Former bedsits gets the Royal treatment in Dún Laoghaire

Many period homes have been refurbished and modernised over the past two decades, but the owners of a house on one of Dún Laoghaire’s handsome Victorian terraces took things to a whole new level when they revamped it.

There were nine flats in number 22 Royal Terrace West when they bought it more than 10 years ago: now it's a large, warm five-bedroom family home, thoroughly modernised from top to toe.

Original period details such as cornicing and centre roses have been repaired and restored, cabinet makers have provided oodles of storage – walls of built-in cupboards, even concealed understairs filing cabinets – and where new features have been created, it has been done in sympathy with the original style.

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Nearly all the rooms are painted and carpeted in rich cream shades, complemented by heavy drapes, period furniture and art on the walls. Wooden floors are dark oiled oak. Number 22 Royal Terrace West, a 390sq m (4,200sq ft) two-storey over basement listed five-bedroom house overlooking a railed park at the centre of this square in Dún Laoghaire, is for sale by private treaty through Lisney for €1.5 million.

A large marble-tiled vestibule opens into a wide hall, from which rises a wide, bright staircase. The richly decorated interconnecting drawingroom and diningroom look on to the park at the front and the landscaped garden at the rear. One of the loveliest rooms at this level is a study/TV room lined with bookshelves at the back of the house, where a deep bay has double doors opening straight on to the patio and garden.

Wine cellar

The kitchen/breakfastroom downstairs has a polished marble floor and runs the depth of the house, opening through double doors at the back on to a garden terrace and through doors at the side into a hallway lined with storage space. There’s a bedroom at the back at this level, a fully-tiled shower/wetroom and a wine cellar where the original coal hole would have been under the front stairs.

The attention to detail is most evident in the huge main bedroom, lit by two windows, one a bay. There’s room for a tall, wide, marble-topped chest of drawers and a wall of wardrobes behind the large double bed. This room opens into a large en-suite shower room with floor-to-ceiling marble walls. All the bathrooms in the house are tiled in creamy shades.

Mews at back

Outside, the landscaped back garden runs down to a mews with a smart front currently used as a garage: it comes with planning permission for a 61sq m (651sq ft) studio/mews house, with access from a lane at the back.

Royal Terrace West is a family-friendly area, say the owners, where residents organise summer, Christmas and Halloween parties in the well-maintained – by the council – park at its centre. And it is still takes only about 10 minutes to walk to the centre of Dún Laoghaire.