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10 Leinster Lawn, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14 Asking price: €1,295,000 Agent: Hunters (Bobby Geraghty, 01 6680088) It’s not unusual for houses in America to have no hallway, which means you walk straight into the sitting room, with stairs leading to the next level. While it’s an attractive design, which makes for a bigger sitting room, it’s rare to find this feature in Ireland — possibly because of our changeable climate. When Mary Coady, a retired national school teacher, and her husband Peter Brady, a DIT lecturer, came across 10 Leinster Lawn, a 1,787sq ft five-bedroom detached home in Clonskeagh in 1990, they were taken by this element.
“The house was absolutely beautiful and we loved the fact that there was no hallway. It made the sitting room particularly big,” says Coady, who’s originally from Waterford, but has lived in Dublin most of her life. “The people who lived here before had taken down the wall between the hall and the sitting room, and added a side porch.
The room was open-plan and very big. In theory at least, it should have been lovely to live in.” It’s a lovely part of Dublin.
The Dodder is full of wildlife and greenery. I find it relaxes me Once they moved in, however, they quickly realised just how cold the house, built in the 1960s, was. Part of the reason was the absence of a hallway wall to provide insulation.
“The first job we did in 1991 was to close up that wall again, which is a pity, but it was necessary from a practical point of view,” explains Coady. “I’m a cold creature, and I really wanted the house to be warm and cosy.” 10 Leinster Lawn, Clonskeagh Despite the new wall, both the hallway and the sitting room are still well-sized.
The sitting room has a large window at one end which lets in plenty of light. Like the other windows in the house, it was not double-glazed when the couple moved in, which added to the loss of heat. So they also had new windows installed throughout the house.
Read more The decor was pink and grey when they first arrived. “It sounds a bit strange but it was really lovely,” says Coady. “There was a tweed carpet and light pink walls, but over the years we’ve made the interior our own.
” They changed the old mantelpiece to a pine one in the sitting room, and replaced the open fire with a glass-fronted gas stove. The wall colours have also changed a number of times over the years. Most recently, they feature neutral shades, such as off-white in the hall and kitchen, and pale green in the sitting room, which complements a floor-to-ceiling cabinet painted a darker shade of sage green.
The kitchen There’s a wooden floor here, which continues into the hallway and kitchen. The kitchen has pine units with an island in the middle and black granite countertops. Glass doors lead to a patio, with garden furniture at the back.
The sitting room, which runs the length of the house and has a dining-room table and chairs at one end, also opens to the patio. “I’ve never been big into entertaining, but it would lend itself beautifully to entertaining because there’s plenty of room for guests and they could spill out into the back garden in the summer,” says Coady. One of the five bedrooms New carpets were added upstairs and new wardrobes installed in the five bedrooms, four of which are good-sized double rooms.
The former tenants had already converted a garage at the side of the building into a room, and this became a children’s playroom. “It was handy because our kids were young. Ellen was just two years old and Tess was one when we first moved in.
It meant I could be in the adjacent kitchen and still keep an eye on them as they got older,” says Coady. In 1996, they built over the kitchen and the playroom, which had a flat roof. “We extended one of the bedrooms at the back and we took a chunk out of the main bathroom to make an en suite bathroom in our bedroom.
” The back garden, with seomra In 2011, they added insulation to walls and roof. In recent years, they’ve also added a seomra in the back garden with an office and a utility room, which houses the washing machine and dryer. “The seomra is very well insulated and has been wired for electricity,” says Coady.
“It would make a great home office.” The front of the house has a gravel driveway, while the south-east facing back garden has a lawn bordered by flower beds, with shrubs and a number of trees. “We used to have swings in the garden when the kids were young and they spent a lot of time playing there.
“We get the sun there from about 11am until about 7pm in the summer. It actually heats the back of the house and provides a huge amount of light.” Clonskeagh is a leafy suburb, with easy access to a wide range of amenities.
It’s also a 10-minute drive to Dundrum Shopping Centre. “The neighbours are lovely too,” adds Coady. “Many of them have lived here for years and they’re friendly.
” The back garden of the property Tragically, her husband, Peter, died five years ago and as a result, she has decided to sell the house. “I didn’t feel ready to sell it at first but five years on, it feels like the time is right,” she says. “My children have long left and I find the house and the garden too big for me.
” She plans to downsize and stay in the area as she loves Clonskeagh, and is attached to a number of walks in the area. “The house is close to the Belfield campus of UCD, and I regularly walk around it,” she says. “In fact, I met my husband in UCD and both my daughters attended college there.
“Sometimes I walk down to Sandymount or even into town, which takes about an hour, then I get the bus or Luas back.” Her favourite walk is along the Dodder River. “It’s a lovely part of Dublin.
The Dodder is full of wildlife and greenery. I find it relaxes me,” she adds. 10 Leinster Lawn has an asking price of €1,295,000 with Hunters Estate Agent.
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