The couple who bought a terraced late-Victorian house in Sandycove, Co Dublin, in 2001 had their work cut out for them to turn it into a comfortable modern home: it needed a new roof, rewiring, damp proofing, central heating and replastering. But the house, built in 1900, still had its original period details and the couple had experience – this was the fourth Victorian house they had restored.
The result is a classic revamped redbrick with many original period details – centre roses, cast-iron fireplaces in many rooms, high ceilings with coving – and modern comforts including double-glazed sash windows. The 214sq m (2,300sq ft) four-bed in walk-in condition is for sale through Lisney for €1.395 million.
The drawingroom on the left of the front door has a large bay window, a marble fireplace with a cast-iron inset and gas coal-effect fire and a centre rose. A picture-lined recess in the wall between it and the adjacent diningroom has been broken through in some of the 15 houses on the terrace, the couple say, to create interconnecting reception rooms.
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Original fireplace
The diningroom is slightly smaller, has a limed oak floor like the one in the hall, original cast-iron fireplace, built-in shelving and French windows to the back garden.
A few steps at the end of the hall lead to the open-plan modern kitchen and a breakfast room/sunroom with a wall of windows looking on to the back garden. Floored with cream marble tiles and with off-white kitchen units, recessed lighting and Velux windows in the sunroom, it’s a bright space.
There are handsome brass stair rods on the staircase; it leads to a bedroom fitted out as a study on the first return, next to a tiled family bathroom.
The main bedroom on the first floor – over the livingroom – has a bay window, centre rose and a handsome black marble fireplace with hand-painted panel that the owners found hidden behind a 1950s fireplace. It opens into a dressingroom that might once have been a nursery.
Back garden
There is a second large double bedroom on the first floor at the back of the house with a pretty cast-iron fireplace painted white; at the top of the house, on the second return, is a fourth bedroom overlooking the back garden next to a shower room.
The neat rear garden has a patio next to a raised lawn bordered by mature plants – one of the owners is a keen gardener and plants include magnolia, daphne, clematis and five types of alstroemeria. A door at the back opens into a rear lane that runs from the main Sandycove Road up to Elton Court.
There is off-street parking for two cars to the front.
