A house in suburban Sandycove has been a happy home for a couple and their four children for more than 30 years: there was a tree-house, trampoline and zip wire in the back garden, and a playroom off the front hall. Now the children are grown and Number 4 Dundela Park is in walk-in condition, freshly painted and decorated in neutral creams and whites; the back garden has colourful flower beds beside a long manicured lawn.
The couple who own it modernised the house, which had been in two flats, when they first moved in in the 1980s. In 2004 they added a major extension at the back, creating an open-plan kitchen/lounge/diningroom, with three sets of French windows opening onto a very large deck, a new main bedroom above it and a fifth bedroom in the attic .
They also added a feature you seldom see – an upstairs utility room. Upstairs is where the laundry is, says the owner, otherwise “you only bring it down to bring it back up”.
The 240sq m (2,583sq ft) five-bed semi near the corner of Elton Park and Dundela Park is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1.375 million.
A long drawing room, opening through glazed double doors on the left of the front hall, has fitted bookshelves, two matching sandstone fireplaces and bi-fold glass doors opening into the bright dining space, with two glass atrium roof windows.
The open-plan kitchen/living/diningroom, like the hall, has a beige tiled-floor. The kitchen, from Alan Brown Design, has a large island unit, which like the countertops, has a polished black granite surface. An Aga is set into a mosaic-tiled chimney breast.
A room on the right of the front door was once the playroom, and now it is a study with fitted cupboards. The downstairs toilet has stone tiles.
Upstairs on the first floor are four double bedrooms, all with fitted wardrobes by Alan Brown and a fully-tiled family bathroom. The main bedroom is a large double overlooking the back garden with fully tiled en suite. Steep stairs lead up to a fitted out attic bedroom with shower en suite.
The railed outside deck steps down into the long back garden, made private by high hedges. There is room to park a few cars in the gravelled front garden.
