Constructed using local Athy brick, this three-bedroom house, seeking €275,000, epitomises the circular economy.
Address: 9 Saint Michael's Terrace, Athy, Co. Kildare, R14T262
Price: €275,000
Agent: Fingleton & Co.
Athy’s handmade bricks are one of the most reputable of their kind within construction circles.
They can be found in many of Dublin's bougie redbrick suburbs, particularly Rathmines and Rathgar and in Guinness’s malthouse and hop stores.
They’re also evident in number 9 Saint Michael’s Terrace, just off the Co. Kildare town’s main street.
The owners, Killian and Ciara, bought the house five years ago and set about upgrading and modernising it to create a layout that worked for family life.
They also shopped locally for some of their building materials.
To the right of the hall is its sitting room, painted a dark shade to picture rail height.
The colour in question is Curator Paint’s Gate Keeper’s Lodge.
Its chimney breast features the local brick exposed to create contrast with the deep colour on the walls. This wall is bookended by two pale oak sideboards from Danish chain JYSK.
Across the hall is a very smart kitchen that also features the local brick.
The birch ply custom design is by Kieran Courtney, a fabricator based outside Enniscorthy in Co. Wexford.
It has quartz countertops and includes a narrow cloakroom cabinet on one side of the chimneybreast that also houses the modem and printer.
Look again and you will see that the dining table actually fits into the fireplace void.
It means they can slide the table into the void to give them more circulation space when it’s just the couple and their two-year-old sitting down to eat.
They pull it out when they have friends or family over.
The partial reconfiguring of this chimney breast was also done to show off the Arthy building blocks, which now face out so you can see that each one is stamped with the brand, Athy Brick and Tile Company.
It's a stylish way to pay homage to the town’s industrial past and fly the circular economy flag.
According to The Kildare Nationalist, the Athy Brick and Tile factory opened at Barrowford in 1893.
“Bricks stamped ‘Athy Brick and Tile Co.’ were produced by machinery initially for building works on the Curragh Army Camp and subsequently for the Dublin market.
"The factory even had its own railway line siding from about 1900, which allowed the bricks to be brought by train using the Dublin Waterford line.”
Behind the kitchen is a utility room where the washer, dryer and fridge freezer are all housed.
It takes a lot of appliance noise out of the main kitchen.
The family bathroom is at this level and includes a bath.
Upstairs, on the return, is the nursery, the first of its three bedrooms.
There are two doubles and a shower room on the first floor.
The principal is painted in a Dulux colour called Celtic Forest.
Set in a quiet cul-de-sac, the property is within a couple of minutes’ walk of Athy’s train station, where the journey time to Dublin’s Heuston Station is 40 minutes.
Several supermarkets, Lidl, Aldi and SuperValu, are all similarly proximate.
The couple purchased the house in 2020 and lived in it, waiting a year before doing any renovation work. Since then, their family unit has grown to four, which includes a three-month-old baby.
The double-fronted three-bedroom, two-bathroom terraced house is now looking for a new family, and almost all the hard work is already done.
They still haven’t finished painting the second double bedroom. It’s all the next owners will have to do to this C2 Ber-rated house, which extends to 88 square metres.
Agents Fingleton & Co.is seeking €275,000 for the mid-terrace property.
