A handsome refit on Hollybank

Does a two-year turnaround in this market constitute a flip? 107 Hollybank Road, Drumcondra sold just two years ago for €250,000. The end-of-terrace red brick is now for sale again, this time for €750,000 through Sherry FitzGerald. That's the sort of price change bound to cause a stir.

It’s not just the market that has changed in that time – so has the house. At the busy opening viewing last Saturday, a local remarked that it used to be in flats and it’s lovely now. Another viewer chipped in with “yeah, but three-quarters of a million lovely?” Meanwhile, another viewer, babe in arms and a toddler clutching at his leg, is asking the estate agent in the hall about the school catchment area. The crowd on Saturday seemed made up mostly of trader-uppers, families who have outgrown their first homes looking for a well-located period house. And Hollybank is a leafy road near a park, where more and more of its houses have in recent years been brought back from multiple units, and it is in walking distance from the city centre.

Number 107 is a very different property now because the canny owners gutted, renovated, extended and then did a lovely and eye-catching job decorating the now four-bedroom family home.

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The new, very large, single-story kitchen extension brought the house to 156sq m (1,680sq ft) and it’s an impressive modern space with cream- coloured contemporary units with a marble-topped peninsula – that’s at one end, at the other is a spacious dining space. Instead of knocking the wall through to the extension from the original kitchen they did a clever thing by leaving the original chimney breast in situ as a room divider – now with a woodburning stove – and creating an attractive livingroom. The other livingroom at the front of the house, with a bay window and its original fireplace, is probably not used so much because the kitchen extension is such a family friendly space. The first of the four bedrooms is at hall level in what was originally the second reception room and beside it is a smartly appointed shower-room. All the bedrooms are doubles with the main bedroom having a shower en suite. The family bathroom features the same cool contemporary look as the downstairs shower room.

The back garden is on a slope and to deal with the gradient it is laid out in paved terraces – so not so family friendly – with a planting area and glasshouse at the end.