DUBLIN 7: €585,000
WHEN ARCHITECTS Annette Dempsey and Cormac Allen returned from London in 1996 – having worked and lived variously in Hampstead, Islington and Camden – they had a taste for city living which is what attracted them to this Victorian redbrick house at 9 St Joseph's Street, Dublin 7, near the Mater Hospital and the NCR.
It is for sale at €585,000 through Douglas Newman Good.
“It’s a quiet street despite being so close to Dorset Street,” says Dempsey, “and is close to everything. Before we had children we didn’t even need to use a car.”
The couple bought the end-of-terrace three-bedroom house exactly 100 years after it was built and are the third family ever to have lived here. Then they stripped it right back to the brick, and replastered everything as well as insulating the floors, replacing them with oak boards.
The beautiful turn-of-the-century fireplaces – some bearing the bird and leaf patterns typical of Dublin fireplaces of the time and picking up on the contemporary Arts and Crafts movement – had the layers of paint taken off them; the windows were replaced with timber copies of the originals and have the old weights in them.
“We were not daunted by the work when we saw the house,” says Dempsey, “but we kept finding more and more things.
“Once when a chunk of plaster fell off we cancelled a cycling holiday and hired a couple of lump hammers. When we pulled up a couple of floorboards we didn’t like what we saw so took them all up, put in new joists, insulation and a damp proof course.”
Another attraction of the 158sq m (1,700sq ft) house was its generous proportions and size, and the fact that the original features were intact. “Little had been done to the house so we knew we could do it right, from the start, rather than have to undo other people’s work.”
Downstairs is a front sittingroom and diningroom beyond, while a bedroom on the upstairs return has been turned into a family bathroom complete with window seat, so that it’s easy to fit everyone in for the children’s bedtime routine.
Beside this is a utility room and opposite are floor-to-ceiling cupboards: there are good-sized storage spaces built-in neatly all over the house.
Upstairs is a double bedroom to the rear and a huge main bedroom to the front of the house with two large windows overlooking the street.
Many neighbouring houses have split this room into two.
The couple have added an extension to the rear of the home which houses a study/dining area and Ikea kitchen – chosen for its plain oak doors – which has been cleverly sleeked up with the addition of specially made plasterboard end pieces, steel kickplates and speckled granite worktops. “It is amazing how you can transform a kitchen by concealing the edges,” says Allen.
The dining area also has built-in seating – with storage beneath – and a Jotul wood-burning stove which is great in autumn and spring to take the chill out of a room before it’s time to put the central heating on, says Dempsey.
The kitchen opens onto a brick-paved garden which currently resembles a playground – being full of toys – with architectural plants bedded in around the edge behind railway sleepers. There’s a shed here too.
There is a shower room beyond the kitchen – lined in pale glazed tiles – and then stairs lead up to another bedroom, making this an area that could be used by guests or a lodger. “It will be hard to move,” says Allen, but they want to be closer to their children’s school.
9 St Joseph’s Street, Dublin 7
Carefully restored and extended three-bedroom end-of-terrace redbrick near the Mater Hospital and the NCR
Agent:Douglas Newman Good
