House renovations in Northern Ireland: reimagining your home
How our architects for renovation design will bring out your home’s potential
Your home has potential. It just needs someone to see it
You’re not looking for a bigger house. The space is there. But something about how it works has never been quite right.
Rooms that don’t connect the way they should.
A layout that sends you the long way round.
A kitchen that turns its back on the garden.
Spaces that feel dark, cramped or closed off, even though the square footage says otherwise.
Maybe it’s a period property with beautiful bones, but a layout that belongs to another era. Or small, separate rooms that made sense in Victorian or Edwardian times, but don’t reflect how you live now.
Maybe it’s a house from the 70s or 80s that was built to a developer’s formula and never felt like yours.
Or maybe a previous owner added an extension that never sat right.
You’ve probably thought about moving. But you chose this house for a reason and that reason still holds. The street, setting, neighbours, space.
What needs to change isn’t the house itself. It’s how the house works together.
That’s what a well-designed renovation does
Not just a cosmetic refresh, or a new kitchen and bathrooms, but a genuine rethink of how your home is arranged and how it feels to move through it.
McCann Moore has helped homeowners across Northern Ireland reimagine homes they’d almost given up on. From period properties to developer-built houses, we see the potential in the house you already have, then design a way to make it shine.
Ready to talk about your home renovation?
A home renovation is more than a cosmetic refresh
There’s an important distinction between renovating your house and redecorating it. New paint, new flooring, a new kitchen – that’s refurbishment. It changes how your home looks. Renovation changes how your home works.
What we do is spatial design
We look at the walls, the openings, the circulation, the way rooms relate to each other and to the light. We ask why the hallway is so dark, why the living room feels disconnected from the garden, why three reception rooms sit unused while the whole family crowds into one.
Then we redesign the layout so the house makes sense for the life you’re actually living.
Sometimes that means opening up the ground floor entirely – removing walls that were only ever there because a developer put them there, or creating a flow between kitchen, living and dining that the house never had.
Sometimes it means something more subtle: repositioning a doorway, borrowing space from a room you don’t use, bringing light into a part of the house that’s always been forgotten.
And sometimes it means dealing with an extension that should never have been built the way it was. You might have a previous addition that disrupts the flow of the house, rather than improving it. In that case, a renovation might mean replacing that extension with something that actually connects properly to the original house.
Home extension and renovation
Many of our renovation projects also involve adding some new space, even if that isn’t your main objective.
If your project needs both extension and renovation, we handle the whole thing as one cohesive design. If you know you need more space, as well as a rethink of your existing layout, our extensions service covers that in more detail.
“Paul has been the voice of experience throughout our renovation journey, starting from viewing period properties we were considering buying and extending, to our current stage of building commencement. He is thorough and detailed, and we would have no hesitation in recommending.”
What you get when you work with us on a home renovation
A renovation asks different questions from a new build or an extension. You’re not starting with a blank canvas. You’re working with an existing structure and footprint, with an existing set of constraints.
Our job is to find the best possible version of the house within that.
That takes a particular kind of thinking.
We need to see the wall that’s blocking the light. Recognise that the hallway doesn’t need to be a corridor. Know that if we borrow 800mm from the spare room, the kitchen becomes a completely different space.
This is what an architect brings to your renovation that no other professional can
Not just an eye for how things look, but a spatial understanding of how a house works as a whole. Every change we make is considered, in terms of what it does to the rooms around it, the light and circulation.
Here’s what that looks like in practice
An in-depth assessment of your home as it is now, looking at the structure, layout, orientation and opportunities that aren’t obvious from the inside.
A design developed with you through a collaborative process, exploring different layouts and approaches until the house feels right.
Full management of the planning process, where approval is needed. Not every renovation requires planning permission. Where it does, we handle it on your behalf.
Detailed drawings and specifications that give your builder everything they need to price and build accurately. There’s no room for ambiguity when you’re working within an existing structure, so precision at this stage matters a lot.
Regular site inspections throughout the build, to protect both the design and your investment.
Not quite ready to start your renovation?
Still thinking it over? If you’re not quite ready to get in touch, our free guide covers what’s involved in working with an architect on a residential project.
It’s a good starting point while you’re considering what’s possible.
Renovations we’ve designed
Every house has its own story, as well as its own problems and potential. Here are some projects that show you what’s possible when a home gets the rethinking it deserves.
Renovation and extension to period home in South Dublin
A period property in Sandymount, Dublin that needed both a renovation and an extension. The existing house had lots of character worth preserving, but the layout no longer worked for the family. The project reimagined the internal spaces while adding a carefully considered rear extension that connects old and new seamlessly.
Renovation and rear extension to period home in Dublin
Kitchen-dining-living renovation to period home in Hillsborough, Co Down
A beautiful period property in Royal Hillsborough that had all the space, but not the considered design to match. Rooms didn’t connect and the kitchen felt closed off. The renovation transformed how the house feels, without changing its footprint.
Renovation to period home in Hillsborough
Let’s talk about what your home could be
If you’ve been living with a house that’s never quite felt like yours, we’d love to hear about it.
Every renovation we’ve designed started with a homeowner who knew something wasn’t right, but wasn’t sure what to do about it.