Glasthule cottage improved to maximum effect for €895K

A double-fronted period villa near the bottom of a cul-de-sac in Glasthule, Co Dublin, has been modernised and extended just about as much as it can be. Now Rose Cottage, 4 Martello Avenue, a 150sq m (1,615sq ft) three-bed, is for sale through DNG for €895,000. It last went for sale at auction at the height of the boom with a guide price of €1.1 million.

The house is on a tight site backing onto The Metals, the footpath that runs beside the Dart line between Dalkey and Dun Laoghaire. But available space has been maximised, and Rose Cottage has a main bedroom with a decent-sized en suite shower room and a walk-in dressingroom, an attractive internal courtyard and a small sheltered decked garden. Rooms are decorated in neutral creams and white and there are lots of internal skylights as well as recessed lighting. Most windows are white PVC.

The front door, with a stained-glass fanlight, opens into a long narrow hall. A large livingroom with a marble fireplace opens off it on the right: timber-floored like other downstairs rooms, it’s a bright space looking over the front garden at one end, opening through a glazed door into the small internal courtyard at the other.

Two bedrooms open off the left of the hall, one a double, the other a single decorated as a child’s room. A few steps down at the end of the hall lead to an open-plan kitchen/diningroom/sittingroom, floored with white tiles.

The kitchen is a neat space with pale units, a black Rangemaster and wooden countertops. It opens into a cosy sittingroom, with a wood-burning stove and a very high tongue-and-groove ceiling with Veluxes in it. Glazed doors from here open back into the internal courtyard on one side and into the decked back garden, sheltered by high stone walls and wooden fencing, on the other.

There’s also a smart fully-tiled family bathroom with bath and shower downstairs and a utility room.

Upstairs, the en suite and dressingroom open off the back of the main bedroom. A spiral staircase at the front of the room is a quirky touch, installed by previous owners, apparently with plans to build a roof garden or terrace. As it is, there’s a skylight at the top of the stairs; pushed open it reveals a clear view over Scotsman’s Bay towards Howth.

There’s parking for two cars in the gravelled front garden.

Martello Avenue is a short street off Summerhill Road – as the main Dun Laoghaire-to-Dalkey road is called at this point – and a very short walk to Sandycove Dart station. Steps at the end of the cul-de-sac lead to The Metals, and it’s just a few minutes’ walk to the People’s Park and the seafront.