Only thing inflated in colourful €350k Clonakilty home are the balloons
![Only thing inflated in colourful €350k Clonakilty home are the balloons Only thing inflated in colourful €350k Clonakilty home are the balloons](/cms_media/module_img/7639/3819649_3_articlesmall_Up_20Pixar_20balloons.jpg)
Uplifting: 3 Lady's Cross makes the argument for going all out with colour in a maximalist maxim. Pictures: Joleen Cronin
Clonakilty, West Cork |
|
---|---|
€350,000 |
|
Size |
130 sq m (1,400 sq ft) |
Bedrooms |
4 |
Bathrooms |
3 |
BER |
B1 |
‘I WENT from one inflated business to another,’ jokes Jenny Murphy, the owner of 3 Lady’s Cross, a house of exuberant colour in West Cork’s already most-colourful town, Clonakilty.
![Carried away? Jenny Murphy of Red Balloon Cork at the 2014 World Balloon Convention in Denver. Photo Joleen Cronin Carried away? Jenny Murphy of Red Balloon Cork at the 2014 World Balloon Convention in Denver. Photo Joleen Cronin](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819070_7_articleinline_1612780_1612780.jpg)
Back in 2009/2010, Jenny went from qualifying as an auctioneer to starting her own celebratory event balloon company Red Balloon, and as the Irish property market remained in the doldrums for a few years, in contrast Red Balloon took off, and has soared since, a bit like the house in the winsome movie, Up.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819007_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_DownstairsHallway_001_1_.jpg)
Her home here at Lady’s Cross is a riot of colour and art too, maximalist in style and with unabashed colour everywhere: if you want an antidote to safe and received colours a la Farrow & Ball tones, well you’ll find it at No 3, albeit it has actually now been toned down quite a bit as it comes for sale.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819010_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_Outside_001_1_.jpg)
Auctioneer Martin Kelleher says Jenny took some advice to cool down the visual spectrum, but still with an advisory note that visitors might need sunglasses for a viewing, while Jenny herself admits she repainted some walls and took down 58 art works which had bedecked most of the walls, and which she misses when thinking of the gaps left from beloved items packed up prior to a house sale.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819013_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_Garden_001_1_.jpg)
Jenny has owned No 3 for 17 years, working away on it in bursts and buying or being gifted original art on special occasions.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819016_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_LivingRoom_003_1_.jpg)
She has a number of highly reputable artists in her collection, including 3D art from the likes of Brian Monaghan, while she raves about the work of young Dunmanway painter Kate Wilson, who she asked to do a painting of her floral wedding bouquet, and the heavily worked piece is one of the pieces she’d save if the house ever caught fire.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819019_9_articleinline_dahlia.jpg)
They decanted her balloon business “from a 1,500 sq ft commercial unit in Ballincollig to a bedroom in Clonakilty”. And, she’s not joking: she has photos of a room packed to the ceiling with her stock in trade, inflated balloons.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819022_27_articleinline_3LadysCross_Bedroom02_005_1_.jpg)
So, it was either go around the modern 1,400 sq ft four-bed semi-d with a pin, or find a bigger place to call home and workspace: before the arrival of a baby and its own paraphernalia, hence the arrival of No 3 to a wintry, drab coloured winter market as a vibrant, bright buying prospect.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819025_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_DownstairsHallway_002_1_.jpg)
Jenny would have done much of the interior finishes and painting of walls and ceilings, as well as vinly wrapping of ‘white’ kitchen appliances herself down the years, but the imminent arrival of their baby meant she had to pass the baton (along with paintbrushes) to a professional to calm down some of the wall shades prior to a market outing.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819028_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_DownstairsHallway_003_1_.jpg)
One of the bright moves was to put a clear Perspex awning or cover outside the back door, meaning the sliding patio door can be left open in all weathers and the patio, tiled with an array of Moroccan-style, multi-patterned tiles, while the garden is also colourfully planted with flowers galore, even if not much in evidence at this time of year.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819031_9_articleinline_3LadysCross_MasterBedroom_001_1_1_.jpg)
![Corten steel cut-out Corten steel cut-out](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819034_9_articleinline_corten_203_20Lady_27s_20Cross.jpg)
Jenny got Dublin-based BA Steel Fabricators to cut dandelion flower outlines in various shapes and stages of seed dispersal, and it’s a surprise eye-catcher (pic, bottom right), unique and yet allowing for privacy as well as the tiniest glimpses of life on the other side of the rusty-looking corten steel. Specialist Brian Arkins of BA Steel even did a special fold at a far end piece, a bit like a dog-eared page in a book, to add another dimension.
The devil is in the detail, as the saying goes: Red Ballon’s company ‘car’ is a large black MAN van which naturally enough carries the Red Balloon logo, but more eagle-eyed types will spot the registration plate as 192-C-99. “15- and 16-year-olds don’t get it, but other people do,” laughs Jenny of the catchy earworm song ‘99 Red Balloons’ by German singer Nena, now 40 years old and as relevant today as an anti-war song as then.
![Jenny Murphy in 2020: she put balloons up in her front garden as part of a worldwide project One Million Bubbles of Joy. Picture Dan Linehan Jenny Murphy in 2020: she put balloons up in her front garden as part of a worldwide project One Million Bubbles of Joy. Picture Dan Linehan](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819073_5_articleinline_dan_20balloon_208.jpg)
Jenny Murphy’s Instagram is @upshecycles, with only a few balloons to be seen, and among the images there is a one of her own book inspitations, the 2022 publication More Is More Décor: A Handbook For Maximalists. Its author is UK writer and designer Siobhan Murphy, a finalist in the BBC Interior Design Masters show, though it’s possible that No 3 Lady’s View’s vendor could give that owner of a UK Art Deco home a run for her money.
![](https://www.irishexaminer.com/cms_media/module_img/7638/3819061_8_articleinline_3LadysCross_Dining_001_1_.jpg)
VERDICT: No need to dress this up any more for Halloween: for conservative minimalists, No 3 Lady’s Cross is a Nightmare off the N71. For anyone else, it’s fun and hey, if gold or purple ceilings aren’t to your particular taste, well, paint is cheap.