“We’d no intention of moving,” says one of the owners of the house in Terenure which she and her husband bought for €534,000 in 2013, moving in after they had done a major refurbishment. “We kept the front as it was and changed everything inside.”
“Everything” included a new staircase, new wiring, plumbing and “insulation everywhere” as well as extending the house to create a bright, open-plan kitchen-family-dining room opening into the back garden through floor-to-ceiling sliding glazed doors.
An architect and interior decorator were recruited to work on the refurb, but the house reflects the tastes of the owners, with bold use of colour in some parts of the house, lots of panelling in the hallway and by the staircase, and feature wallpaper in some rooms. Furniture is an attractive mix of mostly modern with some period pieces, and paintings by one of the owners hang on the walls.
It’s evident the couple have lavished a lot of TLC on their home – but they’ve decided to move to be nearer to family in the country now they’ve realised they can work from home so easily. Both work for large American companies, which are very flexible, they say. So number 83 Greenlea Road, Terenure, Dublin 6W, a 162sq m (1,746sq ft) semi-detached four-bed is for sale through Mullery O’Gara for €995,000. It comes with an attractive garden room, and one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs is fitted out as a study.
A door with stained glass panels opens into a hall with a polished dark timber floor: the hall is painted a striking shade called Oxtail Blue with contrasting white panels. The livingroom on the left – painted a pale pink – has a bay window, polished timber floor and a sandstone fireplace and sliding double doors opening into the diningroom/family room/kitchen.
This space has a gleaming tiled floor, built-in bookshelves, an ethanol fireplace and a wide roof window over the kitchen area. The kitchen has hand-painted “in frame” units, marble countertops and an oval timber-topped island unit. There’s a utility room off it in part of the converted garage.
The walls beside the staircase are, like the hall, painted blue with white panelling. The main bedroom upstairs has a bay window, fully tiled en suite and a wall of mirror-fronted wardrobes. Another smaller double bedroom is very prettily fitted out for the couple’s young twin daughters and another as a study that can double as a guest room.
There’s a large patio and modest lawn in the landscaped back garden; the smart timber garden room is in the corner. The house backs on to Terenure rugby club’s grounds: there’s a lane about six houses away, which gives access to the grounds and to Lakelands park, where the family goes to feed the ducks. It’s also close to Bushy Park.
There’s room to park a couple of cars in the gravelled front garden behind an electric gate. The BER is B3.
