Liberty Belle: A slow renovation approach has delivered a mid-terrace two-bed in Dublin’s 'Brooklyn' that is the pride of the Coombe.
Time Out magazine called it one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world last year, and last month, National Geographic likened the Dublin 8 quarter to New York's boiji Brooklyn.
While trendy coffee shops, eateries and bars are now a given, The Liberties remain one of the last remaining parts in the city where history and modernity sit cheek by jowl.
You can hear the clip-clopping of a jarvey’s horses on the streets, and some are still quartered in the area.
Address:28 The Coombe, Dublin 8, D08 Y5NC
Asking price: €575,000
Agent: Felicity Fox
Street traders still ply their wares on Meath Street, immortalised in song in Biddy Mulligan, belted out by Jimmy O’Dea and The Dubliners.
Its chorus ends on the line, Biddy Mulligan, the pride of the Coombe.
Number 28 The Coombe will delight home hunters, for while it presents in walk-in condition, it has the kind of character the quarter has, something that is lacking in many homes.
It also offers space to congregate, as well as spaces where you close the door and cohabitate separately.
It also has two full shower rooms, one upstairs and a second downstairs.
In the more traditional type of two-up, two-down, the bathroom is often located downstairs.
The owners bought the mid-terrace property over a decade ago and spent a year living in it first, before deciding to make changes to it.
This slow approach to renovation means they got a feel for how they wanted to live in the space, where the light fell and where it made the most sense to install the kitchen and bathrooms.
This is demonstrated throughout.
Everything has its place in this two-bedroom, two-bathroom home, which extends to 82 square metres.
The front door opens into a small lobby.
The sitting room is to the left. It's an intimate space, its furniture set around an off-centre, cast-iron fireplace.
A door from here leads through to a space that could be called the pride of the Coombe, the street so-named for a stream of the same name, a tributary of the river Poddle, that used to flow through it.
This is the room everyone will want to spend time in.
There’s a roomy kitchen, with a small island, a pantry hidden behind reclaimed stripped pine doors and a broad plank, scrubbed pine dining table.
The open plan room has good ceiling heights and an exposed yellow brick wall featuring building materials that may have been made in nearby Dolphin’s Barn.
Overhead, a russet-coloured rolled steel joist (RSJ) beam is left exposed to show how the two rooms have been brought together.
Crittal-style steel doors lead to a small enclosed courtyard where there’s a metal staircase that runs up to the extension roof above.
From here you can see the spire of St Patrick’s Cathedral, whose bells you also hear peeling on Sunday morning.
There is a polished concrete floor underfoot here and also in the bathroom to the rear of the house.
You can also access the kitchen via a second door in the hall, across a parquet-floored vestibule, just beyond where the staircase up to the accommodation is.
Upstairs, there are two double bedrooms.
The principal has a windowed ensuite shower room.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom property is very smartly appointed throughout, with all the dirty, invisible work done.
It means that even if the exposed brickwork and rolled steel joist (RSJ) are not your thing, concealing them is not a big job.
This property first came to market last year.
Agent Felicity Fox is seeking €575,000 for the C3 Ber-rated house.
