Town&Country

Town
Address: 46 Santry Close, Santry, Dublin 9
Agent: Lisney

The current owners have extended this modest-looking 140sq m (1,507sq ft) home, giving it five bedrooms, a double reception (with doors to the garden), and a breakfast room leading to the kitchen. Three of the upstairs bedrooms are doubles and two are singles, and they share a bathroom. There's off-street parking for two vehicles, along with a garage.

Plus: Frequent flyers and holiday wannabes will like being near the airport. Plus there's Morton Stadium over the road.

Minus: The colours in the carpets are from a decades-old gaudy palette but the vendors are aware that the place needs a makeover.

Country
Address: The Old Schoolhouse, Longueville, Mallow, Cork
Agent: Michael H Daniels

Working as a school right up to the 1970s, this pretty stone house is beside the gate lodge of the Longueville estate. Recently renovated, the 1889 building has maintained Gothic-revival elements, starting at the pointed arched front door. Accommodation includes a sittingroom and diningroom, kitchen and utility on the ground floor and four bedrooms above, all with en suite bathrooms. The garden is coated lawns, shrubs and trees and there's a garage.

Plus: Lovely details: the stone walls, the steep pitched roof, tall chimneys and wide doorways (for all those children rushing through?).

Minus: A more recently built garage beside the house is out of kilter and the satellite dish hanging off the wall doesn't do much for the integrity of the structure.