True Colours
A colour consultant, Terri Cooper, a.k.a The Style Coop on Instagram, transforms a once-muted home into a bold expression of personality and style.
By Orla Neligan
Photography Rodrigo Llopis G
When colour consultant and Style Coop founder Terri Cooper first peered over a laneway wall in Ranelagh more than a decade ago, she wasn’t looking for a project; she was looking at a garden.
“It was this beautiful, large, south-west facing garden,” she recalls. “We used to look over the wall and admire it. When the house went up for sale, I knew we had to have it.”
The house itself, a semi-detached Victorian dating back to the 1890s, was another story. Neglected for years, the walls were unstable and the plumbing ancient. “It was uninhabitable,” says Terri.
“But the garden sold it to us. I still adore it, which is why the kitchen has such large windows. Now I can enjoy that view every day.”
Terri and her husband Tristan bought the home in 2011, shortly after returning from London, where they were living in a two-bed flat on Lancaster Road, known for its colourful row of houses, which Terri leaned on for inspiration.
Terri had just had her son Finn and would happily wheel the buggy around the corner from their rental to check on the progress.
“I had a good relationship with the builder and was so glad I was there every day because there were some potential disasters, including a concrete floor that was very nearly the wrong colour. Being there just meant I could see everything day-to-day and change what was needed.”
Working with architect Suzy Freeney, the couple set out to transform the tired structure into a light-filled, joyful family home for the couple and their two kids, Finn and Holly, which connects seamlessly with the outdoors.
The house was stripped back brick by brick and rebuilt to include rewiring, replumbing, insulation, solar panels and high-efficiency heating that brought it from a BER rating of G to A3. An existing extension was knocked down, and the house was widened to include a utility room and an ensuite off the main bedroom.
On the ground floor, a polished concrete floor runs from the front hallway to the kitchen extension, grounding the home with a contemporary edge. Triple-glazed, three-metre glass sliding door opens onto the garden, flooding the space with natural light – the dream scenario for someone whose professional life revolves around colour and tone.
More recently, they added a garden room, which doubles as an office and a den for the kids. More than a decade on, the house is still a living reflection of its owner’s creative eye and fearless use of colour. There’s not much she’d change apart from the kids’ bedrooms.
“They were toddlers when we moved in, and teens just take up so much space. And, I’d probably turn Tristan’s upstairs study into a walk-in-wardrobe, though I doubt he’d agree.”
Read more about Terri's home in the Nov/Dec issue of House and Home magazine. Or follow her style on Thestylecoop.ie
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