Quality cottage in Cork’s Dunderrow worth viewing post haste...

Only the quality, and colour, of the front door, at the Old Post Office in Cork’s Dunderrow near Kinsale gives any hint there might be something a bit special within, at this cottage/bungalow extended home,a converted Post Office.

Right now, it’s falling a bit short on key ‘kerb appeal’ (but plans have been done up to improve that too) while inside all is uplifted, functional yet aesthetic, cheerful and bright. Indeed, there is a lot to please the eye and body here.

This family home with smart interior and cleverly re-ordered spaces last changed hands in 2005, when South African-born architects Jordaan and Karen Kemp moved to Cork from Dublin, with Jordaan taking up a lead architect role with Mahon-based design company Project Management (PM).

Working on the likes of pharmaceutical plants in Ireland and the US saw the proximity of Cork city and its airport as a bonus, while the couple also favoured Kinsale for its lifestyle offer, with low crime rates, top eateries, and the proximity of the sea and River Bandon were a bonus, as they are big into kayaking on sea, wave and river.

Set in the heart of Dunderrow which is a few miles upriver from Kinsale and home to major local employer Eli Lilly & Co, this dwelling is a former post office and was home too to postmistress Miss Lily Webb. The Kemps bought itback in 2005, and a priority for them was to get in and get living there as quickly as they could, without having to go for planning permission for facade and front elevation changes.

Thus, its extension was within the 40 sq m size exemption limit, and most other changes were internal in rooms’ reordering, getting rid of long, dead-end corridors, getting light in and opening it up to views down towards the river.

(Not entirely coincidentally, TV architect Dermot Bannon’s new book ‘Love Your Home’ tackles all the shortcomings of such typical Irish bungalows with remedies very much along the lines of those utilised here by his professional architect colleagues.)

Thus, the new main living space (replacing a former stable) has higher ceilings than the norm, open up to the roof, with Velux windows, garden access and orientation and a refurbed old pot-belly stove found on the grounds has since been pressed into hearth-warming duties.

Corridors have been shortened and brightened, and overgrown trees and shrubs cut back (“you could have lost a child in there,” quips Jordaan), to open up views towards the river Bandon below in the distance.

Now with a very connected-up kitchen/living/dining space, it’s a totally different home, with that sought-after open plan flow between them, and that other family requisite, storage and display space, is here in seeming abundance.

There are four bedrooms in all, two of them with en suites, and the master bedroom is off a short rear hall by the kitchen, next to the main family bathroom, with mosaic tiled bath/shower surround and side panel.

A few weeks into viewings, estate agent Ernest Forde of Hodnett Forde says it is getting attention from as far afield as Cork city as well as Kinsale and the hinterland, and he notices it seems to be hitting a chord with IT professionals, from the likes of Apple and EMC out Ovens way too.

Mr Forde admits that once people get inside, they see its true worth and character, and he bills it as “an architecturally redesigned family home with modern living space, on a site of about three-quarters of an acre.”

Floor-plan is irregular, almost cross-shaped, and the way the owners have eliminated corridors and made rooms flow can be gleaned from a floor plan handily supplied (along with an aerial image) on the Hodnett Forde website.

The design-savvy vendors are seeking to build from scratch in Kinsale, having got a site in the town; had they stayed here, they’d tackle the house’s less-than-inspiring front look next.

As there’s so much road frontage, they’d planned on closing up the existing entrance pillars and creating a more private courtyard, and fashioning a longer avenue along the gardens where there’s already a second entrance.

Most of the site is behind and private, with lots of room for further extension or even another building/granny flat, and several rooms open to a back patio, overlooking sloping lawns and mature pines, with glimpses down towards the river at Ballydawley.

VERDICT: Don’t judge a book by its cover, or a house by its roadside presence.

Dunderrow, Kinsale €375,000

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 3

BER Rating: D2

Best Feature: Architects’ stamp on interiors

“Once people get inside, they see its true worth”