In a thicket of sunshine and greenery, the owner of 6 Palmerston Road is enjoying a coffee outside the front door of her home. She has brought it out from the kitchen, on the ground level of the house, which was refurbished out of a dark basement three years ago. This was the last phase of a loving restoration that began at the top of the house when the current owners bought it, in 1991, and continued downwards, room by room.
This kind of project is common on Palmerston Road, a stately thoroughfare lined with fine, tall houses built in the 1860s. Many of them were subdivided but have since been brought back to family life and, in common with many of its neighbours, number 6 has preserved its beautiful ceiling plasterwork and marble fireplaces, while being upgraded with Ventrolla sash windows, electric gates and that kitchen, by Wicklow company Rhatigan and Hick.
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Welcoming space
Painted a cool grey, with a huge window to let the morning sun pour in, it’s a welcoming space with a large table and plenty of worktops.
A pantry was removed to link the kitchen to a smart livingroom, which leads through French windows to the patio and large, sunny west-facing garden. It has been planted with thought and care, stocked with beautiful colour and bright maples; a cute metal arch leads to the far end of this quiet place with a countryside feel. There’s another door to the garden from the utility room, off which is a bathroom, and additional storage under the front steps.
Upstairs, at hall level, the plasterwork includes two faces that peer down on whoever is practicing the piano positioned comfortably at the end of the stairs. To the left, off the hall, are two formal reception rooms and in the return are a bathroom and the original kitchen that could be reconfigured as a study, though the garden view might prove distracting.
Main suite
Upstairs again, three large bedrooms are dwarfed by the main suite, originally a ballroom-sized space at the front of the house and now divided into a bedroom and a separate bathroom.
The 277sq m (2,982sq ft) house, for which Sherry FitzGerald is asking €2.7 million, is set back far enough from the road to cancel traffic noise; indeed, drivers will be happy with the gravelled parking area to the front, but cars might not get much use given the proximity to Rathmines and Ranelagh villages, the shops on Dunville Avenue, and the easy commute to the city by bike, Luas or bus.
