When this property came to market in May of last year it had an F BER rating and was seeking €295,000. Measuring about 55sq m/592sq ft, it sold for €280,000, according to the property price register.
The buyers had moved back from London about two years ago, and although they had already purchased a bigger house in Whitehall, they couldn’t settle there. “It was further away from restaurants and cafes, places we could go to when out walking the dog.”
The quiet enclave of terraced houses north of Griffith Park ticked all their boxes. Their dog could walk off-leash in the green space that adjoins the Tolka, and Drumcondra’s growing cafe society offers a menu of places in which to watch the world go by.
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They gutted it and changed the multi-paned windows to the front to large single panes of tinted glass to add privacy. They insulated the exterior – now painted a deep green – and brought the mid-terrace up to a D1 BER rating.
At least five layers of wallpaper and flooring were peeled away, a brick fireplace was replaced with a wood-burning stove and gas-fired central heating was installed.
The ground floor was opened up and floored with a timber-look laminate, while a marble-effect laminate on kitchen counters was sourced from The Panelling Centre. Encaustic cement tiles bought online from Mosaic del Sur make for a very smart splashback. The same tiles form the hearth underneath the stove. The back wall is now entirely of glass and overlooks a north-facing back garden laid out as a gravel, stepped space.
The addition of bookshelves and colourful furniture add character, including a mix of online purchases like the mustard velour sofa from Loaf to reimagined family pieces like the Ercol chair that had belonged to a grandmother and now upholstered in a Designer’s Guild fabric, as is the pendant lamp behind it.
A blue herringbone carpet covers the stairs, and upstairs there are two good-sized doubles. The master, to the front, has a dressing room but there is no wardrobe in the room to the rear. The bath has been replaced by a large shower and the wash space has been painted below the dado rail in Babouche, a rich ochre yellow from Farrow & Ball’s paint collection.
The property is now asking €395,000 through agents SherryFitzGerald. The couple now hope to move on to a redbrick in the area and renovate that.
