Tradition on a terrace in D6

Rathmines: €1.6m A home on Belgrave Road, completely renovated a few years ago, is back on the market. Bernice Harrison reports

A two-storey over basement 197sq m (2,120sq ft) house at 20 Belgrave Road in Rathmines is for auction through Douglas Newman Good on November 24th with a guide of €1.6 million.

A number of houses on this impressive Victorian terrace have changed hands in the past year, some in need of renovation, one completely done up.

Number 20 was last on the market only three years ago. The current owners, who are moving outside Dublin, bought it in good condition and in the time they have been here have had to do little other than redecorate, re-work the bathroom and landscape the front and back gardens.

Inside it follows the traditional layout of two interconnecting high-ceilinged reception rooms off a wide bright hall.

All the expected period details are still here, including sash windows, shutters, original marble mantelpieces and decorative cornices.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms, two to the front, one to the rear. There is also a small toilet on this level.

The family bathroom is downstairs on the first floor return and it is a large, partially wood-panelled room with a walk-in shower in one corner as well as the house's original cast-iron bath.

Downstairs, the basement level is open-plan with the maple-fitted kitchen at the back of the house, a livingroom to the front.

There is front access under the flight of granite steps and a newly installed toilet in the space under those steps.

In the basement level of the two-storey return is a fourth small single bedroom and a utility area.

New owners might not be happy to live with a bathroom that's not on the same level as main bedrooms; other houses in the terrace have solved this by adding another storey on to the return.

It's an option that didn't appeal to the present owners, as it would mean taking out the original round window that floods light into the hall and landing.

There is a pedestrian entrance at the end of the 30-metre back garden that has been landscaped with a wooden decked area closer to the house and a lawn play area at end of the garden.

In the front garden there is an attractive sunken patio area, floored with Indian sandstone and with a copper water feature.