When Caroline Dunne and her husband Ron Halpin moved into 12 Dixon Villas in 2007, their small house, tucked away in the corner of a terrace of 1930s homes, had already been extended. Downstairs had been opened up to create a long open-plan L-shaped space stretching from the livingroom at the front to a kitchen/diningroom opening into the back garden.

The 80sq m (861sq ft) two-bed a stone’s throw from the centre of Glasthule village has potential to be extended again: planning permission, now lapsed, had been granted for a second storey to be built over the kitchen extension and a small triangular garage at the side of the house, and the couple still have the architect’s plans for these.

Now 12 Dixon Villas, Glasthule, Co Dublin, is for sale for €575,000 through Savills. It is one of 14 houses built around three sides of a square just off the bottom of Adelaide Road. It's a short walk from here to Sandycove Dart station, to shops and restaurants like Caviston's and 64 Wine and to the seafront at Sandycove.

The livingroom of number 12 is just to the left of the front door: it has inbuilt bookshelves, a cast-iron fireplace with a slate hearth and a timber floor stretching back to an arch opening into the kitchen/diningroom. The kitchen space has a tiled floor, tiled splashbacks, mint green units and wooden countertops. Caroline, who has a children’s clothing business called Little Larks, does a lot of her work from a laptop on the dining table.

The tiled family bathroom/shower room is in a small hall at the right off the diningroom; there’s also some narrow understairs storage space. The main bedroom upstairs has a built-in wardrobe, a white cast-iron fireplace and plantation shutters on a double-glazed window at the front of the house. A children’s bedroom looks over the back garden.

Double doors open from the kitchen/diningroom into a small flower-bordered back lawn. There’s a small patio area and a picnic table in one corner and at the other side, space to park two cars.

The family uses a door into the garden from a back lane running off Adelaide Road behind Dixon’s Villas as its main entrance; a roller door provides access to the driveway. A gate at the front leads down a narrow path with a shrub border to the front door.