Knockout design behind the front door

Blackrock: €2m Take a Dublin house, tear out the inside and put it back together again with the best of everything - new kitchen, new bathrooms, soaring windows, a galaxy of lighting . That's what the owners of this lavishly revamped semi-detached house in south county Dublin did before moving on to another challenge. Eoin Lyons reports

Semi-detached houses in large developments, no matter how salubrious, are rarely considered dream-home material by buyers at the upper end of the market who tend to favour properties that offer something unique.

But Lisney is hoping to achieve over €2 million when it auctions number 68 Avoca Park - a development built almost 15 years ago off Avoca Avenue in Blackrock - on September 29th.

Apart from the many attractions of the location, the current owners have carried out an extraordinary amount of work: behind the bland external architecture, they have almost entirely reconfigured the internal layout and upgraded every detail.

Now the interior is of such a standard that it was featured in Image Interiors last year. The young couple moved to number 68 from a smaller house in the same development and have already had interest from other neighbours moving up.

This might suggest Avoca Park is a vortex within south county Dublin, but in fact reflects the appeal of the development to those with children.

The owners have three young children and talk of the safe park area in front of the house, the abundance of local playmates and the community atmosphere.

The house will be attractive to parents who don't want to sacrifice stylish living because they have messy children: because of invisible built-in storage, literally at every turn, it's elegant non-cluttered interior can be maintained easily and playtime detritus bundled out of sight in the evening.

The layout is very adaptable: the livingroom to the front has double doors to the long dining/kitchen area that runs across the back of the house.

When these doors are open it turns from cosy to large - children have been known to ride their bicycles through the house - and in turn, when the two sets of doors in the kitchen are open to the garden, the house becomes a sociable entertaining space.

Walnut flooring, underheated of course, runs from the entrance hall to the livingroom and the rest of the ground floor. New doorframes, ceiling covings and sophisticated lighting systems were added during the renovation.

Inset into the wall above the dining table is an enormous aquarium, teeming with exotic fish and in the middle of this room, an island delineates the kitchen are with white units.

At the other end of the space is an area for watching television. Also on the ground floor are a playroom, guest toilet and lobby leading to a home office and utility room. Upstairs there are five bedrooms, four double size and one a single.

There is a family shower room with red glass tiles and metal flooring. One of the double bedrooms has an en suite shower and the main bedroom also has a large en suite with a bath sitting on a raised wood platform.

The back garden is astonishing in the perfection of it's conception and execution: inspired by the formal lines of Japanese gardens, it was designed by Formality in Sandycove.