House of the week

MILLION-euro plus houses at Limeworth are now hovering back down at the half million mark, and that’s for the last new builds remaining.

But at No 2 Limeworth, one of the first built houses in the estate, the guide price is an attractive €485,000, for a significantly extended and expensively finished house, on a large site.

No 2 is a five-bed, detached house with a large sun room extension and bathroom fittings that top €30,000, according to the owners.

And if it’s a headache-free, easy to move into buy that’s worth viewing.

These Limeworth houses were created on the back of the much-needed fast route to the South Ring and the entrance is minutes from the slip road to the N22 and in a handy position for the western suburbs.

Settled in nicely over the last 10 years, the low density, detached-only scheme is a boon to on-call medics and safe for families with small children. The lower half of the estate has no through traffic and its central green is a perfect playground.

Set at the entrance to the Carriganarra scheme, No 2 is not overlooked at the rear, (there is farmland and a country house entrance adjoining) and has a very priv ate, enclosed rear garden. Here, there’s the sun room addition which is double the average size and runs off the main kitchen/dining space.

The kitchen is only a year old and is country style in vanilla, with black granite work top which run through to the sun room and dining room.

Double doors can close off each area when necessary and the dining room has an Italian laquered suite, in cream with dramatic cream and white wall paper highlights.

Wallpaper is also used to good effect in the main hallway, which runs laterally from the entrance porch with the main staircase climbing from the right between the kitchen/dining/sunroom and a snug, west-facing lounge.

The piece de resistance of the house, the formal living room, has not been finished by the owners, who are relocating, but it’s a perfect space for entertaining. Running east-west, with dimensions of 724’ by 13’, the room overlooks the front garden and has French doors at the other end to a large, patio at the rear. The centre of the room is taken up with an impressive and quite unusual cast iron fireplace and you could imagine cosy family Christmasses here — it’s plenty big enough.

All of the ground floor rooms have elegant, wide plank oak flooring, including the lounge which is a perfect, telly-watching space.

On the upper level, the landing runs around a bit, giving a two-wing feel to the accommodation. Firstly, there’s the master suite which, along with the main bathroom, comes with some very high-falutin’shower and bath systems. The main bathroom has an enclosed corner tub that’s a jacuzzi, steam room, multi-jet power shower and all round spa. The master bedroom’s fitting are similar, but on an en suite scale.

The master connects to the second, double bedroom through the en suite, (handy for a nursery) and the third, smallest bedroom is now a fully shelved, dressing room. The fourth bedroom is also en suite and the final room is a good double: most of the bedrooms are fully fitted and storage is not a problem, plus, there’s attic space as well as a huge, garage/ shed to the rear of the house.

The brand new Gaelscoil Úi Ríordáin, which is under construction a field away, will be just a minute’s walk from this house when completed.

VERDICT: Not only has it plenty of room, in a good low density estate, but it’s also close to schools, shops and Ballincollig town centre while the Ballincollig bypass runs to the rear of the estate.