In 2022, Dublin-based designer Suzie Mc Adam had just completed—or so she thought—the home where she and her family would settle for good. But fate had other plans. Just 200 meters away stood the house she would ultimately fall for. “A real estate agent friend of mine brought me to see it, potentially for a client,” Mc Adam recalls. “But as soon as I walked through the door, I called my husband and said, ‘We need to figure out a way to get this property.’”

Who could blame her? The 6,000-square-foot Regency-style Georgian, built in the 1790s, unfurls into a lush garden brimming with waist-high daisies, candy floss pink hydrangeas, and towering palms—all cascading toward the Irish Sea. The street the house is on was once admired by James Joyce, who references it in his literary masterpiece Ulysses. “I just fell in love with it,” Mc Adam says.

Known for her elegant, often playful reinventions of historic homes in Dublin and beyond, Mc Adam had recently completed a town house restoration where she offset rich, chocolate-toned wood paneling with delicate botanical illustrations, suspending a pearl-necklace-like pendant light from a coffered ceiling—her signature mix of grandeur and levity. In this seaside Georgian, she immediately recognized the potential for something special. “It’s one of the oldest houses in the area,” she notes. “In the 1800s, residents of Dublin’s Georgian squares would come here in their carriages to spend the day by the sea.”

Remarkably, the home had managed to evade significant remodeling over its two-century lifespan. “None of the original plasterwork, fireplaces, or floorboards had been touched,” she explains. Even better, the previous owners had already addressed the house’s more pressing structural concerns, leaving Mc Adam free to focus on reviving its interiors and accentuating its historic charm.

“Compared to my studio work, this house is far more expressive,” she says of the design, which incorporates hand-painted murals, vintage furniture, and artworks she’s collected over the years. “It was my test kitchen. I could explore so many ideas I wouldn’t necessarily try out on a client.”

One of the more whimsical gestures plays out in the formal sitting room, where Mc Adam found inspiration in the decorative traditions of ancient Egypt. “I’m obsessed with art history,” she admits. “Particularly Egyptian patterns—they were the starting point for this room.” She enlisted artist Michael Dillon to paint the ceiling with hieroglyphic-inspired illustrations—a sunburst motif with curling tendrils, blooming lotus stalks—a spirited counterpoint to the home’s classical architecture.

The room’s color palette, however, stems from a more personal source: an abstract painting Mc Adam bought for herself on her 18th birthday, which now hangs beside the fireplace. “When I was developing the space, I noticed the colors kept returning to that canvas,” she says. “It’s all grounded in ochre, burgundy, and mustard—those same warm, autumnal tones.”

Downstairs in the kitchen, the palette shifts to something quieter. Eschewing the typical kitchen island, Mc Adam centered the white-walled room around an antique dairy table topped with Brazilian azur quartzite, echoing the countertops. “I love the idea of these rounded edges,” she says, referring to the carved spiral legs that gently protrude from the frame. “It creates a sense of softness. When people are gathered around, it’s the perfect spot for a cup of tea or a glass of wine.”

Still, the kitchen’s most arresting feature is the view. “When my family and I are using it, we all sit on the same end of the table so we can look out at the sea,” she says. Mc Adam mirrored that windswept panorama in her choice of artwork. Clustered above the curved blue banquette are paintings with distinctly nautical themes. The naval motif continues into the entranceway, where a mural depicts a fleet of warships returning to dock. And in the top-floor children’s bedroom, seafaring fantasy takes over: billowing canopies printed with bobbing sailboats form cozy tents above the beds—part playhouse, part bedtime ritual.

In the living room, where the family spends most of their time, Mc Adam again turned to the sea for inspiration, this time looking to 18th-century shell grottoes found in Irish coastal estates. “I wanted it to feel almost as if you’re under rippling water,” she says of the hand-painted ceiling, adorned with playful marine illustrations. “Surrounded by corals, mermaids, and fish.”

Elsewhere, more personal touches pay tribute to her enduring love of the cold water just beyond the garden fence. Mc Adam commissioned artist Athena Anastasiou to create a mixed-media portrait of her swimming in the Irish Sea while pregnant with her second son. “I’m part of a group of women who swim together every weekend,” she says. “No matter the season.”

After one of those bracing plunges, Mc Adam often retreats to the primary bathroom for a hot soak, surrounded by cream-colored travertine and burgundy Viola marble layered to echo the effect of wood joinery. “It’s probably one of the best places to have a bath in Dublin,” she says—and it’s difficult to argue with that.