A sketch plan pencilled on the wall of the shed at number 54 Melvin Road in Terenure, Dublin 6W, outlines how new owners might do the only thing that remains to be done at the property; that is, to turn the plumbed and wired shed into a garden studio or office with en suite while retaining storage space.

The front of the shed is clad in cedar panels and screened by black-stemmed bamboo. It’s a fitting bookend to this finely finished 1940s two-bed terraced house, whose front garden is defined by hedging, gravel and silver granite. This is the first indication of the owners’ flair, precision and determination: Ciara McNamara and Oisin Griffin, principal at Griffin Landscape Architecture, when out for a walk three years ago, recognised it as a solid house built in the early 1940s by Dublin Corporation, discovered it had been for sale for a while, bought it that June from the family of the original dweller for €335,000, and moved into a very different version of it on November 1st, 2019.

In those few months they knocked an extension (that part took five hours, says Griffin), removed “five layers of carpet”, built on a new kitchen, rewired, replumbed, installed new windows and a combi boiler, tanked and refitted the bathroom, put up dado rails, put down floors, bought new-old fireplaces from Mac Salvage and added enough insulation to upgrade the Ber to a C2.

The pale green door, with a square of new stained glass, opens into a diamond-tiled hall. To the left is the original front parlour, which is now used as a home office and could also be a den or a playroom. Like much of the house it is painted in a soft greeny neutral.

Straight ahead, past pop-out understairs storage, is the living room, which is floored in good-looking herringbone laminate and has a cute tiled corner fireplace. Griffin removed plywood sheets from the internal doors to reveal their original panels, and found suitable brass handles and light switches at Knobs and Knockers.

McNamara explains that they thought very hard about how to configure the kitchen and living room to get enough light into the middle room, eventually lowering the floor level in the new kitchen to give a 2.8m ceiling height and adding a large horizontal rooflight to bounce light into the cosy living room.

The kitchen units, by A1, are a sophisticated, timeless style, with the tall ceiling allowing for extra shelves in the charcoal units over the white worktop. It’s a clever way of maximising space in a house that measures 74sq m (797sq ft).

The finished floor level of the polished tiles continues out to the garden through sliding glass doors. Paved in Egyptian limestone, it is a perfect portfolio for Griffin’s planting genius, with the lines between hard and soft landscaping blurring as the seasons change; new owners will enjoy seeing fluffy catmint emerge between the ferns, white blossoms appearing on the evergreen clematis, Japanese maples maturing further, and new creepers developing into a “hanging hedge”. This wonderfully private west-facing plot – “we never eat indoors in summer” – is a condensed version of his usual projects, which include gardens at Westport House and Mount Juliet. The couple are moving to put down new roots in Co Kilkenny.

Upstairs, the larger, calmly luxurious bedroom is at the front and has double-depth wardrobes built in by BeSpace. The bathroom has a rainforest shower, with a slate tray and smart white tiles. The guest bedroom is to the rear, looking across the neighbouring gardens. This house is close to the end of the run of former Corporation houses on the road; those built by the Guinness Company from 1947 onwards differ slightly in elevation and layout as you go farther south along Melvin Road, which ends in a cul de sac, and along Corrib Road and Derravarragh Road.

The round green nearby, called Sunshine Park, is where the local dogs congregate for sniffs and chats; there is a children’s playground around the corner on Neagh Road, another part of this network of quiet streets off Mount Tallant Avenue.

There is space for a car outside the house – parking is tight on the road – though it’s a short cycle or bus journey to town and to a huge range of shops, schools and sports clubs in Terenure, Harold’s Cross and Sundrive Road.

Since the couple bought this house, eight more houses on the road have sold, according to the Property Price Register, with prices ranging from €350,000 to €546,000; number 54 is for sale through Mullery O’Gara for €495,000.