Welcoming and elegant redbrick

Dublin 4: €2.35m Number 91 Marlborough Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, which is for sale through agent Felicity Fox at auction on May 17th with an advised minimum value (AMV) of €2.35 million, is a welcoming house.

The proportions everywhere making you feel at home while impressing with their elegance. This is all the result of nearly a decade of thoughtful care, not to mention hard work, and a gutting which saw even the roof replaced. It has been internally decorated in its original style with Farrow and Ball paint and Zoffany wallpapers. A plush cream used on walls throughout gives an opulent feel.

At the Ranelagh end of Marlborough Road, the redbrick house dates from the first part of the 18th century. It has two storeys above garden level and, over a floor area of 170sq m (1,830sq ft), has three bedrooms, three reception rooms and a kitchen/breakfast room. Five of the original fireplaces have been restored; they are in reception rooms and bedrooms.

Original floorboards have been exposed and polished throughout, except for the garden level which has concrete flooring.

Cornices, sash windows, shutters (mostly working) and ceiling centres are all in original style. There are 12ft high ceilings in the first floor, drawing and dining rooms with folding, interconnecting doors which are almost the same height. The cornicing in these rooms is picked out in a deeper cream than the walls, the satin finish wallpaper is of the palest lemon and each room has a marble fireplace.

Work on the garden level is the most recently completed. A separate entrance leads to a bright hallway with black and white ceramic tiled floor and, at the end, a shower room and toilet. The kitchen/breakfast room, to the rear, has a Chinese slate floor, Belfast sink, cream-painted wooden fittings. French windows lead to a patio and garden. A second French window leads to a tranquil livingroom where there is a cast-iron fireplace.

The bedrooms, two of them to the front, are off the first-floor landing, which has a ceiling rose and an arch. In the main bathroom there is a separate shower unit.

The thriving 75ft long rear garden is landscaped in old world style with ivy-clad walls, ornamental grasses, montbretia, climbing roses, plum and lilac trees. There is a large garage to the rear, and a Barna shed. At the front of the house there is off-street car-parking for two to three cars.