From ceiling crowning to a colour-drenched bedroom and a kitchen with chrome yellow countertops, hair stylist Kathy McLean’s Dublin 1 home is off-the-scale vibrant.
The soft pink exterior of number 8 William Street North, a two-to-three-bedroom, one-bathroom cottage just off Summerhill Parade in Dublin 1, hints at someone who loves colour.
But it is only when you open the front door and are greeted with the kind of chromatic intensity that might have you reaching for a pair of sunnies that you realise just how vibrant this place is.
Address: 8 North William Street, North City Centre, Dublin 1, D01K7Y8
Asking price: €450,000
Agent: Gallagher Quigley
This is the home of hair stylist and colourist Kathy McLean, who runs hair salon Pearl of Dublin from a basement space on Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin’s Georgian Quarter.
The hall is awash with YesColours electric blue.
This is a UK paint company that categorises its shades by moods that include graceful, joyful, loving, mellow and dirty.
The Yves Klein-inspired highly pigmented ultramarine drenches all surfaces of the entrance hall, from walls and ceiling to balustrades.
Giving off nightclub vibes, visitors here might feel compelled to wave their hands in the air like they just don’t care.
Step into the three-metre-high ceilinged living room and the mood shifts again.
The room is crowned in Valspar’s Burnt Chillies, a deep chipolata red, and one of the many colours she has selected from the brand’s charts.
The two arched alcoves on either side of the open fire feature Ikea’s Varmblixtdonut lights.
There is a burnt orange velvet sofa that was purchased in Manchester and shipped over, and the egg-shaped vintage chair was a prop used in an energy drink shoot.
The burnt umber accent chair came from Pieces in Dublin 7.
Down a set of steps, and you find the kitchen and off it is a study, which could also be the third bedroom, and on into the dining area.
Let’s talk about the kitchen.
The units are Ikea with a custom chrome yellow countertop by Irish company Modoco, whose workshop is in Limerick, but they also have a studio in Donnybrook, Dublin 4
The colour-blocked walls are coated in a brown sugar shade, also Valspar, called Freckle, that is a throwback from the 1970s – in a good way.
It opens out to a small yard.
“I like to push the envelope,” the Belfast woman says with tongue firmly in cheek. “The house is like the inside of my head.”
Climb the stairs to the top of the house, and you come to the two main bedrooms.
The primary is drenched in a colour called Sunset Rose, while the second room, which features a single bed but can accommodate a queen, is similarly coated in Romantic Lavender.
If the colour intensity brings you out in a rash, relax.
You should also know that the property has good bones, and period height ceilings have been enhanced by all the work McLean did when she bought the house two years ago, paying €330,000 for the then G Ber-rated residence, according to the property price register.
She gutted it and rewired it, installing a new heating system and boiler and drylined the interior to bring the G Ber-rating up to a D1 Ber.
Extending to 89 square metres, the two to three-bedroom, one-bathroom terraced house is seeking €450,000 through agents Gallagher Quigley.
