The €1.85 million asking price for 45 Palmerston Road gives a clear indication that this is not a house in turnkey condition.

Houses on this prime Rathmines road while still very far adrift from their boomtime €5–€6 million price tags still tend to command more than €2million when modernised to a high standard.

The most recent sale agreed sign on the road is for number 52, a mid-terrace 390sq m house, slightly different in style from number 45, but renovated throughout and was placed on the market for €2.595 million.

Another indicator that work is required on number 45, an executor’s sale, is the Lisney brochure which mentions “two kitchenettes”: not that the house was officially in flats as so many on Palmerston Road were, instead its sibling owners divided it to suit themselves, with an apartment in the basement – with internal stairs from the hall floor still in situ – and with a tiny kitchen installed at hall level in what had been the butler’s pantry to serve the rest of the house.

At some point, probably about 40 years ago, if the many coloured bathroom suites are an indicator, the house had a makeover which changed its layout in other minor ways.

It wasn’t extended – it is still its original 289sq m (3,110sqft). There are two fine interconnecting reception rooms – key selling points in these houses – with grand Victorian proportions and with original features intact, and each would have been accessed from doors in the hall.

Here one of the doors has been blocked up to make way for wall panelling in the hall which also features internal glazed doors probably installed to combat draughts from the hall door.

These are changes that could easily be reversed in an extensive renovation plan. Upstairs there are four fine bedrooms, adjacent to a bathroom, and a small shower room at the top of the house. One of the bedrooms is noted as having an en suite which turns out to be the pragmatic solution of installing a bath – olive green – behind a set of louvre doors.

A plus is that there is access from the hall level down to the back garden via a flight of metal steps – these houses are protected and such a useful and practical addition can be difficult to get planning permission for.

The back garden – with pedestrian access out to a lane – is 38m (128ft) long giving scope, subject to planning, for an extension to the rear. The front garden was at some point mostly hard landscaped for minimal maintenance. Parking is on street.