Trading up
Sq m: 196 (2,100 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 5
BER rating: Pending
Broadband: Yes
THE owners of 7, Lios na Rí added about 600 sq ft to their now nine-year-old detached family home to bring it up to a sizeable 2,100 sq ft. While it has given them good inside living space, plus five bedrooms, they haven’t cut themselves too short on the site size either, as it is on almost one third of an acre.
No 7 is out a few miles north of Cork city (about a 15 minute drive,) off the Mallow road at Grenagh, and is in a niche of individual family homes, notes selling agent Michael O’Donovan of Sherry FitzGerald.
He says the extension has been done “seamlessly,” yielding two good reception rooms, plus kitchen/dining room and conservatory.
As well as the five first floor bedrooms (one is en suite) and family bathroom, there’s Stira access to attic storage.
The house’s front facade now has a deep bay protrusion, faced in stone, the front garden is planted with cherry trees and maples, while inside maple is the wood of choice for much of the reception rooms’ flooring.
VERDICT: A good, decent site, a large house, and a short city commute on offer at the €365,000 price level.
Sq m:194 (2,000 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4
BER rating: Pending
Broadband: Yes
A GOOD family home, with room inside and out, is how estate agent Michael Duggan of Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill describes the bungalow, Carraig Chróinín, at west Cork’s Dereenaspeagh.
Near the Three Lakes turnoff on the Cork-Bantry road, between Drimoleague and Drinagh, the four-bed house has all of its space on the level.
There’s about 2,000 sq ft in all right now, and that is including the multi-use 36’ by 16’ attached garage/workshop on the left-hand side.
The opposite end gable, meanwhile, is given over to a recently added on high ceilinged 15’ by 13’ sun-room, which really enhances the flow of usable living space for its occupants.
Standing on a very useful rural two acres with fruit, veg and flower plots, it was built about seven years ago, and the price now on resale has been reduced to €225,000, says Mr Duggan.
It has a front sitting room, a linked kitchen/family room 25’ deep and 11’ wide, leading to the bright and warm sun-room.
VERDICT: For those seeking room to spread out and into, Carraig Chróinín offer a lot for the money, and is rural without being remote, says its agent.
Sq m: 189 (2,033 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4
BER rating: Pending
Broadband: Yes
METICULOUS wins hands down — every time. Add in some taste and sophistication and hey presto, buyer’s delight.
Skehanagh House has just gone on the market — at the not insubstantial guide of €440,000.
Yet Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald feels it will sell very quickly because this house is a bit of a Tardis — you get no real idea of the total size of the four-bed detached at a quick glance, yet it’s huge inside, she says.
And it’s really lovely too — from the porcelain tiles on the hall to the huge kitchen/ diner which runs from back to front and the large windows and patio doors which bring the light inside.
The kitchen comes with a bank of Shaker maple units with large island and granite worktop and it runs into the dining area in an open plan layout.
There are rooms for most uses, including a formal lounge, which according to Norma Healy is beautifully proportioned, a living room, integrated dining room and fitted utility.
The bedroom wing includes the en suite master bedroom and three more double rooms, with main bathroom, all fully fitted with wardrobes and solid oak floors.
VERDICT: There’s absolutely no work involved here — just move in and unpack. Job.
Sq m: 327 (3,500 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 5
BER rating: Pending
Broadband: Yes
YOU don’t have to buy the whole 98 acre farm to get your hands on the Lismore period farmhouse at Toortane, just a mile and a half from the Gold Medal Tidy Towns award winning town.
Auctioneer Eamonn Spratt is selling the slice of local history, with roots back to the mid 1800s, by auction and he’s offering it in lots.
“Interest is 50/50 for the whole farm, or in lots, with good local inquiries, from wider afield, and from the UK as well,” he comments.
The main house is on offer on 7.5 acres, with some stone outbuildings and two paddocks, ideal for ponies and horses, notes Mr Spratt, who says it was first built for a Thomas Foley, as part of the Devonshire Estate.
A solid build, two-storey Toortane has four reception rooms and five overhead bedrooms and a number of the rooms have a dual aspect — great for light and garden views, whilst there’s also a backdrop of mature mixed hardwoods, coming into autumnal glories.
The house has numerous original features inside and out, sash windows, some stained glass windows etc.
Price guide is €350,000/400k, with the additional land guided at €10,000 an acre.
VERDICT: Just needing a bit of freshening up, Toortane is a rare farm/country living offer so close to Lismore.
Sq m: 261 (2,800 sq ft)
Bedrooms: 4
BER rating: Exempt
Broadband: Yes.
THERE’s certainly interest in period homes in Kinsale which need doing up: a recent sale, at Newman’s Mall in the town, saw over 200 viewings of a down-at-heel Queen Anne semi-detached home with seven bedrooms, huge promise, and lots of issues. It eventually sold for around €200,000 as a major renovation project, via Cork city agents Cohalan Downing.
Now, local Kinsale auctioneer Victoria Murphy has another fascinating property offer, the largely untouched and very original Stork House, above the town on Compass Hill.
It dates to the late 1760s, Ms Murphy reckons and “was owned by a sea captain, who died with no relatives and who left it to a grand-daughter of the original Stirk family, hence the amended house name Storks Nest”.
The slate-fronted three-storey house was originally one half of a pair of semis, and although the adjoining house was demolished years ago, there’s now planning to reinstate it.
Ms Murphy is offering Stork House at €400,000 on one third of an acre. For €575,000 you’ll get the house and the site next door on which to build the same again, only new.
VERDICT: This is so original, it gives purists and the brave the chance to do a period house rescue by the book, in a cracking Kinsale location.
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