Victorian redbrick given 21st-century makeover

With its contemporary redesign, 14 Dunville Avenue would be a thing of wonder to the Victorian architect or developer who built the original. The redbrick exterior remains as intended but the double-height rooms, ceiling-to-floor window and abundance of natural light make an impressive 21st-century statement immediately you go through the front door.

This is what the owners of the house intended when they decided to get away from the more closed, traditional nature of number 14 with an ambitious extension and redesign in 2002. What they and achieved is a gloriously open modern home.

A semidetached, end-of-terrace house, with the benefit of its corner garden for the extension, number 14 was built towards the end of the 19th century, when architect EH Carson, father of unionist leader Sir Edward Carson, was building houses on Dunville Avenue.

The 1901 census shows those who came to live in the Dunville Avenue houses included a singing teacher and actress, students, a cinematograph operator, civil servants, clerks and accountants. Diversity continues to be a feature of this close-to-the-city location.

Living area

Today’s house is considerably larger than the original. There are three/four bedrooms (the main one en suite), livingroom/diningroom, kitchen/breakfast room, conservatory, shower-room and family bathroom.

The small entrance lobby leads to the split-level, open-plan livingroom/diningroom and is where the double height of about 25ft is most effective.

The diningroom, a few steps lower than the living area, is separated by opaque glass with a curved, hardwood rail. Predominant materials in both are the polished timbers of staircase, floors and trimmings, window glass and the stone of an open fireplace in the livingroom.

There is a rosy hue to the smooth, timber-effect fittings in the rear kitchen/breakfastroom, with a black trim picking up the black of the polished granite worktops. The floor is stone-tiled. Double glass doors lead to a conservatory with another stone-tiled floor and exposed brick wall.

A bedroom on the first return, where there is also a shower-room, has a high ceiling and polished floor. The main landing has a Juliet balcony off which there are two front-facing bedrooms with sash windows.

One of these, part of the extension, has an en-suite bathroom. In the second, every inch of space has been utilised to make room for built-in wardrobes and storage.

The rear patio is a living space in its own right. Sheltered by high stone walls, it is floored with cream-coloured ceramic tiles and has cream-painted, cement benching along the walls. There is off-street parking to the front.

Agent Sherry FitzGerald is selling with an asking price of €1.05 million.