The owners of number 37 Londonbridge Road didn’t move very far when they traded up to the three-bedroom terraced redbrick. They had lived almost across the street in Stella Gardens.
They love the area and bought the three-bedroom, two-bathroom period redbrick about 12 years ago. The plan was to gently remodel it but keep its period charm.
Accessed via a terracotta and yellow checkerboard-tiled path, its front garden is bounded by hedging and gets lots of morning sun.
The mid-terrace house opens into a hall where its original floorboards have been lovingly sanded and varnished by the owner and are polished to a rich honey colour.
The reception rooms are almost mirror images of each other, with matching fire surrounds and cast-iron insets. Their sense of symmetry is further enhanced by a pair of gilded overmantle mirrors and polished brass fenders.
Fold-back doors lead from the front room – where the seating includes an emerald green sofa and a wingback chair upholstered in a fashionable citrine-coloured print – to the back room.
This is a more masculine space and home to a cognac-coloured leather sofa and an antique secretaire desk that the owners use when working from home. This room has direct access to the garden via a glass door, a useful feature when one needs a break.
The owners hired Joe Lawrence of Lawrence & Long to help them rethink the kitchen. While he suggested poured concrete floors, they wanted something more French in feel.
The result is a charming two-storey extension that has plenty of polish.
The kitchen has painted roof beams and timber floorboards. The galley-style room is dual aspect, has country-style vanilla units with deep timber counters to give extra prep space, for they love to cook. Two full-height larder units, each within an arm’s reach of the counter, store all pantry ingredients while a Fisher & Paykel five-burner range cooker stands in between.
The room opens out to a beautifully appointed garden that is west-facing. It has a pair of olive trees, laurel borders, and is fragranced by climbing jasmine, roses, lavender and creeping geranium.
While not huge, it is ultra-private and easy to maintain. The floodlight courts of Lansdowne Tennis Club peer above the hedging but that is all you can see.
Upstairs on the return is a delightfully indulgent bathroom with a free-standing, double-ended bath from where you can play umpire to the games going on below on the courts.
The room is painted Blackened, one of the lesser-known shades of Farrow & Ball’s colour card. Here it has a blue hue which has inspired the owners to paint the interior of the storage cupboards in a deeper blue to create contrast.
The room is also home to a large, hammam-style double-headed shower that has a blind window that the owners open to bring in bracing cold air as a winter wake-up.
It is tiled in tiny, iridescent mosaics from Fired Earth, which is where the owners also sourced the bath.
On the first floor there are three bedrooms: two doubles and a large single, painted a sugary pink that could accommodate a queen or small double bed. The main bedroom is to the rear of the property.
The house is set well back from this busy road and the most recent sales on this side of the street, which runs from number 19 to number 47, the sunny side, show number 41 selling for €635,000 in April 2019, before the heightened demand that came with Covid-19 restrictions.
Prices in Sandymount have soared during the various lockdowns. Its proximity to the sea, the river walk along the Dodder, good local schools and the neighbourhood eateries and shops have all helped to drive demand, especially among expats.
This is illustrated by the most recent price secured across the road where number 12, a much bigger three-bedroom house of 165sq m (1,776sq ft), with off-street parking to the front, a north-facing back garden and garden room and an attic room with ensuite bathroom, has been sale agreed at over its original asking price of €1.25 million. The C2 Ber-rated property had its price drop to €1.175 million during the sales campaign and this ultimately helped it achieve in excess of its original guide.
With a very nice balance between accommodation and living space, number 37 has 116sq m (1,248sq ft) of space, two bathrooms and a D1 Ber rating. It is seeking €1.095 million through agents Sherry FitzGerald.
