Ranelagh gem puts us back in the mood

It's a good job the missus is more organised than me otherwise we'd be looking forever, writes DON MORGAN

LOSING INTEREST in houses is a bit of a problem when you write about househunting every week. It can be a bit of a drag, sometimes, like many things in life and can require deliberate calmness to remember why we’re looking for a house at all: we want to put down roots and pursue our life together in peace. So, just as I was about to do what that man did to Pat Kenny the other day on the telly, we fell upon a gem in Ranelagh, which means I’m glad we ever decided to move back to Dublin.

Someone suggested recently that we’re not serious buyers: our search is too spread out. Well, we’re not serious – we’ve way too much joie de vivre to be serious. We are, however, intent on getting a house, and within a 20-minute drive from work takes in a lot of the Dublin market area.

We also had to shop around to see what we could get for our money and that means casting the net wide too. Like snuffling for truffles with a pig who spent the weekend with Keith Richards, we’ve been seeking that value thing, and a cheeky offer might be less impudent than when we started. We’re not, however, that brat Oliver Twist, looking for a second course in a Victorian workshouse. “Please sir we want some more ... for our money” ain’t that catchy, and no one’s bellowed “More?” in reply, not since May. Value has been strangely forthcoming recently.

We hatched a plan, which exposed this fact. Maureen was going to seek out three lovely houses to view and so was I, all at the lower end of our price range, about 400k. I’m a 24-carat dope, and fell in love with the ordinary charms of a house near Dundrum where we are living. So in love was I that I didn’t print off the brochure, so it didn’t get viewed.

Maureen, on the other hand, fulfilled her part of the task and I’ve been wearing a full scale pout ever since, because I married someone organised. Herself did her homework, printed, stapled, and embroidered little flowers on the corners of the pages. All were over budget, but she insisted there could be some give.

On the way to work, she rang round agents. One house in Kings-, sorry, Dún Laoghaire, was sale agreed. Strike one. The other was a haggard looking period place in Glasthule. The house is twice our budget but hasn’t been in residential use since the days of Cardinal Conway. Maureen and I stuck on our hazard lights one evening and snuck into the front yard in search of structural defects, like a survey of Joan Rivers by night. I couldn’t see any, but what we could see indicated a good deal of modernisation needed – one room at a time if you got it. On va voir, maybe?

Strike three from her set was in Ranelagh: redbricked, terraced, I’d sell my granny for it if she weren’t dead. I’m demonstrably pointing to the bleachers thinking about what this house offers, before seeing it stolen from my clutches. Three-bed, er, yes, but cosy. Good condition, not in danger of falling down and in the middle of our budget. I walked out of town, thinking of the tale of Lenin living in Rathmines once upon a time. The heavens opened as I arrived. I went in, drowned like a ginger rat, whilst Maureen was stuck in traffic. The viewing was like a bizarre, slump-time house party. Normally viewers treat each other with silent suspicion, but everyone was chatting, cooing and commenting, Dublin’s become like it used to be thanks to economic meltdown. I went out to the back yard to find a magical shelter for bikes and nick-nacks. Was the owner Gepetto, perchance? It was accessed via the jam pot inundated cuisine lilliputienne. When I came in, I was rambling to myself: “Geez, it’s a bit damp out there”, met by a familiar looking lady viewer who looked up and smiled kindly. “Good to see a house in this weather, though.”

We passed a few remarks about this beautiful home. It was the singer Lisa Hannigan, and she’s really lovely, just like the house.