A Labour of Love

Not afraid of a renovation project, this farmhouse in Ardee has been lovingly restored by owners Michaela and Richard.

From Worcester originally, Michaela’s heart was always in Ireland. Her mother was brought up in Cootehill in County Cavan, and they visited the county as children, before the family moved to Ireland when Michaela was 13 years old, settling in County Monaghan. Later she returned to Newcastle in the UK to go to college, where she met her now husband Richard, they bought their first house together in Nottingham. ‘It was a tiny old house and I loved it,’ she says. ‘We did it up and then when there were no more improvements left to be done, I started to get restless. I loved the process of refurbishment and began to think that I would really like to take on something else.’

She also missed her family; her parents, two brothers and sister had all settled around County Louth and Monaghan, so she set about persuading Richard to move to Ireland. When they visited for her sister’s birthday party, Michaela’s father announced that he had found the perfect house for them. ‘I had told my family that we wanted to move over, and that we would be looking for a doer-upper, a real project,’ says Michaela. ‘We wanted an old, period home, which needed total refurbishment, so that we could create a home in our own style, to our own tastes.’

Read more in the February issue…