Dublin 8: Emma Cullinan visits two interesting homes in a popular suburb that is within walking distance of St Stephen's Green.
The Portobello area of Dublin was long overlooked by housebuyers attracted to nearby Rathmines and Ranelagh but it has seen a change over the past decade or so.
It seems that the whole world has arrived in this neighbourhood, creating a relaxed, cosmopolitan area with a good mix of people and shops. Showing Portobello's diversity, there's the Bretzel bakery, with its Jewish past, and the nearby Algerian/French Boulangerie: both extremely popular. While you may be dubious about claims that some properties in Dublin are a short walk from town, in the case of Portobello it's true.
The fact that it is still possible to buy unrestored properties here indicates that this neighbourhood has not always been smart, but in the past decade many house prices here have increased 10-fold. Two houses that are being auctioned by Douglas Newman Good have benefited from refurbishment.
39 Curzon Street
Despite its proximity to St Stephen's Green, parts of Portobello are remarkably quiet as is the case with 39 Curzon Street. This is being auctioned on November 13th and has a guide of €500,000.
The current owner moved in 10 years ago and has created a cosy, welcoming home. This small house with one storey to the front and two to the rear is situated in a grid of streets with similar sized homes. The overall feel is of a cottage: the house has subtle wallpaper, stripped wooden floorboards and doors. Conservation architects would be wary of the latter: to be true to history they should be painted, but they are deliciously homely.
To the left of the rose-adorned front door is a sittingroom painted in buttermilk, with an oatmeal carpet. The original cast-iron fireplace now runs on gas.
Upstairs are two bedrooms, both with wooden floors, which overlook the patio to the east. The main bedroom, with original fireplace, has pale yellow wallpaper on the walls and across the curved ceiling. In the style of French guesthouses, there's also wallpaper on the cupboards. It perhaps sounds odd but it works.
The livingroom, kitchen and bathroom downstairs form an L-shape around two sides of the patio. The living area overlooks the greenery, which includes roses and jasmine, through a glass door and generously-sized window (when its predecessor rotted this was thankfully replaced in timber rather than pvc). The terracotta tiles on the floor and white plastered walls give this room a sunny disposition. The owner calls it the Mexican room.
The cupboard doors in the narrow kitchen were made from reclaimed wooden window shutters. The countertop is showing signs of wear and the red sinks and taps might be difficult to live with. The kitchen again has a large window overlooking the patio and a glass door, making the most of the link between interior and exterior. At the end of the kitchen is a small functional bathroom.
15 Windsor Terrace
Unlike the uniformity of Curzon Street, Windsor Terrace, beside the canal, has larger homes of varying sizes.
Set back from the canal, number 15 is in a beautiful location although the road on the other side of the water is busy. Set for auction through Douglas Newman Good on November 12th, it's expected to make over €575,000.
This home has benefited from a lot of decoration but the current owners are leaving before they planned to and, to paraphrase an election manifesto, a lot's been done but there's more to do. Having said that you could happily move in here and do nothing - it's just that there's a hidden room upstairs to which there's no access. It was all part of a plan to build an extension.
Downstairs the front and rear rooms have had a large opening knocked between the two. The front room has a deep window to the south, new timber floors and an original fireplace which has been subjected to an interesting paint job. The adjoining room is a kitchen, with fitted cupboards and built-in appliances. This leads on to a huge garden which would benefit from more planting. Its sheer size shows where the idea for an extension stemmed from.
Beyond the kitchen, in an area of the house that runs alongside the first part of the garden, is a bathroom, which could probably be overhauled, and a bedroom with laminate flooring and a window onto the garden.
Upstairs, facing south, are two bedrooms with pleasant colour schemes: one with terracotta walls and the other with pale olive.
The upstairs bathroom walls are covered in generously sized, stone-coloured tiles. This, along with the custom-made cherry cupboards, underfloor heating and rooflight, make for a nice bathing space.
The large hotpress in the upstairs hallway would be the most logical way of entering the blocked up room. While this would be a perfectly good three-bedroom house as it stands, how could anyone resist the urge to knock their way through to the secret room?
