In the hall of 7 Pembroke Road the owners are sampling paint colours so there is a series of different coloured painted squares, their names carefully noted underneath; on the floor against one wall there is a stack of floorboards to be used to replace damaged or missing ones in the main rooms, while at the top of the first flight of stairs, on the return, bare plasterboard indicates that work is under way to update the shower room there.
The owners who bought three years ago have been mostly living in the basement and hall floor while updating the rest of the 349sq m (3,756sq ft) house. They’ve stripped it back, removing carpets and floor coverings and taken out the family bathroom on the top floor. Now midway through the renovation, work is taking them abroad and the very fine 1820s house, in a particularly handsome terrace on Baggot Street, is for sale through Hunters for €2.25 million.
The last time it was on the market (in 2013 for €1.9 million) it was presented as a seven-bedroom, three-storey over-basement house, furnished from top to bottom and clearly lived in as a comfortable family home.
Four of those bedrooms were in the basement – an ideal arrangement for older children as it has its own entrance to the front. Very much “below stairs” – its highly unlikely the original owner ever ventured down to this level – the basement is darkish and made up of relatively small rooms.
In contrast, the rest of the house is bright and airy and, even now in its unfurnished, unfinished state, it has a tremendous sense of space and elegance.
The simple symmetrical layout "above stairs" features two grand rooms on each level. The room at the front has two tall sash windows, while the return makes space for the kitchen – currently fitted with a smart John Daly kitchen – which is at hall level, and over it a double bedroom with an adjacent (unfinished) shower room.
Off the hall – with its fanlight-topped front door – are two interconnecting reception rooms with matching black marble fireplaces and tiled insets and shutters on the sash windows. Nowadays many buyers of this style of house put the kitchen in the back room on this level.
Upstairs, on the first floor, there are two grand reception rooms, statement sized with 12ft-high ceilings and matching white marble fireplaces and ceiling roses. The view from here is down St Mary’s Road.
At the top of the house, past the tall round-topped window are two more rooms – the very large main bedroom is to the front with a wall of wardrobes and a white marble fireplace, and another large double is to the rear. The unfinished family bathroom is on the landing sandwiched between these rooms.
This is a strikingly lovely Ballsbridge terrace on the corner of Waterloo Road. It is set well back from the road with a green area to the front dotted with mature trees and space for parking. The rear garden is about 24m long (the mews site was sold off years ago) and there is a patio outside the back door at basement level, and a deck outside the kitchen in the return.
It’s a busy part of the city during working hours but at weekends and during the evening it’s very quiet.
