Old Meets New

After purchasing this 18th century farmhouse in Co. Londonderry, JP and Jayne began the task of lovingly restoring it and turning it into a functional and stylish family home.

JP and his wife Jayne purchased this unique house in 2016. An old church rectory, it was originally built in 1780 and further extended in 1810. Over the years it had been unsympathetically restored, with the original sash windows and slate roof removed and the original stonework facade covered up with a pebbledash render.

'We lived in the house as it was for 12 to 18 months after we bought it, just to get to know the house and understand how it could work best for us,' explains JP. 'However, what started as a simple restoration of a few rooms to improve the function of the internal layout and make it more open-plan, turned into a massive renovation project that we kind of fell into by accident really.'

Once building work started and plasterboard was removed from walls to deal with damp, the original stonework that lay buried underneath began to reveal itself. 'We couldn't believe it had been covered up and knew we had to restore it to its original glory,' says JP who spent the best part of six weeks helping to chip the pebbledash of the exterior walls.

And so began a much longer period of building work that spanned the course of two to three years, with JP and Jayne welcoming their two young sons in that time as well. Luckily, the basement of the house is fitted out as a self-contained apartment, and the family were able to live here while the renovations went on in the main part of the house.

'We also needed to wait on specific tradesmen for the jobs in hand. Six to eight weeks might go by until they were able to come and do the work but tradesmen like our stonemason Paddy Toland, are worth waiting for to make sure the job is done right,' adds JP.