Sandymount quartet sure to strike a chord

A fine selection of houses in one of Dublin's most sought-after southside suburbs - close to both the city and the sea - has just come on the market.

Tritonville Road: €1m A terraced townhouse at 46 Tritonville Road with a refreshingly colourful interior it is expected to fetch over €1 million when auctioned jointly by Sherry FitzGerald and Hooke & MacDonald on March 15th.

The three-bedroom house is home to Laura Bradshaw, owner of the Aura fashion store in Sandymount village, who bought it in 1996 and set to work on a particularly thorough renovation.

Dramatic photographs, taken mid-way through this process, show that three floors of the building were gutted with just the external walls remaining. Everything else was then re-built from scratch.

The result is a house with a flavour of the period but none of the drawbacks. There may be plenty that's new - heating system, joinery, electrics and so on - but items such as the original floorboards, fireplaces and doors were put back when structural work was complete.

The overall impression is of a manageable family home that has been well cared for. Granite steps from the street lead to the stained glass front door. Inside to the left is the drawingroom with shuttered windows to the front and rear. The windows throughout the house are double glazed timber sashes, so very little noise intrudes. To the right is a room that is currently used as a study but could also be a fourth bedroom. Both these rooms have sanded doors with stained glass panels.

The house is quite narrow so Ms Bradshaw extended also. A new staircase is one of the most successful features added: it runs from the top to the bottom of the house, flooded with light from windows at each level.

Downstairs on the lower ground floor is the kitchen and family room. The kitchen is part of the extension. The owners taste for colour is evident throughout the house and here the floor has multi-coloured tiles. Units are oak and large double doors look to the garden.

The kitchen flows into a cosy family room with cast-iron stove, also decorated with bright colour. Off this room is a utility with wc and an entrance from the front of the house.

Also at this level is a bedroom with en suite shower room and double doors to the garden - which is not large but a reasonable city size and secluded. It is bordered by old stonewalls on two sides and has a sunken patio area. On the first floor there is a good-sized family bathroom tiled in bright blue.

A bedroom next to this faces the front of the house and, on the other side of the hall, is the main bedroom.

A particularly pleasant room, there are windows on two sides, a small fireplace, polished floorboards and an en suite bathroom carved out of one corner (often this kind of thing can look clumsy, but here it works quite well). There is also a walk in closet. - Eoin Lyons

Churchill Terrace: €1.15m: Churchill Terrace, off the Ballsbridge end of Sandymount Avenue, Dublin 4 is named after Sir Randolph Churchill and, lined with attractive late 19th and early 20th century houses, is a landmark cul-de-sac in the area.

Number 16 Churchill Terrace dates from the mid-1920s and, though extended and refurbished to make for a good-sized family home, retains a sense of its time and some original features. It's for auction through Sherry FitzGerald on March 15th quoting €1.15 million.

The floor area adds up to 164 sq m (1,760 sq ft) in which maximum use has been made of space with three bedrooms, a converted attic, two reception rooms, kitchen/breakfastroom and playroom. Many of the doors are original, as is the flat-bannister staircase. The windows have been replaced with PVC in the style of the originals.

A wide drawingroom takes up much of the front, ground floor. It has two windows and a period-style fireplace in black cast-iron with a curved inset. The L-shaped hallway has light coming from all angles, including through the leaded glass panel in the front door. Laminated flooring runs from the hallway to cover the kitchen/breakfastroom, family room and playroom floors.

The rear part of the house is open-plan and gets light from a pair of patio doors which lead from the family room to the decking and garden. The kitchen / breakfastroom, separated from the family room by a an arch and counter divide, has cream-painted timber presses on either side, as well as shelving and louvred doors to a hot-press.

Light is a premium on the first floor landing too with corner windows to the front and side. The en suite bedroom in the attic conversion, on the second floor, has a wide Velux window and storage under the eaves. The en suite has a shower, toilet and eave storage.

The main bedroom, on the first floor, has mirrored wardrobes to either side of the bed and a window over the rear garden. A second, slightly smaller bedroom to the front is similar. The third, and smallest, bedroom also faces the front. There is a good-sized family bathroom. A walk-in dressing-room on the landing has hanging and shelf space.

