: birch, stone, and the Belling range.

Section 6

Paint, by neighbours.

The kitchen got its paint from Henry Graham and Joe Coll. Henry is a cousin of mine who lives directly across the road; Joe took the job on with him. They aren’t plasterers, they’re painters, and the cottage was painted by people who’d been looking at it their whole lives.

Two painters at work in the kitchen, dust sheets over the floor, the retained beam and stone wall behind.

The painters Henry and Joe, painting the kitchen.

Section 7

The Street.

Outside, we turned to what we’ve always called the Street. Other people might call it a courtyard, or a drive: the open space between the cottage and the outbuildings. The Street has always had stone on it as long as I can remember. But the place is surrounded by tall evergreen trees, and every year leaves and broken branches would blow down onto the stone. Decade by decade, it built up. By the time we got to it, the Street needed redoing in full.

The new gravel and the bigger stones laid in among it came from Cranford Quarry, which is practically next door. There’s something right about a place being rebuilt with stone from down the road.

The yard dug back to bare ground during the works, the outbuildings and cottage around it, ready for the new stone.

Getting ready The Street dug back, ready for new stone from Cranford Quarry.

The new pea-gravel laid and raked across the courtyard in sunshine, the cottage with its red door to one side.

Raked in The first look at the Street with the new gravel down.

The finished property from the main-road end, the drystone wall and gravel sweeping up the Street to the cottage among the trees.

Up the Street From the road end, looking back up the Street.

Section 8

The hedge and the bay.

Mulroy Bay is just across the road from the cottage, fifty metres of road and a strip of trees away. But for years, that strip of trees was a thick evergreen hedge tall enough to hide the water completely. From inside the cottage, you wouldn’t have known there was a bay there at all. The same trees that were burying the Street were also blocking the view.

At a later stage in the work, we had the hedge thinned out. The bay came back. Now, sitting in the cottage, you look out across the road and the water is right there.

(Poppy and Daisy were on the gravel, watching the whole operation.)

The two dogs on the new gravel by the road, the thinned hedge and Mulroy Bay visible across the way.

Watching Poppy and Daisy on the gravel, the bay across the road.

The finished cottage from up the gravel Street, Mulroy Bay reading clearly across the road beyond.

The bay, back The water right there across the road, once the hedge was thinned.

Section 9

Pebbles from Trá na Rosann.

The shower floor is made of pebbles from Trá na Rosann, a beach up the coast from the cottage. We went out one afternoon with the girls and picked them up by hand, one at a time (the right sizes, the right shapes, the smooth ones) until we had enough to lay underfoot. Now the shower floor is a small piece of that afternoon.

The finished cottage shower — a hand-laid pebble floor of smooth beach stones, white subway tiling and a driftwood pole.

The shower floor The pebbles from Trá na Rosann, laid underfoot.

Section 10

A tree from the Mulroy estate.

A tree came down on the Mulroy estate. We got a piece of it. The window ledge you can see on the left as you turn from the lounge into the kitchen, on the way to the bathroom: that’s the tree. Not bought timber. A tree from up the road.

A waney-edge timber slab on trestles, its natural edge intact — the piece of the fallen Mulroy estate tree worked into a window ledge.

The tree A piece of the fallen Mulroy estate tree, worked for the ledge.

Section 11

Furniture from elsewhere.

Some of the things in the cottage didn’t start in Donegal. Nihal had a house in Bollington, in England, and when we were getting the cottage ready, she brought some of the furniture from there, pieces she couldn’t bring herself to give up. It looked right in the cottage straight away, and it’s still there today.

The cottage sitting room furnished near the end of the works — green leather Chesterfields and an oak table brought from Bollington.

From Bollington Furniture that came from Nihal’s house in England, and stayed.

Section 12

The first Christmas.

The first time we sat in the finished kitchen together was Christmas. My dad came up from Limerick. Nihal cooked, and he was the perfect co-pilot to the chef: passing things across, talking the whole time, doing the kitchen things that don’t quite count as cooking but keep everything moving.

Around them the birch units, the stone wall, the window seat with its bottles behind, the heat coming off the range. The cottage was lived in.