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THE CORK CITY home of artist Cora Murphy is designed to work hard. Here she speaks to Ruth O’Connor about the challenges and joys of bringing a derelict city centre property back to life.
The Cork city home of artist Cora Murphy may look familiar to readers as it featured on the latest season of The Great House Revival on RTE television. The Victorian building was vacant for many years before being spotted by Cora who was looking for a home that could also work hard as a studio for her as a self-employed artist.
Having rented for many years, Cora says that the favourite aspect of her home is that it is finally a place she can call her own. “My absolute favourite thing is that it’s my forever home – and nobody can ever ask me to move on,” she says. “I’ve rented some wonderful homes from great landlords during my 17 years in Cork but the prospect of turning 50 without accommodation security terrified me. I would have happily rented forever if renters weren’t so vulnerable in Ireland.”
The house, once a family home with a small shop in the front room, has now become a beautiful multi-functional home for Cora and her dog Ms. Dougie – a space filled with colour and handmade touches – from the artwork to the lampshades and custom fixtures in the bathrooms and kitchen. Cora credits her neighbours, architect Hugh Wallace, and the contractors (including lead contractor Damp Rite Ltd. in Killarney, Co. Kerry) for their incredible support in getting the project over the line despite delays due to the sourcing of finance and the sad passing of her mother during the filming process.
“It’s exactly the kind of house I wanted. It’s an incredible location. Douglas Street really is a village in the city. I love pretty much everything about the house, the garden and my neighbourhood,” she says. “The Nano Nagle Centre and Good Day Deli are at the top of the street while Cork Flower Studio is at the other end. It has a real community feel – my neighbours were incredible to me even when there was a lot of material and machinery coming in and out – they couldn’t have been more generous.”
Like many of us Cora looked to Instagram, Pinterest and magazines for inspiration but really, as an artist, she is pretty sure of her own taste and style. “I don’t appreciate a lot of contemporary stuff or colours like grey. I wanted there to be a certain feeling throughout the house – that was the main thing I was aiming for,” she says. “I was happy for the ground floor to feel contemporary but I was very conscious that I wanted the sense of the history and age of the house to be retained upstairs. The challenge was marrying the two.”
The solution to the problem was a focus on materials. “The answer was staring me right in the face and in the end it was the landscape which inspired me. About two weeks after my mam died I went to visit the brilliant Marie and Pat at Synk Concrete in Tipperary and they showed me the beautiful Connemara Marble sink that they had made,” she says. “I realised that the thread that would tie the house together would be the idea of the elemental – materials that are somehow tied back to the landscape whether that is wood, paper, wool, marble, linen… – that really helped me to form a cohesive idea in my mind.”
Creating a space in which she could both live and work from home was vital to Cora after years of spending on rent, storage spaces and studio spaces. The downstairs of the property is characterised by exposed bricks, linen curtain dividers and a concrete floor. “I wanted there to be a delineation between work and home but I also wanted consistency throughout. I ended up using a lot of pink and yellow tones – it’s a bit like a Neapolitan ice cream – and the ground floor uses a powder pink colour with similar tones used throughout the house.”
Bringing in copper to the kitchen scheme is also something Cora did to emphasise the soft colours: “You wouldn’t want to be too concerned about discolouration living with the copper sheets in the kitchen but I love them and love the fact that it changes all the time. That said, The Pink Stuff is fantastic for bringing it back to a shiny, pink copper state.”
The biggest challenge for Cora throughout the project was financing it. “The biggest challenge without a doubt was money,” she says. “I was lucky enough to get the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant with the Derelict Top-Up Grant bringing it to €70,000 but you have to put the money upfront for that and then claim it back after you’ve completed and paid for the work. That is a massive challenge for people. Cash flow was a major problem.”
Being a complete newbie to the world of home restoration was also a challenge but one that she says she was happy to embrace. “Although I had done a lot of due diligence around finance I was completely clueless about the nuts and bolts of a renovation. I was as sure as I could be about numbers but then you have extra costs for steel, or a new roof or asbestos…”
“I knew nothing about renovating or building so I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable – I had to be willing to put my hand up early and often and to admit that I didn’t know or understand things,” she says. “It’s important to manage the budget but also to manage your own mind – you’re processing things that are happening right now but there are also many other things to think about – luckily Damp Rite was absolutely amazing to deal with. I had delays of over a year getting started and they stuck with me.”
Having had reservations about appearing on television, Cora says that it was a “universally positive experience”. “The production team on the show were absolutely lovely and Hugh Wallace went over and above for me. Hugh came in several times, off camera of his own accord to help – memorably once taking the train down on a winter’s evening. He arrived at dusk, it was bitterly cold, there was no floor or electricity and the builders had just removed the stairs so we had to go up a ladder with a torch,” she says. “He really was beyond kind. As were all the tradespeople and craftspeople who worked on with me through the lean times. Everyone really stood by me – they were amazing.”
Having finally settled in after the project taking a number of years, self-employed artist Cora Murphy says that she is finally getting used to having her own place and being comfortable in a home she owns. “I love it more and more every day and can’t believe that I have managed to get here.”
Catch up with the episode of The Great House Revival that features Cora’s home on RTE Player.
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