Getting a home on the market under the current coronavirus restrictions requires sellers to go that extra mile. Unable to get a professional photographer or videographer on site, the owner of 26 Greenville Terrace took the photos himself using an iPhoneX.
He shot the virtual viewing video in two phases, moving baby clutter from the living rooms to the bedrooms while he filmed the ground-floor level and then moved anything unsightly downstairs to the kitchen while filming the bedrooms. It took him a few takes to figure out the best angles from which to shoot the rooms and two days to complete the video.
The terraced three-bed redbrick is situated on a quiet side street that connects the Tenters to South Circular Road, just beyond Leonard’s Corner, in Dublin 8. It’s an area that’s home to a range of hip eateries such as Bastible and pizza joint Gaillot et Gray, although both are closed for now.
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When he first viewed the house in 2012 there were some 70 other parties through the door, but no one made a bid as it was in semi-derelict condition. He paid €212,000 for it in 2013, according to the property price register.
“It had no heating or insulation. I had to strip it back to the bare walls, take up the floors to damp proof the kitchen and replace all the doors and architraves to remove dry rot and damp. The stairs was taken out too.”
The house had good ceiling heights, a feature he has used to maximise heights in the lesser rooms.
The house has two levels to the front and three levels on the returns. The hall and living room have dark stained solid oak floors and a lofty 12 metres of headroom. In the room to the rear, typically a dining room but used by the couple as a playroom for their 10-month old son, he raised the floor height by about 60cm to lift the ceiling height in the kitchen which was down a level to the rear.
This garden-level room now has a cooking area, set in an L-shaped nook at the far end, that has a ceiling height of about 2.2m, what it was originally, but the main dining area is far loftier. There is access from here to a small but sunny, west-facing yard, floored in a tumbled brick laid out in a herringbone pattern.
The ceiling heights on the first floor were also dropped by a barely discernible 60cm, a smart way to hive out additional headroom in the attic room above. He says his 6ft 5in husband can happily stand up in the smart and bright attic room. There is a separate shower room with the added advantage that all members of the household can access it.
There are two doubles on the first floor with the main bedroom set to the front and spanning the width of the property.
The owner, an accountant, had already renovated several properties in London before he tackled this Dublin 8 Victorian and he has since helped to renovate houses for his sister in Ranelagh, his brother in Crumlin and his sister-in-law in Inchicore and hopes to tackle another project soon.
The 91sq m /980sq ft property now has a C1 Ber rating and an additional 20sq m/ 215sq ft of space in the attic room. It is seeking €795,000 through agent SherryFitzGerald.
