Detached four-bedroom Mount Oval home a delight inside and out

ONE of the smaller of the detached houses in the Dewberry scheme is number 49 — and that’s why its asking price is €445,000. A slender version of the larger types in this section of the Mount Oval, Rochestown Cork development, it nonetheless has 1,600 sq ft of space, on three floors of accommodation.

Nicely shown, down to exterior landscaping details and garden spending, it is a detached four-bed, with two bedrooms apiece on its two upper floors. Both of the mid-level bedrooms are en-suite, the top floor has a main bathroom to serve the next two bedrooms, and there’s a guest WC off the entry hall — so four loos in all at number 49.

Auctioneer Ann O’Mahony, of Sherry FitzGerald, says the house is in walk-in condition — but step-in might be more appropriate. The design sees two steps up from the hall into the kitchen/dining room, and from there a few steps back down to the jutting rear family room, seemingly a clear case of what goes up must come down.

Double doors off the hall open to the main living room to the front, 18’ deep and 12’ wide, the higher-than-usual ceilings here are corniced, and the traditional fireplace is in white marble.

The kitchen/diner is shallow, at only about 10’, but runs 20’ across the back of the house with the cooking area fairly compact and almost compartmentalised. The presence of the rear, 11’ square family room (with fireplace) helps the impression of space. This family-friendly space has a gas-insert fire, and French doors opening to the back garden. Heating throughout is via gas, and number 49 is located towards the top end of the large, circa 800-house O’Flynn Construction scheme, now mostly built, while the firm is currently in the midst of Bord Pleanála oral hearings for its larger-scale, medium-term development plans for 1,200 homes at Dunkathely/Ballinglanna, across the Lee at Glanmire.