ONA Blog

In collaboration with Steeples Café in Nenagh we are taking part in the annual charity event RIAI Simon Open Door 2019. On the Saturday 18th May 2019 in the meeting room above Steeples Café, Architects Patti O’Neill MRIAI and Don O’Neill MRIAI are offering 1 hour consultations for €95. We hope to make over €1000 for the Simon Community. Please help us reach our goal and book a consultation. There are only 5 slots left!

click here to sign up for a consultation

We are delighted to celebrate being in business for the last 10 years and to continue serving our clients. We are also delighted with the recognition our practice has received during that time which now totals 21 accolades. The most recent in this months edition of Ireland’s Homes Interiors & Living featuring our Healthy Flowing Homes project in Limerick with photographs by Philip Lauterbach. Others range from further publications in popular interior magazines, professional journals, newspapers, television features such as ‘Home of the Year’ and ‘About the House’, and RIAI Awards 2011 Best Emerging Practice: Highly Commended. With our continual positive client feedback and recognition we feel O’Neill Architecture is on the right track.

Our building project Limerick Cottage Renovation has just been published in Image Interiors & Living Online Magazine with photographs by Philip Lauterbach. Great article by Lauren Heskin describing our new Healthy Flowing Homes approach to design where the users experience takes top priority.  We are particularly happy to hear from the editor that it was one of the most popular pieces on the site in the first week of its exposure. This supports our belief that there is a general appetite and wish to improve our lives through our homes.

click here to view full article in Image Interiors Online Magazine

Our building project Thatched Cottage Renovation was included in the article ‘cottage industry’ in this years summer edition of Image Interiors & Living Magazine with photographs by Philip Lauterbach styled by Penny Crawford-Collins. Although the article was only half a page Nathalie Marquez Courtney managed to capture the full spirit of the renovation journey – well done. 

The O’Brien Press has just released the book ‘MAKE THE HOME YOU LOVE’. Congratulations to Fiona McPhillips, Colm Doyle, Lisa McVeigh and John Flood on a great book and on their marvelous achievement of addressing all those difficult questions when faced with creating and building your home. Again we are thrilled to see included as a case study our building project Thatched Cottage Renovation on pages 144 through to 148 with photographs by Philip Lauterbach styled by Penny Crawford-Collins. This publication shows clearly the journey with before and after photos and layouts. In the chapter 9 Outdoors, page 185, another project of ours the Cottage Restoration, Limerick click here to view is used as an example for garden and planting inspiration.

Make the Home you Love The O’Brien Press Ltd. website

Make the Home you Love website

We are delighted to see our building project Thatched Cottage Renovation in this months Ireland’s Home Interiors & Living Magazine with photographs by Philip Lauterbach styled and text written by Penny Crawford-Collins. We particularly like the generous layout of the photos, some of them spread over two pages allowing you to look closely and find lots more detail.

In the second part of the Design Clinic case studies series we are showing an example that describes how changing the internal arrangement of the house can have a dramatic effect. Whilst originally the clients expected that only an extension could resolve the poor use of their space, the outcome of the Design Clinic provided a solution which addressed all their functional requirements and opened the spaces up to more sunlight and views. And of course these solutions are more cost effective than having to build an extension.

“How can we make the house work for us? Should we downsize? We all have blind spots yet we had a notion of what we wanted. When you embark on a building project it evolves, you allow time for it to digest and then change. Our two Design Clinics with Patti illuminated the blind spots and in the new layout we use all the spaces.
We have great satisfaction of how Patti maximises the use of the sun from early in the morning till late in the evening, which saves on our fuel bills and is good for the environment. Mostly, however, there is a sense of well being from living in a house where the sun is going through all day. We would never had envisioned the home that we have without Patti’s professional advice. Overall we found the service superb.” Peter & Dorothy

For the New Year we are launching a series of case studies showing various outcomes from our now optimised Design Clinic service. The idea of the consultation service started in the depths of the recession times to ensure that everyone get a chance at the quality of life good design can bring. The very first one taking place in Ballywilliam, County Tipperary at the end of 2011. Since then the interest in the design service has grown rapidly and nationwide allowing the homeowner to keep ownership of their building project whilst still getting a good design layout.

In the example below we are showing a lovely extension project which had two Design Clinics with us and was then successfully realized by Maeve & Darragh and their builder to achieve a comfortable bright and spacious family room and kitchen.

“Initially we thought a Design Clinic consultation seemed like a lot of time but we were so surprised the time flew by as Patti turned what we thought was a very straightforward extension plan in to a much more interesting design. She had loads of different ideas and really made the extension flow from the existing house. We had two design clinic sessions with Patti and the builder worked from her drawings. We are delighted with the outcome and would certainly not have the beautiful bright and spacious family room/kitchen we enjoy today were it not for Patti’s ideas, design and attention to detail. We have already recommended Patti to family members and friends.” Maeve & Darragh