It’s not unusual for buyers of period houses to underestimate quite how much work they require.
And the owners of 65 St Alban’s Road readily admit that in 2005 when they bought the terraced red-brick Victorian off South Circular Road – their first house together – they naively thought some general updating and sorting out a poorly built extension at the rear would do the job.
A wise builder put them right – much more work was required – and the house as the owner describes it “was soon taken out in 18 giant skips – we essentially bought a site”.
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They knocked walls, dug down and extended – and the result is a stylish mix of old and new – it still looks like a period house, but inside it is an instantly appealing contemporary home.
They even cleverly changed how the house looks from the front – they added a deep bay window which gives valuable extra space to the living room inside.
This house is all on one level, extended to the rear with an inner courtyard.
The front door opens into small hallway with two doors off it – one leads into the front living room, a cosy space which is sympathetic to the house’s age.
It has the original cast iron fireplace with built-in units in the alcoves on either side, a new oak floor and simple ceiling cornices.
Underfloor heating
As in the rest of the house there is underfloor heating. The other door off the hall – a glazed one – opens into the large eat-in kitchen and from their, via a glazed corridor, to the rear of the house and the two double bedrooms.
The ceiling in the kitchen was raised to roof level and dotted with six Velux windows to get natural light from two sides – the house has a southwest orientation. This is a bright modern room with sleek grey gloss units on one wall – the kitchen is by Italian firm Snaidero – with a good-sized island unit and room for a large dining table.
The worktops are creamy quartz and the floor is covered with limestone tiles which adds to the sense of airiness. The kitchen opens into the front living room via partially glazed folding doors and out on to the patio via fully glazed sliding doors.
Small patio
On the way to the two bedrooms, off the corridor that looks out to the internal patio, there’s the family bathroom and a small room with just a roof light – it was originally used as a home office.
The smaller of the two double bedrooms opens out to a small patio of its own at the back of the house and there is access here out to a lane. The main bedroom, spied through the kitchen dining room on the other side of the patio is a fine room with fitted wardrobes and its own wetroom-style en suite.
Eleven years later the couple – now with two small children – are moving, looking for something a little bigger in the area with a child-friendly garden and 65 St Alban’s Road is for sale through DNG asking €695,000.
The most recent sale on the road was just a few doors down at number 45, a double-fronted house which sold last month for €565,000, €40,000 over the asking price.
New owners will most likely do a considerable amount of work on that house – unlike the new owners of number 65 who only have to hang up their clothes and move their furniture in to this smartly done, bright and welcoming townhouse.