A laneway to the side gives vehicular access to the rear garden while the front, gravelled drive-in has car-parking for up to three cars. - Rose Doyle

Newbridge Avenue: €675,000: Newbridge Avenue is one of Sandymount's older roads; one section is noted on maps as far back as 1773. Added to at different times since then, it is lined by houses in a variety of styles.

Number 8, Newbridge Avenue is a villa-style, terraced, Victorian redbrick with views of the Dodder river.

Sash windows, a fireplace, high ceilings and covings are all intact - testiment to its period. New owners might want to extend and/or change the present layout, in which one of a pair of interconnecting reception rooms on the ground floor is in use as a bedroom and the kitchen and bathroom are at garden level.

It has a floor area of 128 sq m (1,378 sq ft), two bedrooms, kitchen/breakfastroom, sun room and family bathroom. Lisney, which is looking after the sale, is quoting a guide of €675,000 in advance of the March 16th auction date.

The period feel is largely in the high, bright reception rooms, with their polished wood floors and sash windows to the front and rear, the latter with functioning shutters. The large, feature fireplace in the front, livingroom area is of cast-iron and has a curved inset typical of its time. The fireplace in the rear room is also cast-iron and has a tiled hearth. Though period style is not original.

The hallway, with its high ceilings and arch two-thirds of the way along, also has a 19th century feel - though polished floorboards and cream coloured walls lit by a long, rear window give it a light airy feel that is more contemporary.

At garden level there is a bedroom and family bathroom to the front. The bedroom has a sash window, the white tiled bathroom a toilet, vanity unit with basin and bath with shower.

The good-sized kitchen / breakfstroom has a tiled floor and white-painted range of fitted units along one wall. Wide, glass panelled doors lead to the sun room which has a perspex ceiling and wall of windows overooking the garden. A guest toilet fits into an interesting curve off the sun room.

A row of white-washed, stone sheds along one side of the 21.2-metre (70ft) long rear garden add to the privacy given by high, evergreen hedging and ivy clad walls. The lawn is L-shaped and bordered by flower beds. There is a railed garden to the front and granite steps to the front door. - Rose Doyle

Durham Road: €750,000: The happiest house-hunters often seem to be the older couples trading down from large houses when their families have grown up and left home. Selling the houses they have lived in for 20 or 30 years is as good as winning the Lotto jackpot - so money is often not a problem as they set out in search of something smaller and perhaps a bit more special.

Many such buyers are likely to wander approvingly around 2b Durham Road over the next few weeks in advance of the auction on March 9th, when Kate Sissons in Gunne's expects this modern three-bedroom house located just around the corner from the Sandymount seafront in Dublin 4 to make in excess of €750,000.

Built in 2002, its first owners are moving to a bigger house in the immediate vicinity because they need more space, particularly in the garden, for their young family.

It's a 102 sq m (1,100 sq ft) redbrick semi - but that's the end of any comparisons with houses of similar size on modern estates.

Accommodation is on three floors: a large reception room and separate kitchen on the ground floor, a bathroom and two bedrooms on the first floor, and a third attic-style bedroom on the top floor. The attention to detail is immense: under-floor central heating, high-pressure water system with a full bathroom and two en suite shower rooms with quality fittings, and extensive use of cherrywood in flooring and stairways,

The good-sized kitchen has fine cherrywood units with built-in Neff appliances, including dishwasher, hob, separate oven and microwave, which are being left in place.

The open-plan sitting / diningroom, decorated in neutral cream, has French doors opening on to a sheltered patio-garden with semi-circular decking, a small lawn and a large garden shed which currently houses the washing machine.

The main bathroom is on the first floor, along with two bedrooms; the main bedroom has built-in wardrobes with mirrored doors which cleverly conceal the entrance through to the en suite shower.

The third bedroom, at the top of the house on the second floor, would alternatively make a perfect study/home office removed from the rest of the house. It has an en suite shower room off it.

There is off-street car-parking for two cars in the gravelled forecourt in front of the house, and there is a side passage to the back garden.

- Willie Clingan