When the owners of a house on Belgrove Road, in Clontarf, Dublin 3, bought it 32 years ago, it was a small detached bungalow on a good-sized garden site. They expanded outwards and upwards, creating a four-bedroom dormer bungalow. Number 16 Belgrove Road, which still has a good-sized very private garden, is for sale through DNG for €1.2 million. The 155sq m (1,668sq ft) four-bed comes with a small, separate garden studio-home office which has a shower, mezzanine bed and some kitchen units.
Wisteria covers the entrance porch, and the front door opens into a tiled hall. The bungalow is wide rather than deep: two reception rooms and the kitchen-breakfastroom open off the left of the hall, two bedrooms and the family bathroom off the right. It has been a comfortable family home but new owners are likely to redecorate the house.
The kitchen-breakfastroom at the back of the house, revamped in 2002, is bright, with walls and units painted white or cream, with pale tiles on the floor. An island unit, like the counters, is topped with polished black marble. There’s a Belfast sink, a large larder and a good-sized – and very handy, says the owner – plate rack on the wall. Sliding doors open from the kitchen on to a wide deck that curves around the back to the side of the house.
The livingroom off the kitchen also opens through sliding glass doors on to the deck. This room and family room are connected by glazed double doors, closed at the moment with a sofa against the doors. They’re cosy, relatively small rooms, with timber floors, bay windows and fireplaces with cast-iron insets.
The two downstairs bedrooms are doubles, both with built-in storage; the larger room at the front has, like the other front rooms, a bay window. A fully tiled family bathroom has a clawfoot bath. There is also a utility room at the back of the house, and a decent-sized hall closet.
Upstairs there are three under-eaves rooms, two bedrooms and a study, all with timber floors as well as a smart, fully tiled separate shower room installed in the early noughties. A window in the main bedroom has views over the long back gardens of houses on Kincora Road.
The mature back garden is mainly in lawn, surrounded by high hedges, with trees that include birch, hawthorn and a weeping willow. There’s a separate patio in a corner of the lawn and plenty of room to park in the front garden.
The house, near the junction with Kincora Road, is a short walk from the coast road in Clontarf, just around the corner from shops and restaurants on Vernon Avenue.
