Located close to the intersection with Gratham Street, number 52 Synge Street has been in the same ownership since it last sold in 2000. The owner worked as a building conservation consultant with the Dublin Civic Trust: “It was very run-down and quite dilapidated and needed lots of repair, but it was a real project – a labour of love – and was so rewarding,” says the owner of the 92sq m (990sq ft) three-bedroom terraced house.
Constructed around 1865, the owner says it took the best part of a year to get the house in order, starting with as the basics such as rewiring, replumbing and fitting a new roof, and she continued to upgrade the house over the course of a decade.
“The property was boarded up, so I had to buy new windows [six-over-six pane sash models] but the shutters were perfect so I never had the need for curtains or netting,” she says. New Irish-wool insulation was added to the building in 2010.
Besides coving and pine flooring, not much of its original features remain, as many of the original fireplaces were removed by previous owners and replaced with mid-century models. The only fireplace to have been replaced by the current owner is the one dating from about the 1940s that she sourced in a salvage yard and installed in the blue livingroom at garden level.
Here, she used block parquet flooring sourced from home retailer B&Q: “It is incredibly hard-wearing as it has never had to be treated or sanded in two decades. We just gave it a wax and varnish over the years,” she says.
Behind this livingroom lies a simple kitchen with poured concrete countertops and a door that leads to the back garden which gets the morning sun. One of the things the owner loves about her home is its dual aspect: “We also get the afternoon and evening sun to the front and the fact that there is no house directly in front of us means we can see the sunset when we sit out on the front steps, which we have done for the past 20 years.”
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It has three bedrooms: two at hall level, one of which is laid out as a second reception room, and a third downstairs that has the benefit of the dual aspect.
A tranquil back garden offers a place for dining in summer while the front garden has superb roses, also in summer, which, along with the windows and its spirulina green door give a cottage feel to the Regency-style villa.
The owner will miss the social element of her home and the fact that it is just around the corner from Camden Street – a social hub with buckets of eateries and bars. She will also miss the neighbours but is “trading one dream for another” with the hope of moving to the country for a rural reverie. To this end, she has placed her BER-exempt home – which is a protected structure – on the market through DNG, seeking €795,000.
