Blithe a house with family spirit

A light-filled ground floor is the heart of a refurbished Edwardian home in The Burnaby

BLITHE HOUSE is a beautifully appointed Edwardian family home in The Burnaby in Greystones, Co Wicklow, new to the market with an asking price of €1.395 million. It is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald.

The house dates from 1904 and was extensively refurbished and extended very tastefully in the late 1990s. What is now presented is a 300sq m (3,229sq ft), five-bedroom, four-bathroom home, with a ground floor that is just made for family living. It is both practical and elegant, with modern and original features nestling up against each other in easy harmony.

Electric timber gates fronting onto Hillside Road open to reveal a prim, well-kept front garden with shrubs, flowerbeds and a neatly trimmed lawn. A winding path across it leads to the original front door. Today, however, greater use is made of a new entrance down the driveway to the side.

There, the hallway graduates into an open-plan kitchen and family room living area that manages to combine several essentials: it is light, bright, practical and cosy.

The kitchen units are Shaker-style oak; the worktop is polished dark granite. Oak predominates, extending to a centre island preparation/eating counter and a corner desk, cleverly tucked into a nook at the rear of the kitchen. The kitchen working area overlooks the back garden which is paved and decked. The rising sun floods the kitchen with light, as do two Velux windows over the central area. The adjoining living space is also light-filled, courtesy of patio doors opening onto both the rear and front gardens.

The main reception area – the big room, as the current owner calls it – is a wonderful L-shaped sittingroom, diningroom and sun lounge combined, all overlooking the front garden, which is accessed by two sets of French doors. The area is ideal for summer parties or dining, with seating for up to 25.

Upstairs, there are five bedrooms, two of which are on two separate returns and have their own bathrooms – convenient for guests.

The main bedroom also has an en suite and walk-in wardrobe. Clever use of attic space has created two further bedrooms, ideal for youngsters.

Blithe House is in a pristine state of repair and decoration (there’s a lot of what looks like Farrow and Ball on the walls – smart, elegant, tasteful). Floor boards from the renovation came from Greystones’ old Post Office and have that plummy, deep rich look that comes from old pine that is well sanded and varnished.

The property includes a study room, a first floor office (overlooking the front garden), utility and storage rooms. Greystones Dart station is four minutes’ walk, as is Church Road with its shops and restaurants.

Blithe House, The Burnaby, Greystones, Co Wicklow

Large light-filled refurbished five-bed built in 1904

Agent: Sherry FitzGerald