Victorian beauty in Rathmines pines for an update

Fashions in interior design come and go but some are unlikely to come back and now just make a house look dated. That applies particularly to the vogue for stripping back pine doors, floor and architraves that took hold in the late 1980s and early 1990s While this still works in cosy country cottages, in austere period townhouses it now just looks gloomy. And there’s a lot of stripped pine in 1 Belgrave Road in Rathmines, a fine end of terrace Victorian house for sale through Lisney for €1.45 million. But househunters looking beyond that – and the heavy colours in the rooms – will see that the house could easily be transformed by the application of several vats of white paint to the woodwork and the laying of fitted carpets on some pine floors.

The side porch with its elaborate decorative plasterwork makes the hall level feel particularly spacious. There’s a lovely reception room to the front connecting to a diningroom to the rear. Both feature fine chimneypieces and decorative plasterwork and have been “staged” for the sale with incongruous looking pieces of furniture. The kitchen is on this level in a room on the return – new owners may install a new one, or maybe paint the oak units and take out the large granite-topped central island to make more room for a dining table.

Cast iron bath

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Upstairs there are just two bedrooms, both particularly large doubles. In all, there are five bedrooms in the house, one is in the hall-floor return, while the remaining two bedrooms are down at basement level. This layout makes the house probably unsuitable for families with very small children but ideal for ones with teenagers or older family members.

The family bathroom has a Victorian cast iron bath as well as a walk-in shower and features an open fireplace where the original cast iron chimney piece has been replaced with an exposed brick version. Down at basement level – now unfurnished – as well as the bedrooms and a shower room there is a livingroom to the front and exterior access to the front and to the rear garden.

The wide south-facing back garden is small relative to the size of the 288sq m (3,100sq ft) house because some years ago a part was sectioned off for two mews houses. It has been hard landscaped with granite sets and flagstones fringed with newly planted beds and with a tiered floral feature in the centre. There is pedestrian access out to Palmerston Road.