Take a peek inside a whimsically decorated gate lodge in Co Down, fit for a princess. The owner of the storybook space is a big Princess Diana fan and one of the finalists in Home of the Year.
Photography: Kelan Molloy
Gate lodges come in many shapes and forms and often hint at the style of the big house whose gates it guards.
Some are miniature castles, others chocolate-box pretty cottages.
Seductive and small, they garner attention. Tara Lynn was lucky enough to grow up in a cottage on the Finnebrogue estate in Co Down, which her father bought, minus the big house, in the early 1990s.
The estate’s gamekeeper lived at what is now her lodge.
It was then derelict for a long time, until the former fashion accessories buyer got her very capable hands on it.
In many ways, it’s a style of house that looks bigger on the outside than it is inside.
“It’s a fairy tale place to live, very feminine and quaint,” she says.
“You don’t come across them very often. I won’t get to live in this again.”
They can also be quite small. This one extends to 65 square metres. That footprint includes an extension comprising the hall, bathroom and living room.
In a mash-up that mixes fairy tale Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house with Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, with a bit of Wes Anderson thrown in, Home of the Year finalist Tara Lynn’s Instagram-perfect property in Co Down won judge Siobhan Lam’s heart.
The result of her work is a whimsical space that is very much her personality. Every furniture choice she made works within the volume of the rooms.
It has bold chalk stripe wallpaper in the hall, found in Herbert Goulde Home in Belfast, where almost all of the interior door frames are arched, picked out in strong colours, giving it a storybook look.
She had wanted these throughout, but Building Control wouldn’t pass an arched door for the kitchen, so one of these is not like the others.
In the living room, she amped up the maximalism with House of Hackney Hollyhocks wallpaper, €285 per roll, and matching fabric, €195 per metre.
She found the arched top burl wood antique-look glass-fronted cabinet in Anthropologie, and it fits perfectly with her classic-with-a-twist joinery.
The room has a deep pile velvet sofa and a tassel-trimmed occasion chair. The sage green Crittall-style glazing that opens out to the garden creates a bewitching mix.
The bedroom is fit for a royal.
It has a princess canopy over the bed, a shrunken dressing table with a skirted chair that she had reupholstered. In pride of place is a large portrait of Princess Diana, which her dad bought at auction about 15 years ago.
It had lain in the garage for years.
She wanted a hotel to feel like the main bedroom, so she installed the bath here.
She found it on Facebook Marketplace for €50. “It had a few chips, but I quite like that,” she says.
The bathroom features a hammam-style shower with stylish tiling that she sourced from Ceramica Etc. in Bangor, Co Down.
The internal stripes continue across the ceiling of the wet spaces. She was strongly advised by both her mother and experts to add a door to it, but resisted.
At 1.2 metres deep, it is large enough for the water not to wash out onto the main floor.
The property has underfloor heating throughout, so she steps out of the shower onto a warm tiled floor.
The kitchen is home to a two-door Aga along with bespoke cabinetry by Function Design Furniture, in Killinchy, Co Down.
The chairs belonged to her grandmother. She had these reupholstered, along with the dining nook.
There are plates and ceramics hung decoratively on the wall, and the Belfast sink is original to the house.
It was one of the aspects she wanted to keep. “It’s chipped and stained, but it’s always been in the house, “ she says.
Who wins this year's Home of the Year? Watch the series finale air on Tuesday, 21st April at 7 pm on RTÉ One. Watch it back and the rest of the series on RTÉ Player.
