Trading up
Sq m: 150 (1,600 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 3
BER rating: D
Bathrooms: 2
There’s great floor space in the semi-d at 51 Wilton Gardens.
Just west of Cork’s Dennehy’s Cross, and with its back garden looking south, it shares a boundary with the rear of the major CUH hospital campus and grounds.
No 51’s got a very decent 1,600 sq ft of space, but it’s a home of unequal levels: about two-thirds of the floor area is at ground level, and overhead is still the standard, original three-bed configuration.
The extra space had been earned by pushing out the back so now there’s a 26’ by 12’ living room behind, next to a 23’ by 9’ kitchen/dining room, off to the west against a sun room, and the front/former garage is now a multi-use room.
It’s used as a study/utility room, with shower room in the mid-section. There’s also a standard front sitting room, so, really, lots of rooms to roam around.
Selling agents Sheila O’Flynn and Johnny O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald seek offers around 260,000 for the home, with mini-maze in box hedging in its front garden, plus off-street parking in this quiet, niche old Wilton setting, and the back has a good paved section, and small side beds for landscaping and a shed.
VERDICT: Going up over the utility/study would give a fourth bedroom.
Sq m: 149 (1,600 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4
BER rating: C3
Bathrooms: 3
There was a good push made out the back of the semi-detached home at 205, Curragh Woods near Douglas in Cork, but there’s still plenty of garden left over to play in, and potter around.
And, as a bonus, the view over the distant-enough back wall is of farmland, a nice reminder of the way things were in these fertile Frankfield fields, most latterly given over to housing.
Curragh Woods is a 1990s scheme built by O’Flynn Construction and here No 205 is new to market as a trader-up with Jeremy Murphy & Associates, guiding 289,000.
It has been smartly extended to the back corner, which is now home to a front-to-back living room/dining room, 25’ deep, and about 12’ wide, with windows fore and aft, as well as having a Velux over the rear high-ceilinged section. That decent-sized room is alongside a 17’ by 9’ kitchen with pine units, and there’s also a utility, guest WC, and a front reception, plus there’s a family room — space galore.
Most rooms are wood-floored, bar the front 13’ by 11’ living room with open fireplace and bay window, and the carpeted stairs leads on to the first floor’s four bedrooms, all with semi-solid maple flooring. Up here. there’s a main family bathroom, plus en suite master bed, and the larger three bedrooms have built-ins.
VERDICT: A well-established estate on the edge of Douglas, with an above-average site size and house size — 1,600 sq ft’s not to be sneezed at.
Sq m: 140 (1,500 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 3
BER rating: F
Bathrooms: 1
Forget Tipperary’s Knocknagow — it’s even a long, long way from one end to the other of a very long back garden at Cork City’s Knocknagow.
This early 1900s semi-d on the city’s Blackrock Road near Cleve Hill shares its name with one of the most widely read Irish novels, the 1870s book by Charles J Kickham, called Knocknagow, or The Homes of Tipperary.
That book attacked the evils of landlordism, although at least if you buy here at this 220,000 city suburban home, you’ll be landlord and master of your own destiny, and mortgage.
The old-style 1,500 sq ft house with a narrow two-storey side annex is a new market listing with agent Timothy Sullivan, but needs a deal of work
and updating, so there’ll be further to spend once acquired — the budget’s whatever level you want to take it
up to.
But, the upsides include location, back garden size at several hundred feet long and good aspect, with ground floor extension linking to a wide patio, original features like window bays, fireplaces and some stained glass on the stairs return.
VERDICT: One of those ‘blank canvas’ jobs, you’ll be doing lots of improvements on it , so budget for that from the get-go, and enjoy the garden for years to come.
Sq m: 167 (1,800 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4
BER rating: D1
Bathrooms: 2
All the best features of the family home called Saimhne, in Cork harbour Rushbrooke’s Norwood Court, are well-set — perfectly placed for the views.
A steep drive drops down to this brick-faced dormer home, built about 1990, but in truth it’s the other side, with its sunny bay windows for the dining area off the kitchen, plus the overhead balcony off the landing, that are scene stealers, or scene-setters. That southerly aspect, allied to the views to be had over Cork harbour, Haulbowline and towards Crosshaven, will sway viewers of this 1,800 sq ft family home, now down to 290,000 with Cobh agent Johanna Murphy.
She says the 23-year-old dormer with two upper level bedrooms and two more below, has been updated, and its southerly aspected garden has a lawn, decking on top of the garage (thanks to the site’s slope) and a large, deep feature pond, like a plunge pool for any coming warm, sunny days. The garden’s upper approach end needs planting up to match the rest of the exterior features, and the house also has a large sitting room, kitchen/dining room, and two bathrooms.
VERDICT: Ten minute walk to the train station, and the climb back up is worth it for the elevated vista.
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