A four-bedroom Dublin 4 house with a musical flavour is to be auctioned on 31st May next. Gunne Residential is guiding £500,000 (€634,870) for 32 Shelbourne Road, a 1,900 sq ft terraced house located close to Lansdowne Road in the heart of Ballsbridge.

Number 32, an end-terrace house, dates from 1850 and has most of its period features intact. There is an extensive and very mature back garden with side laneway access and good rear parking. Owners Lindsay Armstrong and Gillian Smith use the large front bedroom, which was originally a drawingroom in days gone by, as a music room.

Gillian teaches piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and plays harpsichord for the Orchestra of St Cecelia; Lindsay is a former Director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, founder of the New Irish Chamber Orchestra and manager and artistic director of the Orchestra of St Cecelia.

The couple are moving even closer to the city for easier access to rehearsals and recitals.

The interior of number 32 is pleasantly proportioned, with none of the long dark hallways typical of many early Victorian houses. Its hall is wide and welcoming, ceiling cornicing is ornate and there is a brass wall rail for walking sticks and umbrellas.

To the left, the sittingroom and diningroom are linked by double doors. The diningroom, overlooking the front, has a grey marble period fireplace and bookshelves, while there is a black marble fireplace and bookshelves in the sittingroom. Tall sash windows are an elegant feature of both rooms and the pitch pine floors have been stripped and polished.

At the back of the hall is the working area of the house, with a big comfortable kitchen/breakfastroom, utility room and adjoining workshop. There are white units, a quarry-tiled floor and a pretty period fireplace at the breakfast end. A guest toilet has shelved linen storage and a cloaks cupboard.

The first floor return accommodates a double bedroom and a bathroom. The latter has a separate shower and an old claw-foot bath. There are a further three rooms on the first floor proper.

The bright front room with side and front windows is used as a music room, but would make a dramatic main bedroom. Another room to the back is also double.

A bedroom which spans the arch over the side laneway has a very unusual Gothic-style door to a tiny ante room ideal for a study or dressingroom.

The back garden is crammed with well-grown flowering shrubs, including a couple of white lilacs. The laneway is owned by number 32, although two neighbours have right of way.