Dublin 4: A house on Waterloo Road which made €387,000 when it last sold eight years ago is now for sale for €1.75m. Bernice Harrison reports.

It's been a fast eight years in the property world. The last time this house on prestigious Waterloo Road in Dublin 4 changed hands was in 1996. Then it sold for what was a strong price of €387,000.

Now number 45 is back on the market through Douglas Newman Good, which will be putting the three-storey over basement house to auction on March 3rd with a guide price of €1.75 million.

A big attraction for the buyers last time was the self-contained office in the basement and, given the Ballsbridge location, it's likely to be the same this time around.

These houses are every bit as large as they look at 344 sq m (3,700 sq ft) so that even though the basement area is not included in the living accommodation, there is still plenty of room. The back garden is very much a town garden at 30 ft long.

Starting at the top, there are three double bedrooms and a bathroom. The family live in the house as it should be lived in, so the main livingroom is a rather grand one as it is upstairs on the first floor.

It runs the width of the house, has the usual period features including a fine marble fireplace and the views from the two tall sash windows are of the tops of the trees that line Waterloo Road.

There is another room on this floor at the back of the house and it makes for a large double bedroom.

A room on the ground floor return has been changed into a large bathroom. Downstairs at hall level there are two fine interconnecting rooms both with original features intact.

They used to be separate but the present owners knocked an arched opening between them.

The big challenge facing new owners, especially owners who have a growing family, is the lack of a decent-sized kitchen.

With the basement used as an office, the kitchen is squeezed into a very narrow return at the back of the house.

It's well fitted out and has access down a flight of granite steps to the garden but, given the size of the house, figuring out what to do about the kitchen accommodation is likely to present a difficulty unless the back reception room is sacrificed to create a really wonderful kitchen space.

Aside from that, new owners will almost certainly redecorate, exchanging the strong, mostly dark colours that are in every room for something brighter.

To the front there is room for off-street parking in the mostly gravelled front garden for three cars.