House of the week

CALLED after a Dutch river, Amstel is a c 80-year-old house, about to leave its third generation of family ownership — and has never looked so good.

The semi-detached house is in quiet Marble Hall Park, by the start of the Douglas and Ballinlough Roads, a 10 minute amble from Cork city centre.

It has been handed down through the women of the family, and now after a major overhaul in 2005/06 is ready to walk into by new owners. In its back-end of a cul de sac setting, Amstel comes for sale with Ann O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald, who guides it at €395,000, and that’s for a four-bed 1,800 sq ft home with, literally, everything done to it, and done well.

It has been extended to the back, for a new kitchen/diner, with cheerful red gloss units making an assertive bid for attention, contrasting with fresh creaminess of a top-to-toe paint job.

That’s just to freshen the house up after a period of being carefully rented out, but truth be told, the quality of the work done indicates it was never done as a fast-buck rental.

All internal joinery — doors, skirting, architraves, etc, is in oak, as are much of the ground floor finishes, and the main, deep front bay windows are double glazed, in teak rise and falls sashes (made by Michael Coughlan in Ballydehob) to keep faith with the house’s vintage. Elsewhere, for ease of keeping, glazing is ‘practical’ white PVC.

All three bathrooms were re-done, with pumped showers, and even the ground floor guest WC has a shower. Tiles won’t date, and shower cubicles were fibreglassed behind them for longevity and water-proofing.

The owners travelled out and brought tiles in from Italy as they were doing up their own main family home at the same time, so everything has that slightly refreshing, ‘not seen everywhere’ look, and interior designer Fiona O’Keeffe has helped with the final decor and fabrics.

Apart from being fully re-plumbed, with condenser gas boiler running across four zones, the house has been re-wired, and most lighting is via recessed spotlights, bedrooms are neutrally carpeted, and have built-ins, and a new linen press has been provided, with a towel rad hidden inside for airing purposes. Floors were dug up at ground level, with Kingspan insulation put in, walls have been slabbed for insulation on the inside, and outside Amstel’s walls have been re-dashed. The roof, meanwhile, has been re-done in slate, as has the pitched roof over the sympathetic kitchen and utility room extension.

Thanks to that latter add-on, the house now is nearly 50’ deep, but despite growing on to the back, it doesn’t seem to have shut off light to the middle core or hall of this welcoming home. It’s helped by glazing, such as an extra, feature circular window beside the glazed front door, and internal doors to the two main reception rooms and kitchen beyond are also glazed and sandblasted, in unfussy oak frames.

Amstel seems to feel bigger than its quoted 1,800 sq ft of space, thanks to an extra wide hall and its very good ground level floor plan, and none of the four bedrooms overhead is particularly small: the en suite master bedroom is given an extra lift by its bay window bonus.

The house faces south, with front garden, tiled path, and wide drive for easy parking, while there’s a sheltering screen half way back along the gable wall to give privacy to the relatively compact back garden, with storage shed.

VERDICT: Amstel has been brought bang up to date, there’s nothing flashy, yet it’s all well done, a quality semi-d in a super-convenient setting.