DUBLIN 6W €475,000:THIS 1909 terraced house's generous proportions confront you right from the wide front door and large hall, which leads into interconnecting reception rooms with a bay window to the front creating a space with a lovely, airy feel.
The current owners moved into the redbrick house, at 345 Harold’s Cross Road, 23 years ago and brought up a family here. It’s now for sale at €475,000 through Sherry FitzGerald,
The first thing they did was to put in a loo downstairs, replace the roll-top bath in the bathroom at the first-floor return with a shower and to use the huge space above the landing on the return to drop a new bathroom into from above.
In more recent times, the house was entirely replastered, cornicing was restored, doors were repainted, and original shutters were restored for use.
At the rear of the ground floor is an ante-room, with fireplace, where original terracotta tiles were revealed after carpet tiles were painstakingly scraped away. Beyond this is a kitchen, which the owners extended, with cream Shaker-style units giving a gentle country feel. Feasibly the ante-room and kitchen could be knocked into one.
Outside is a small garden (with rear access) that the owners paved over during busy work years to make it low-maintenance but nature has won out. It provides a platform for pot plants and a raised bed.
There are three bedrooms upstairs, reached via the gorgeous, tall, arched, stained-glass window on the first return – slightly obscured by that drop-down bathroom (which contains a bath and a shower). Most of the other windows were replaced with double-glazing.
Also on the return is a handsome old sea-farer’s chest of drawers which the owners found in the attic (sadly, it’s not for sale).
The bedroom facing the rear has built-in wardrobes. The main bedroom has a bay window to the front and the one beside it is set up as a twin room with cot for visiting relatives, but is used more often by their son’s friends: “They call this house ‘Pleasantville’,” laughs the owner.