Two houses in the terrace opposite the Maldron Hotel on Pearse Street in Dublin city centre stand out as having been renovated in recent years. The brickwork is clean, there are new sash windows, smartly painted front doors and, the giveaway, contemporary house numbers fixed to the walls.

Inside a developer did a top-to-bottom, very considered, restoration and renovation on both. They each sold in 2015 with number 133 fetching €445,000. It has proved a canny buy for former Leinster rugby player Eoin O’Malley, who is now selling up and has put the three bedroom house on the market through Owen Reilly for €650,000. The location of the house would have suited his post-rugby business interest: a short walk brings him to one of the pubs he is involved with, the hipster hangout Bath Pub.

Built in the 1820s, it is a relatively small – 115sq m – two-storey over basement period house. Inside most of the rooms are of modest size and the ceiling height at basement level is low.

There is no return, where the bathroom would usually be located, so the rear reception room at hall level was converted into a luxurious bathroom with marble floortiles, a freestanding bath and a large corner shower. As elsewhere in the house, part of the redbrick wall has been left exposed as a feature. The other room on this level is the living room to the front.

Country style

Upstairs there are two double bedrooms – one runs the width of the house – and both have basins. Down at basement level there is a third double bedroom at the back and a small eat-in kitchen at the front. The look here is country style with flagstone flooring and an Aga.

There is a good-sized rear garden that isn’t overlooked and there is pedestrian access to a lane. Parking is on-street although a car may not be a necessity for new owners and there is a Dublin Bike station around the corner. It’s hard to see buyers changing anything in terms of decoration.

While Pearse Street doesn’t feature with the same regularity on drive-time radio traffic reports as it used to, it’s a busy street at any time of the day and that means plenty of traffic noise, but that’s a trade-off for the central location.