One of the nicest things about period homes can also be the hardest to live with: those formal rooms to the front of the house, off each side of the elegant hallway, are all very lovely, but while having your preprandials in the drawingroom at 6pm is worth an aspiration or two, in practice, most of us prefer to have a glass of wine with whoever’s doing the cooking that night, while propping up one of the counters in the kitchen.

At 5 Mulgrave Terrace, which is for sale with Sherry FitzGerald at a guide of €1.25 million, a clever extension opens up at the back of the house, and allows you to do just that. They've also done it in such a way that the formal rooms don't feel isolated, and still get used. "We spend our Sundays here," says the owner, standing in the drawingroom, "enjoying the fire and the newspapers". This room, to the right of the hall, flows into the diningroom, and on to a fun space that simultaneously functions as bar, sunroom and music room. "Yes, it has seen lots of good parties," the owners say.

Wide arch

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To the left, the livingroom leads via a wide arch, to the kitchen, which was recently refitted, and has a large range cooker, island unit and integrated appliances. Then it’s on to the breakfast area, and out to a patio garden, which has a water feature, and a raised deck, so you can catch every possible minute of the setting sun.

In all there is 239sq m (2,573sq ft) of accommodation, and the house has four bedrooms upstairs, with a fifth on the ground floor, which would work as an au pair bedroom, playroom, office space, or, as is currently the case, a treatment room for the owner’s reiki practice.

There’s also a shower room here, utility and store cupboard.

Upstairs, the return gets maximum light through the lovely tall arched window. The ceilings are high and the master bedroom is en suite, though the fourth bedroom (currently a study) on this floor could also become a larger en suite bathroom.

The family bathroom is great fun, with a sunken bath – you step up into it – and an intriguingly quirky bread oven from the house’s Victorian past.

The owners use this as storage space, but say that the chimney still works, so you can have a firelight soak – though baking bread as you bathe is possibly not recommended.