Where there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place

Caroline Delaney is impressed with this well-laid-out semi-detached bungalow in Cloyne, Co Cork

Cloyne, Co Cork

Price: €225,000

Size: 92.9sq m (1,000sq ft)

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 2

BER: C1

You look at some homes and imagine “I’d have dinner parties every weekend if I had that dining table” or “I’d get at least three Newfoundland pups if I had that garden”. Well, look at 15 The Crescent, Lus an Ime and see if your first thought isn’t how neat and organised you’d be if you lived here.

From the crisp lines of the exterior with its attractive muted sage colour teak front door to the methodically laid-out kitchen/dining room with plenty of eye- and floor-level cupboard space, this house is quietly, but not minimally, tidy.

Neutral and earth-toned floor and wall tiles in the kitchen give individual and special utensils or art a chance to shine. Likewise, the polished hall and living room floors and neutral walls will allow a new owner to bring virtually any colour or style couch and furniture.

Built in 2009 by local developer Kenneally Developments Ltd, there are 20 other houses in this particular development.

Kenneally Developments also built the popular Meadows and Traonach developments.

The name Lus an Ime comes from the plethora of buttercups in the local fields — and a salute to the developer’s wife’s grá for Gaeilge and fondness for these cheery little flowers. And appropriately for housing development, the 1960s hit, ‘Build Me Up, Buttercup’ was sung by a group called The Foundations.

This semi-detached bungalow, which is attractively stone-clad at the front, has three bedrooms — the main one is en suite.

There is side access via a gate — extremely handy for moving everything from lawnmowers to bins and keeping the house interior as neat as a pin.

This house had been under offer but the bidder had another offer accepted so this one is now available for a buyer who may have missed out the first time around.

Houses here are popular — a scan of the Property Price Register reveals that 10 have sold in the past three years — many to first-time buyers and young families.

Helen Kearney of CCM Property Network notes that while Cloyne has so much going for it, a big draw here is also the proximity to Midleton. “You’ve got pubs, shops, restaurants, a primary school and a creche in Cloyne and you’re only 10 minutes away from Midleton where a lot of people living locally go to work,” she says.

St Colman’s National School in Cloyne is a few minutes’ walk away from this quiet cul-de-sac and there’s a creche locally as well.

Weekends and days off would surely feature trips to some of the local beaches - Ballynamona, Garryvoe, Ardnahinch, Ballywilling and Ballycrenane.

And the fab Ballycotton cliffs are a treat on gorse-scented summer days and cobweb-clearing gusty days alike.

Heating is oil-fired and Helen notes that a water-softener unit has recently been installed — one of the boring-but-very-useful jobs ticked off the list then.

VERDICT: Everything in its place — could this be your place?