Two houses, one refurbished, one needing extensive renovation, are for sale on Bellevue Road in Glenageary, Co Dublin, both through DNG – but the one needing a lot of work is more expensive than the other. Number 34 Bellevue Road is a 112sq m (1,205sq ft) three-bed semidetached house with a B3 Ber, modernised in 2015 and ready to walk into, for sale for €950,000. Meanwhile, number 7 has a €975,000 price tag. It’s a 157sq m (1,689sq ft) five-bed; agent David Dobbs says it is likely to command the higher price because of its size and because it’s one of the relatively few detached houses in the neighbourhood, where the houses were built in the 1960s.
The owner of number 34 managed the revamp of his house with the help of an interior designer: the result is an airy, unfussy modern home. It has lots of insulation in the roof and walls, and a B3 Ber. It was originally a four-bed, but one bedroom was sacrificed for a large, smart fully-tiled bathroom. New owners could add a fourth bedroom by building over the garage, subject to planning permission, as up to half the houses on Bellevue Road seem to have done. There’s also room to expand in the back garden, which is more than 100ft long.
The front door opens into a hall, floored like all the downstairs rooms, with a pale grey/brown engineered timber floor. The walls, like all those in the house, are painted white. On the left is the livingroom, which looks over the front garden. Wide sliding doors open from here into the kitchen/diningroom (also accessed from the front hall).
The kitchen units are glossy white, contrasting with smart brown units concealing a fridge-freezer and pullout pantry. The countertop and breakfast bar – which divides the kitchen from the diningroom – are topped with grey granite. There’s a good-sized utility room at the right of the kitchen, with a door to the back garden, and a downstairs toilet off it. There are built-in timber shelves on either side of what would have been the chimney breast in the diningroom.
One in five people expect to pay mortgage in retirement, survey finds
Irish architectural great Ronnie Tallon built a home far superior to Mies van der Rohe’s original. Time to protect it
Sherry FitzGerald CEO Steven McKenna to leave firm to ‘explore new opportunities’
Avoiding double taxation on sale of a property abroad
Double patio doors open off the diningroom on to a granite patio; the 100ft-long back lawn is quite private, surrounded by tall trees and bushes, with a large eucalyptus near the patio.
Upstairs are three bedrooms: two doubles and a single set out as a study. The main bedroom has a wall of floor-to-ceiling built-in wardrobes. The family bathroom has a bath and a large step-in shower with a mosaic-tiled floor.
There’s good room to park in the front garden, which is part lawn, part driveway.
Number 34 Bellevue Road is near the triangle of grass at the corner with Bellevue Avenue; number 7 is near the corner with Hillcourt Road, closer to Glenageary Road Upper. The larger detached house is an executor sale.
It has two reception rooms on the ground floor, with a kitchen at the back and a very large utility/laundry room. New owners could redevelop the back of the house, possibly extending into the 100ft-long back garden.
Upstairs are five bedrooms, two of them good-sized doubles, and two bathrooms. One bedroom was built over the garage; the garage could also be redeveloped. The house has double-glazed widows, a new boiler and a D2 Ber. There is good space for parking in the front garden.
Both houses are within fairly easy walking distance down the hill to Glenageary Dart station.