Dublin 4/€1.1 million: A Donnybrook house built in the 1890s is an imposing 228 sq m (2,450 sq ft) with high ceilings and original features - but is currently split in two and needs refurbishment. Rose Doyle reports.

A late Victorian house built in the 1890s, number 32 Marlborough Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, has all of the finer decorative and building points of that period but needs work to make it a comfortable, contemporary home.

Redbrick and terraced the 228 sq m (2,450 sq ft) property is currently divided so that the main body of the house and garden level are lived in separately.

It has five bedrooms, three reception rooms and an 80 ft long rear garden dominated by a large and venerable sycamore tree.

Douglas Newman Good will be putting it to auction on November 25th and is guiding €1.1 million. The same agent sold nearby 26 Marlborough Road, which was in very good condition, for €1.7 million just a few months ago.

Solid, handsome and bright, there are high ceilings everywhere in number 32. Panelled doors and skirtings have been been stripped back to the original wood in many places, as have most of the sash windows.

Original floorboards are intact and polished in most rooms as well as on the stairs and landing. All of the fireplaces, some cast-iron and others marble, are in working order.

A feature arch in the entrance hallway has an interesting Moorish style - houses along the terrace have similar arches - and the cornice work here is quite elaborate. There is no return but a large plate glass window on the turn of the stairs floods the hallway with light.

There is no full-sized kitchen either, just a kitchenette at the end of the hallway occupying the floored-in space once occupied by the stairs to the garden level. The interconnecting reception rooms have matching working fireplaces in white-ish marble with curved cast-iron insets.

Three of the bedrooms are off the first floor landing, two of them to the front, and all have timber floors and fireplaces. A short flight of stairs leads to a small family bathroom at the top of the house.

Ceilings in the good-sized ground floor area are surprisingly high. To the front there's a livingroom and bedroom, both with original windows and cast-iron fireplaces. A second bedroom to the rear, overlooking the garden, has an ornate cast-iron fireplace. The small bathroom has a free-standing bath, the hallway and kitchen have slate flooring and there is a double glass door to a paved patio area and the garden.

There is rear pedestrian access to the garden, which has a Barna shed.

High granite steps to the front entrance are shared with the neighbouring house.