Buyer to reap the dividends

Tommy Barker says cleverly enhanced city pad is ready to move into.

A LITTLE help from family and friends helped the enterprising couple ‘through the gap’ at 10 Cahill Ville, a Cork city home done up for pleasure and now set to pay dividends to them and to the next owners as well.

The smartly-done and cleverly carpenter-enhanced city pad just off Wellington Road in Cork’s St Luke’s Cross area is ready to move into with more than expected space once through the front door.

“You’d expect to maybe find four rooms inside, instead it has got six, with a big box dormer bedroom to the front and scope to use one of the three ground floor rooms as a third bedroom as well. And, there’s enough space to the back in the garden to extend as the neighbours have done,” says Jarlath Boyd of Savills Hamilton Osborne King.

He pitches no 10 at the 300,000 mark, so it is squarely in first-time buyers’ ambit and reach. Whether or not it breaches the 317,500 sq ft stamp duty threshold will be up to the expected flow of bidders.

It will sell well, though, as the work is all done, and to a higher than usual standard, not just the usual speculative make-over, and the city centre is only a 10 to 15 minute walk.

The impending arrival of a second child has prompted a sale for the owners.

He’s from the US, she is local, and her family and contacts came up trumps when it came to putting an individual quality stamp on this affordable buy.... bought in need of a full renovation.

Witch Elm wood was used for the kitchen units, an off-standard choice, and the house has a good spread of different timbers, some original, some new, in floors, ceiling sheeting, skirtings, handrails, stairs, shelves and furniture.

A smart idea is the way the stairs handrail/spindles are detachable, for ease of furniture moving: it will come into its own in the next few months, both for the move out and the move in.

Walls (or what little outdoor walls are here) have largely been dry-lined, gas central heating is fitted though heating bills will be small, the place is re-wired, the kitchen is brand new, neat, user-friendly and with an Amtico floor, and the overall neat package punches above its weight (and price) in terms of style and character.

“The vendors used imagination in keeping the character of this property intact. This place will represent a real find for the lucky purchaser,” says Mr Boyd.

The current layout, with surprising depth, has a ground floor sitting room or optional bedroom, living room with new oak floor and storage under the stairs, kitchen and ground floor bathroom with shower plus a bath with Witch Elm timber used again in the side panels. Each of the two overhead bedrooms is about 10’ square, with a sloping ceiling and Velux to the back, and a pine sheeted dormer to the front for extra headroom.

The back of the house opens to a patio, and on to a slightly raised lawn with shed.