Quiet, leafy Merton Road is handy to a lot of things that attract people looking for good family homes: the Luas is a couple of minutes’ walk; local shops at Upper Rathmines Road and Dunville Avenue; and good schools, three buzzy villages and the city centre within easy reach.
Number 6 is a bright, spacious home with a thoughtful, flexible layout and the same impressive finish applied to the original Edwardian house as to the modern extension by award-winning architects de Blacam & Meagher.
The front door, one of the few on the road not screened by a porch, yields to a broad hall that invites you immediately through huge glass kitchen doors to the generous secluded garden. But there is a lot to see on the way.
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To the right of the hall, the garage was converted into a cosy den at a slight remove from what feels like a warm, bustling ground floor. To the left are a grand front room and dining room with simple coving, linked by sliding pocket doors and decorated in soft tones to complement the mahogany fireplaces.
The wide-plank oak floor in the hall leads past a guest bathroom and a clever utility room to a large kitchen with lots of sturdy storage and a comfortable sitting area on the other side of the dining table. Off this again, divided by a sliding glass door, is a square playroom.
Easy to forget
Every part of this ground floor has been considered, and the brick detail in the kitchen is followed through to the outside walls of the extension, and to the steps from the sandstone patio to the garden. Out here, surrounded by trees and with no houses visible to the north, south or east, it’s easy to forget you’re only a couple of miles from town.
The first room upstairs is a small bedroom to the front, currently in use as a study. Past a large bathroom, two good doubles at the back have lovely leafy views, and one is en suite. There is a single bedroom at the front, next to the large main bedroom which is also en suite. These four bedrooms have built-in wardrobes and other useful storage.
At the top of the house, the attic has been converted to give a Lego-filled landing, a square room lit by two Veluxes, and a shower room.
At 258 sq m (2,777 sq ft) the layout fosters a flow between all the rooms, helped by the choice of floors and the consistency of bathroom fittings and other fixtures that filter a connection while still providing escape hatches. The asking price, €2.175million, reflects the impression that whoever buys this house needs only to unpack.
