Fine period home has plenty of scope for updating

Chipton, on Ailesbury Park, Dublin 4, is a fine Edwardian house that is now in need of updating. The redbrick semi-detached house is just around the corner from Sydney Parade DART station and within an easy stroll of Merrion Shopping Centre, St Vincent's Hospital and Sandymount Strand. Properties in this neighbourhood don't come cheap. The five-bedroom house is expected to make more than £700,000 at a Lisney auction on October 7th.

At 2,200 sq ft, this is an ideal family house and, while the back garden is not particularly large, it is nicely cultivated with fruit trees, roses, holly and ivy. It backs directly on to the DART line but there is a high boundary fence. Inside, the house has very good proportions and potential to extend to the rear to make a larger, more practical kitchen. One of the best features is the wide hallway with its parquet flooring and attractive staircase. The parquet continues through to the drawingroom, which is a fine, high-ceilinged room with double doors leading through to the diningroom. Both rooms have big mahogany chimneypieces that could be replaced with simple marble ones to lighten the overall look. The drawingroom has a wide bay window, while the diningroom also has a wide set of windows incorporating a French door to the garden. A couple of steps lead down from the hall to the back of the house, where there is a breakfastroom with a small pantry off it. Beyond this room is the kitchen, which is a small room with a door to the garden and two windows overlooking the lawn. New owners will probably knock these two rooms together and extend further out into the garden to make a far bigger, brighter kitchen. They may also convert the small under-stairs cloakroom and storage area into a guest lavatory.

Upstairs, a short corridor leads of to the back of the house, where there is a large family bathroom, separate lavatory and walk in hot-press.

There are three bedrooms on the first floor, two of them large doubles. The smallest of the three rooms could convert to an en suite bathroom for the adjoining main bedroom.

The fourth bedroom is up a further flight of stairs and is a pleasant room overlooking the back garden. There is a fifth bedroom on the top floor and next to it is an attic space that could convert to an en suite shower room.

Four of the bedrooms have original chimney-pieces and the stairwell has its original lincrusta paper to dado level and a pretty Regency style wallpaper throughout. Chipton will easily convert to an elegant family home although the total outlay, including the purchase price, will probably be close to £1 million.