I am a natural blonde, but I've been dying my pixie-cut hair red for a while. I didn't want to maintain the pixie cut while I cut the red out, so I went to a salon and had my hair highlighted. The stylist said that would break up the dye line between the red and my natural blonde, so it won't look as strange growing out.
     So yay! It's not really blonde, it just looks lightened. But you can no longer see bright blonde roots in contrast with an Irish red color, so that's good! I think I'll probably be able to get it to a chin-length bob or so before I really have to stop growing and start cutting out the color.

Sounds like you have a plan!  Go for it!

Some suggest doing that and then each time you go for maintenance, you get fewer streaks until you only have your natural hair color.