The 'return', rosewood & random buys
THE INTERIORS NEWSLETTER 12
Hello and welcome to the 12th edition of THE INTERIORS NEWSLETTER.
This week’s 3:
THE RETURN: A recent piece for Image Interiors catalogues our reno & my POV on the return, the L shaped “extension”-like protrusion on many terraced homes
ROSEWOOD: A recent interview with Domhnall of Acquired.ie highlighted the beauty of this exotic, vintage wood that was exceptionally popular in midcentury
RANDOM BUYS: A reminder to have fun and keep a look out for special little pieces online and on travels…
Let’s start with 01. THE RETURN
Excerpt from my renovation diary piece, “Old Bones”
Interior designer Tanya Neufeld Flanagan details her journey of renovating a Georgian terraced home in Dublin, and what she has learned from the often frustrating process
Our journey with this house has made us question how we live and how we build.
It made us rethink our plans, and design with honesty.
Amidst spreadsheets and drawings, I emerged with this realisation, just over halfway through our Georgian renovation.
What attracted us to this difficult project, and so many others to take on similar old homes?
The overpainted cornices, the layers of wallpaper, the boarded-up fireplaces. The copper stove concealed behind ash and grime. The creaky Chesterfield found in the shed. It’s in the whispers of the floorboards underfoot – the beauty of decay, asking for our love, our conspiring hand to rescue it.
This house and our journey were no different…
Read the rest of the article and my top 10 tips for approaching a period renovation in the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Image Interiors, out today in shops and online at image.ie
Excerpt shared with permission from the editor.
What I’m alluding to in this piece was our desire to not extend in the traditional way on our terraced property. See a standard Victorian floor plan below.
Usually, people want to enlarge the return (labelled “kitchen” on the ground floor above) by taking the full width of the site, as our kitchens are now also living/hang out spaces, as well as dining areas.
This results in usually a box extension which in turn deprives that rear reception room (labelled “dining room” above) of natural light.
The other issue is all daily life migrates to the back of the house, and two main rooms downstairs are abandoned to occasional use.
However, these rooms usually have the most historical charm, plus they are more connected to the general circulation of the house.
And now they also lose connection to the more private rear, and nature.
Sometimes people connect this back room to the extension with a doorway, but sometimes there are level differences which complicate matters, as it was for us.
I think the best solution is often a small courtyard before the extension so the back room keeps its window, however you need to have a big enough site for that.
In our renovation, our original plan was to keep the kitchen in the front room and excavate to bring the return to the basement level, which ended up being too complex and costly.
Plus, planning required the original shape of the return to be kept intact (see the pillars above).
We kept the kitchen in the front room, connected with existing double doors to the rear room, living room — but made the trade off of putting the dining room in the return with a 50cm extension. It’s accessed from the main hall and a few steps.
So, that’s my 2 cents on the return/extension dilemma.
02. ROSEWOOD
Last week, I interviewed Domhnall O Gairbhi of Acquired.ie on The Interiors Podcast. The episode is coming in a few weeks but he spoke of his love for rosewood.
Through Acquired, Domhnall is a design dealer, primarily dealing in midcentury pieces. And a lot of what he sells is rosewood. So I did a little deep dive this week…
I feel like people are appreciating darker woods more and more these days as a backlash to grey 2000s and beige 2010s and the pine and then oak stains that accompanied it.
There are exotic woods that are just no longer possible to source — rosewood, mahogany — and even teak nowadays is very different to the teak used in a lot of midcentury furniture.
Rosewood is a gorgeous dark wood with an underlying red undertone that doesn’t lean orange, like pine or teak. It feels closer to mahogany but not as saturated, which makes it work so well with sleek, Scandinavian looks.
So — consider something vintage & rosewood for your next buy for your home.
03. RANDOM BUYS
The end of a job is all about planning decor and styling. Mirrors, vases, cushions, etc.
It’s low stakes but transformational when added to a space.
Here are some recent buys:
New episode on the podcast coming later this week - Part 2 of working with an architect with Sarah McNulty of McNulty Smyth.
Latest episode? Catch up on our interview with Visual Comfort all about lighting.
Until next week.
X