If you read the following list of features in a house – underfloor heating on all four levels, four bathrooms, a BER of A3, a sauna and steam room combined, a plunge pool that overlooks a south-facing garden and a smart home that follows the rhythm of its owners using KNX technology – probably the last place you’d think of would be a terraced property about 100 years old in Inchicore.
Hats off to Mick and Niamh Duffy who have achieved this quite amazing feat with the design of the home at 157 Inchicore Road, Dublin 8, which was not in great order when they purchased it for €245,000 in 2017. "We had been looking at so many houses and when we walked through and saw the south-facing garden overlooking the lovely allotments we just nodded at each other as we knew this was it," says Niamh. "At the time it was an open viewing and most people were just spending about two to three minutes going through it, as it was in an awful state, but we just stood there for ages as it ticked all our boxes," recalls Niamh.
Having the foresight to see the realm of possibilities of a rundown terraced house is a rare enough skill, and one that is normally the preserve of architects, honed by years of training. But to give them their due, and neither works in the industry – Mick works as an electronic engineer and Niamh as a solicitor – the pair have achieved an awful lot in their three-bedroom home.
Designing the property themselves, using engineers for compliance, the house now extends to 122sq m (1,313sq ft) over four floors. The converted attic is now used as their principal bedroom, with two further double bedrooms on the first floor and a reception room – that also works as a bedroom if needed – lies just inside the front door. Their extension, which looks over their garden and the neighbourhood allotments from a wall of glazing and sundeck, houses their kitchen, dining and informal living space.
The next level down is occupied by a large room housing utility units and steam room and sauna, which opens out to the plunge pool in the garden.
In all, it took the couple two years to finish, and it almost grew around them. “We would put up partitions to see the ways in which it could work, then moving it a couple of inches we discovered we could fit a full-sized door here and there,” says Mick, of working within the confines of what was initially a much smaller house, measuring in the region of 74sq m (800sq ft).
The property has certainly caught the eye of house hunters. Its guide price when launched on the market two weeks ago was €495,000. That has since been raised to €595,000 and bids are currently at €630,000.
With in-person viewings back after a long hiatus, 100 people have booked to view the property so far this week: "It's a wonderful example of what can be done with an unassuming mid-terrace property, and we are receiving an unprecedented number of inquiries," says David Brock, of Brock DeLappe, who is handling the sale.
