Twenty years ago, when the current owners bought 5 Breffni Terrace it was a very different proposition.

Then the mid-terrace house was divided into several flats but the space in the two-storey over garden-level property – about 306 sq m (3,298 sq ft) allowed them imagine how it would work for their growing family of five boys.

The terrace of redbrick Victorians takes up a chunk of the road that winds its way between Sandycove and Dalkey and number 5 – like its neighbours, numbering 1-7 – is set back behind original railings, with all the houses sharing two entrances and a smartly maintained common area to the front.

This means that what they lose in private front gardens, they gain in designated off-street car parking, a must in this busy neighbourhood just minutes’ walk from the sea. Number 5 has three parking spaces and the entire communal area is shielded from the road behind mature hedging.

The grandest room is the main bedroom, upstairs to the front, with original features and lovely over-the-rooftops sea views on a clear day over to the Poolbeg lighthouse and Howth. The second bedroom is to the rear on this level. There are three other bedrooms, all doubles – two en suite – one in the return and two down at garden level.

New owners might consider turning one of the bedrooms at garden level into a family room, given it is close to the kitchen. The family bathroom in the return was refurbished in recent years.

In the renovation, the hall-floor reception rooms were returned to their former glory: two interconnecting rooms, one used as a drawing room, the other a dining room.

Down at garden level, the kitchen area in the return is where prospective buyers will be bringing their own imagination as to how the three interconnected rooms might be altered for contemporary open-plan living.

The kitchen is in the first part of the return and it opens into a small dining area to the rear and also to the side into a relatively narrow sunroom-type space. There is a patio and steps up to a small raised lawn area.

A granite wall separates number 5 from its mews, which will be offered for sale in the coming weeks.

The owners are planning to downsize in the area and have placed number 5 Breffni Terrace, which is Ber-exempt, on the market with DNG, asking €1.675 million.