“I demolished everything except the front and side walls,” says the owner of 21 Seafort Villas in Sandymount, Dublin 4. She even dug down beneath the flooring to install insulation and a radon barrier, and this is reflected in the property’s new Ber of B3.
Having purchased the house in 2016 for €450,000, according to the Property Price Register, the owner says it was December of 2017 before works were finally complete.
She designed the property layout herself, and with the assistance of a structural engineer and her quantity-surveyor father, they extended the property having knocked a lean-to kitchen with an old bathroom attached to the rear. This in turn allowed for a bathroom and en suite upstairs (there was neither before) with an extended principal bedroom over a new living area at garden level.
Besides dealing with the build, she also had to sort out and buy the freehold title to the property as it was leasehold when she purchased.
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“What I also learned from renovating a small enough house [it now extends to 70sq m/753sq ft] is that nothing comes out of a box” so all units are bespoke, as is storage throughout the two-bedroom house.
She decided to put the living area to the rear for privacy and to maximise views to the small patio garden, but also for the fact “that most times you come home you have something like a pint of milk which needs to go to the kitchen”. Kitchen and living areas now run into each other, and to the rear is a private patio space with a shed plumbed for a washing machine and dryer.
She removed a mammoth fireplace during the build: “It was huge – measuring about six feet high by about three feet wide – and I think they must have cooked in it when the house was built as a labourer’s cottage in about 1925.″
The location of the property is in a high-demand area: along with its seaside village setting, with the Aviva Stadium close by, the IFSC and Dublin docklands are within easy reach, and Dublin Airport is about 15 minutes away via the Port Tunnel.
The owner is hoping to trade up locally as she loves the area, the village lifestyle in Sandymount, and her neighbours: “We found old college graduation photographs underneath the floorboards during renovation, and one of the neighbours [who has lived there for over 40 years remembered the family so they could be returned to them. It’s really a phenomenal location.”
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Her two-bedroom home in turnkey condition is now on the market through Sherry FitzGerald, seeking €640,000.
