Stay ahead of the curve at Jacob’s Island

Jacobs Island, Mahon, Cork Harbour

€460,000

Size: 165 sq m (1,780 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 3 BER: C1

Pictures: Larry Cummins

This four-bed semi has been intelligently extended and adapted to offer style and practicality suitable for modern Irish family life, writes Tommy Barker

Ten years after buying a new-build home for a then-fledgling family, and all of a sudden, came the time to add on, to keep pace with a steadily growing and lively brood, three sports-mad boys, and a sports-engaged dad.

The extension end result drove them family ‘around the bend,’ but only in the best possible way.

The rear, ground floor extension put on to the back of 50 Longshore Drive is bookended by a far, gently curving wall, a shape and outline suggested by architect Geoffrey Butler, of Butler Moffat, as a way to frame a desired-for ground floor add-on.

He hit on the shape to parallel the property’s back garden wall, which bounds onto an arcing access road within the well-established Jacobs Island development, and it works a treat, in this well-conceived and utterly used main family-friendly space, the absolute centre of this family’s day-to-day life.

No 50’s a four-bed semi-d, unremarkable enough to the front, but pushed up to now measure a very effective 1,780 sq ft within, on a sort of small, tight circle or crescent cul-de-sac off the public-park facing Longshore Drive, which was built in the early to mid-2000s by McCarthy Developments.

Because of the crescent, all backed by a curving, out of sight access road to the back, the individual house sites in this neat enclave are narrower at the front (off-street, paved parking), and then fan out behind. Thus, despite the scale of this curved extension, there’s still plenty of garden left, primarily to the west for evening sun on a sandstone paved patio, and to the back and far side too, where there’s a storage shed for garden and sporting gear of all sizes and hues.

GAA, soccer and rugby are the prime motivators for the lads, the first of whom has just made the move to secondary school, and that sporting ecumenism is probably to the chagrin of their father. He has 66 caps for hockey for

Ireland, but as yet the boys have yet to bully off in his footsteps. Maybe the Irish women’s hockey team’s World Cup Final exposure might yet sway them?

While the daily routine here clearly revolves around participation in sport, you just wouldn’t suspect it from No 50’s immaculate, almost showhouse character and spotless presentation.

That’s down to planning, and storage, and hard-won experience, suggests the woman of the house and matriarch of a busy brood, pointing to things like the boot stand in the utility (“the best thing in the house,” she approves, see pic next pages), a full width hard-wearing coir mat just inside the front door where lads can disrobe and unboot, and further various football boot storage in pull-out shelves under the stairs.

Then, there’s the choice of flooring, learned from experience, and from clattering studs on the bottom of boots. Most of the ground floor is now done in large, pale porcelain tiles, especially spanning the bit and bright back section, while recently installed in the ‘original’ two interlinked reception rooms left of the hall are floors in a very convincing pale oak board, only they are neatly abutted tiles — indestructible.

Anyone whose precious ‘genuine’ timber floors have ever been pock-marked by stilletto heels (or soccer boot studs? or pets’ paws?) might look with some envy at this most-practicable floor finish choice.

Clearly, a lot of thought went into getting No 50 ‘fit for purpose,’ its owner suggests. When they bought, day one back in 2005, off-plans, they already made changes to the rear layout, adding a sun room, sort of lean-to, with overhead Velux.

But, that was just for starters, and on a visit you get the impression the family thought long and hard about how best to add-on, make rooms flow, give them a sense of purpose, and create a mix of open, communal, all-in areas, and more private spaces, and play areas too.

Without being too stereotypical gender divide about it, the occupants say that their resultant layout (thanks too to architect Geoff Butler) really works if someone wants to watch matches, and someone else wants to watch BakeOff, as the c 18’ by 12’ front room, with its bay window and open fireplace, has one good sized screen, and there’s a far larger one back in the family space, off the kitchen/dining extension, graced by a multi-fuel Henley stove.

This multi-use/much-used ‘great room’ is over 27’ deep, and effectively triple aspect, and the icing on the top is the long, angled roof light or skylight in the middle of the flat-roofed extension, done like the rest of the additional

glazing by Sky Windows, with builders Green Rock Construction overseeing all of the work and upgrades back in 2015.

That extension, and other alterations, necessitated moving out for a period, and also saw a top-drawer kitchen and island come to be the making of the bit room, with Farrow and Ball (the colour’s Hardwick White) painted units and white quartz worktops as the new hub, and walls were painted F&B’s Shadow White, a colour that seemingly changes its effect according to lighting, aspect and time of day.

It’s all well-specced and sleekly finished, with pop-up electric sockets, an insinkerator in the main sink for waste disposal, a food larder press has solid oak pull-out drawers, appliances are Neff, and there are even electrical sockets set in the family living’s space floor, under two electrically operated recliners, handy too for accent lamps, and which mean no need for leads trailing across floor expanses.

Also thought of during the makeover were electrically operated blinds on the west-facing patio doors, and integrated, colour matching blinds on smaller tilt-n-turn end windows, while above the twin patio doors externally is a wide, commercial-scale electric heater, for evening barbies.

Outside, to the back, there’s still plenty of garden left to play around with and to play in, and a big sandstone paved patio, with access back to the games room, for easy party time circulation, and out of sight is a storage shed: landscaper Trevor Welsh also added a raised garden bed by a boundary wall on the other side, to add seasonal interest and colour when glimpsed out by a side kitchen window.

The garden at this sizeable semi-d has solid, tall block boundary walls all around, but now with the boys getting bigger, more than ivies are clambering up them. The couple’s oldest son, and some of his school friends, have been known to springboard their way over the walls’c 6’ height, to catch a bus to town/school, as one does as a young and lively teen. Having maxxed out all of the house and grounds’ possibilities, and without feeling the need for a first floor extension given the good rooms sizes in any case up above (four double bedrooms, one en suite, main bathroom with shower and floored, accessible attic) the owners feel now’s a good time to consider a long-term house move.

They are about to start project hunting: ideally, they want a do-er up and have the energy to go all over again with their extension’s builders GreenRock, elsewhere in Cork’s suburbs, and most ideally close to familiar playing pitches as they say a typical Saturday morning can see six different sport activities being accessed.

Amenities they’ll leave behind include the wonderful Cork harbour walkway along the woodland front and Joe McHugh Public Park at Longshore Drive/Jacobs Island, where there’s also a mix of detached homes, duplex townhouses and apartments, with more apartments planned by developers McCarthys, including a lofty 30-storey tower, currently in for planning consideration. And, just over the south city ring road is Mahon Point, with its dozens of shops, retail park, multi-screen cinema, restaurants and adjacent, growing business/office parks, already home to over 10,000 jobs.

They’ve just listed No 50 Longshore Drive with estate agent Kevin Barry of Barry Auctioneers, who guides the walk-in/troop in home at a well-judged €460,000. That will garner much other family trader-up interest, and once the work done is seen and appreciated, the departing occupants home may get additional bidding traction.

VERDICT: Let the bidding games commence.