One of the owners of a standard four-bed 1960s suburban semi in Leopardstown is an accountant who enjoys interior decoration, and even did a course in it a few years ago. It shows in the house at 85 Leopardstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, which has been continually upgraded in the 20 years since the family bought it.
It needed a lot of modernisation, she says: one of the first things they did was to install double doors between the livingroom and drawingroom. In 2005, they extended the house with Irish Conservatories creating a large and bright open-plan kitchen-diningroom-family room at the back of the house. Last year, they put in smart new bathrooms upstairs and down.
Number 85 Leopardstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, a 174.2sq m (1,875sq ft) four-bed semi-detached house, is now for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €925,000.
Pictures of the property show a smart modern home painted light grey throughout with panelling in the front hall, stairs and livingroom put in by Grain & Groove. The livingroom at the front of the house has parquet flooring like the drawingroom, which has ceiling coving, a stone fireplace and glazed double doors opening into the kitchen-diningroom-family room.
This is a large bright space with a pale oak floor and two large roof lanterns – posh skylights – and a wall of windows across the back of the house. It has granite countertops, a timber-topped island unit and pale kitchen cabinets by Stewart Noctor of Noctor Furniture, who also made the bathroom cabinets. There's a utility room off it. Double doors from the kitchen open down steps into the back garden.
Upstairs are four bedrooms, three of them doubles, and the family bathroom. They have laminate timber-effect flooring, plantation shutters and built-in wardrobes by BeSpace. Three of the rooms also have built-in desks.
The back garden was landscaped five years ago. A patio paved with granite slabs bordered by raised flowerbeds opens onto a small lawn. In a gravelled corner at the back of the garden there’s another patio area where once there was a trampoline; there’s a wooden garden shed as well.
There’s side access to the rear from the front of the house, a garage and space to park several cars in the gravelled front garden. Across the road is a green space.
Number 85 is near to the Leopardstown Road end of Leopardstown Avenue, in walking distance of the Luas Green Line stop at Sandyford.