We've moved house again!
Notes from the past 3 years planning...
Hello 2026- here we are now! This week, a slight break from the usual recipes to start the year, to fill you in on a little life update. Writing Notes From A Home Kitchen feels slightly disingenuous at the moment when said “home kitchen” is currently a moveable feast.
We’ve spent the past three years working on plans for a home.
Over three years ago we bought a small cottage by the sea. It was tiny, but it had massive potential, and while we always knew it could become our dream home, we never expected it to take so long to get started to bring that idea to life.
After years of back and forth with planners, ecologists and consultants and going through the full planning process, we finally got permission just before Christmas. A massive relief and letting go of a weight we’ve been carrying for the past few years. The plans require us to move out while the work is being done, so dun dun dun, we’ve just moved house again! It’s our fifth move in five years, but of all of them, this one has felt the most purposeful. There’s a clear end goal in sight now.
Buying the cottage was a real gamble. We didn’t know what kind of build would be allowed, and if I’m being honest, living in that uncertainty for three years really tested us. It forced us to hold fast to the belief that it would get where it needed to be in the end, even when there were long stretches without answers. Starting the new year with planning permission in place feels like the reset we have been so desperately seeking and the start of a new chapter.
The house we’ve moved into belongs to a local couple who are heading to Connecticut for two years. The connection came about in a very roundabout way- the owner had asked Sofie how we’d managed moving our dog back and forth to Los Angeles when we lived there. One conversation led to another, the timing clicked, and when we asked about renting the house while they were away it worked out perfectly. Moving out of the cottage while being able to stay close to oversee the build feels important.
It hasn’t been a straight road, but over the past couple of weeks things have started to shift. Months of waiting for decisions have quickly turned into actually having to make them.
We first engaged with our architect Nicola Ryan at Studio Red, when we were close to buying a 1930s red brick house near the village in Howth, my home town. We admired the conservation work they’d done and initially thought we were heading towards a refurbishment. When the cottage entered the picture, everything changed. The project moved from adapting an existing house to planning a full new build.
Living in so many different homes over the past few years, from LA back to Dublin, has quietly helped us figure out what we actually want for our home.
In Los Angeles, we lived in an old Craftsman house in Eagle Rock, between Pasadena and Glendale. It had lemon and avocado trees in the back garden, a big fig tree out front, and a converted garage that became my office and food photography studio. It was an ideal base for work, but it was very much someone else’s style, black wooden floors, glass tables, white and steel.
At the start of the pandemic, with a two-year-old and a newborn, we made a snap decision to move home to Ireland. We arrived to a house we hadn’t even viewed- an old Victorian with three floors, rickety floorboards, cold tiles and an Aga in the kitchen. It reminded me of the house I grew up in, and I was well used to the quirks. Open fireplaces, long gardens, constant maintenance. It didn’t last long. Six months later we were unceremoniously asked to leave by the owners, which was unsettling for a young family, especially so soon after a transatlantic move.
Our next house was up the hill in Howth, right on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Baily Lighthouse. In the middle of lockdowns, it was a sanctuary. A dreamy garden with long grasses, silence, space. While I was back in Los Angeles filming Baketopia for HBO Max, Sofie moved house without me, with help from my parents, her mum and friends. The house itself was a slightly ramshackle mid-century place that had been stripped back and lined entirely in white timber, like a budget version of the expansive open plan houses we’d spent time in around Palm Springs, California. But it was the views across Dublin Bay, the quiet and the sense of freedom that made it special. Summer mornings paddle-boarding with the boys, the occasional curious seal, swims off the cliffs, it felt pretty magical.
Like the others, it didn’t last long, that house was sold, and we moved again, this time to a new build home near Howth Summit, owned by a couple living in the US. This was easily our best renting experience in Ireland. Direct contact with the owners, no friction or uncertainty, and a home that really showed the benefits of a well-designed modern build. It hosted birthday parties, TV filming and visits from friends and family from LA and beyond. It was the perfect base while we worked towards buying our own place.
Moving back to Ireland after five years abroad also meant starting again from a mortgage perspective. We worked closely with a brilliant local broker to get mortgage-ready, and in the process we looked at everything. A Victorian house with permission for a modern build in the garden. Lot’s of fixer uppers. Endless scenarios. What became clear through all the hunting was that wherever we ended up, modern construction would need to be part of it.
The red brick house came next, offered off-market, and it was around this project that we brought Studio Red in properly. But while that deal was still coming together, the cottage appeared of Daft one weekend. It was an open viewing, completely packed. A unique location and a surprisingly low price meant everyone was there. I fell in love instantly and despite quite a few complications I could see exactly what could be done. Sofie soon got on board, and we entered a painfully drawn-out bidding process. A personal letter ended up making the difference, we’d heard another bidder tried to go higher than we could.
When I told my dad we were changing course and taking on a much bigger gamble, we had an argument. He felt the other house was safer. It wasn’t until I brought him to see the cottage that he was convinced. One look and he got it.
The house had once belonged to one of my art teachers which only added to its charm. I later heard stories of her husband sitting on the wall playing the cello to the sea while she washed batik fabrics and dried them in the salt air in the garden. It felt like a place that had already lived a good life.
We moved in in spring 2023 and quickly made it home. We leaned into its scale, cosy reading spots, hammocks, raised vegetable beds, an ill-fated attempt at chickens that roamed the garden leaving a trail of poop in their wake but to be fair to them they laid the best eggs I’ve ever eaten. Two feral cats moved into the shed and dealt with the delightful local rodent family with impressive efficiency. The kitchen was reworked carefully to suit the narrow galley layout, photos and paintings went up, and the boys’ tiny room got a custom bunk bed that gave them space to play and read.
It was perfect for that stage of life, two small boys, long summers where the house spilled out onto the dunes and beach, barbecues, and my ongoing battle with mare’s tail, a weed that defeated my ambitions to create a gravel garden in the style of Derek Jarman and Beth Chatto.
As things settled, our attention returned to the long-term plan. Pre-planning meetings made it clear that keeping much of the existing cottage wouldn’t suit what we wanted to build. Nicola started again with a fresh vision. Months and years of reports, delays, plans and waiting followed, until finally we got the green light.
Now we’re here.
It begins! This week has been spent talking through windows, floor finishes, roof options, bathrooms, layouts and decking. The first stage of the build should begin next month, with the site being cleared and prepared. I’ve spent the past three years building endless Pinterest boards for every room, and suddenly they’re all coming into play. We’re moving into a negotiated tender with our builder, and we’ve brought in Claire Irwin as quantity surveyor, who has already been invaluable.
Things are finally moving.
A new year, a fresh start and this weekend I’ve been buried in designing my dream kitchen. I’ll be keeping a regular log of the process here as we go in a series I’m calling: Making A Home.
Will be following with interest!
Lovely, Donal! Can't wait to hear more. What journey! We're also restoring a cottage by the sea in Nova Scotia and it's a journey. Looking forward to following you along!