Dublin 6W: €850,000After 30 years in residence, Niall Toibin is selling his five-bed period semi. Rose Doyle reports
Quiet, wide and leafy, Westfield Road, Dublin 6W, is suitably lined with tall, redbrick Edwardian houses. "Cranville", at 17 Westfield Road, was built c. 192O and has been home to the actor and writer, Niall Toibin and his family for the last 30 years.
Semi-detached and ivy-clad, it's a bright, warm-hearted house with the notably high ceilings of its period and with most of its original features intact. It's a large house too, with 186 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of floor space and a soaring reception hallway. Agent Harper O'Grady is looking after the private treaty sale and is quoting a guide of €850,000.
A kitchen/breakfastroom added to the rear extends into a child-friendly 65ft long garden with a lawn. The rest of the floor space, which is over three storeys, is taken up with five bedrooms, two reception rooms, bathroom and shower room. Original, intact features include internal doors, cornices, picture and Dado rails, fireplaces and mahogany stair banisters. The entrance hallway, from where a Dado rail continues in a sweep up the stairs and which has original plaster work and a picture rail, establishes Conville's Edwardian pedigree. A full-sized window to the side of the door makes for a great deal of light.
In the reception rooms a decision to paint the ceilings a pale ochre colour, and to pick out the original cornice work in white, emphasises both their height and the brightness of both rooms. With the livingroom to the front and diningroom to the rear, they have typical, interconnecting double doors and long, box windows at either end. Both rooms also have similar, and original, timber surround fireplaces.
Steps descending from the entrance hallwway lead to the kitchen, on the way passing a hot-press and storage cupboards built into the space once occupied by the original kitchen fireplace. Today's kitchen has a bow window with French door leading to the garden, a ceramic tiled floor and extensive wall and floor fittings of polished pine. A set of curved steps lead up to the diningroom.
A utility room has a door to the side of the house and beside it there is a room which doubles as laundry/storage. A guest toilet has a wash-hand basin and window.
The first of the bedrooms is on a small return and has an original, cast-iron fireplace. Two of the other bedrooms are off the first floor landing. With one to the front and the other to the rear, these are similar in size and follow the lay-out of the reception rooms directly below them.
Both have banks of built-in wardrobes and cornice work. What was once a front bedroom has been sacrificed to make for a good-sized family shower room with primrose walls, toilet and wash-hand basin. The original bathroom is also on this floor and has a bath with shower attachment, wash-hand basin and toilet.
A fourth bedroom, on the second return, has sloped ceilings, another cast-iron fireplace and small window over the garden. On the way to the top floor a door in the wall leads to an attic storage area. The attic bedroom has built-in wardrobes and a cast-iron fireplace.
A wide side entrance leads to the rear garden where high, creeper and ivy-clad walls make for privacy. A row of block sheds run along the end and, to the front of the house, a driveway allows for off-street car-parking.