Inchicore family home ready for take-off

It was once a railway cottage – now a Dublin three-bed has a 747 flight simulator in the back garden shed

EAT YOUR hearts out blokey Top Gear types and gadget geeks. There’s a guy in Inchicore with an aircraft simulator in his shed. Not one of those fancy computer games, this is the real thing – a decommissioned 747 simulator, cockpit and all.

It was the reason Romek Delimata bought the railway cottage at 9 North Terrace eight years ago. The movie art director needed space for his recently acquired simulator and one of the secrets of these pretty cottages is that they’ve good gardens.

It was the substantial shed out the back he was keen on – and as a single man with a very particular hobby, the house probably came second.

Now when you go into the shed, you enter the simulator by the cockpit door, sit with your co-pilot in front of a bewildering choice of buttons, peer out the windows where the runway stretches out to the far distance and vaguely expect a steward to arrive with your choice of beverage. Then you can take off and fly anywhere, sound effects and all. Romek doesn’t actually fly – though he is halfway through his pilot training – but he does use the simulator which, it pretty much goes without saying, is a big hit with his mates. It’s not quite what you’d expect to find in a shed in Inchicore.

But now, married to Eliza Solesbury and with two small children, it’s the goings on in the house that are the focus of his attention. The Inchicore terrace was built in the 1840s for railway workers and thanks to the couple’s upgrading, 9 North Terrace is a comfortable and smart-looking three-bedroom home.

Eliza is a movie set decorator and she has combined the house’s original country feel with a contemporary style.

Two-storey and double-fronted, the house has two small reception rooms on either side of the hallway, one a livingroom, the other a diningroom which opens directly into the kitchen.

They made the most of the period details, stripping back the woodwork to the original pine. The sash windows still have their working shutters and the rooms are freshly painted in soft contemporary colours. Upstairs there are three double bedrooms, two at the front and a third at the back which was recently divided to make room for a small bathroom.

The main bathroom is downstairs and it’s the one room in the house that new owners will probably update.

The long front garden is planted with flowers and shrubs and has a country look and there is off-street parking for one car, though the couple don’t usually bother using it as this is a quiet road with houses only on one side.

It’s the house that’s for sale through Felicity Fox for €415,000. A plus is that it comes with a large, insulated and secure shed in the back garden – but not with the 747 simulator.

Romek says, though not entirely convincingly – he has after all clocked up a lot of flying hours in his shed – that he mightconsider selling what has to be the ultimate home entertainment set-up.

9 North Tce, off Sarsfield Road, Inchicore, D10

Refurbished three-bed house for €415,000. There’s a flight simulator in the shed in the large back garden.

Agent:Felicity Fox