This €395k Cork home has been seen by 18k Instagram followers

Pod Furniture shop owner Marie O'Donovan has used her own home as  a 'staging post': now, she's trading up and 'everything must go' (she'll go again!)  

Like it? Buy it. Buy it all. The owner will sell anything 12 The Lawn's new owners might fancy. What a job lot. Agent Stuart O'Grady guides at €395,000, furniture 'by negotiation.'

Donnybrook, Douglas Cork
€395,000
Size	130 sq m (1,400 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
BER	D1

LIKE the look? Buy it. Lock stock and barrel. Everything must go: “it all can be sold, and bought with house,” says the owner of the very well-dressed 12, The Lawn, in Cork’s Donnybrook, Marie O’Donovan.

Exterior of 12 The Lawn,  Donnybrook

Now, it’s not that Marie’s heartless, or that she hates her home, or is escaping to the moon, or needs the extra few bob.

It’s just because she’s a businesswoman, her business is sourcing and selling furniture; she can replace it at short notice and, her magpie eye might just clap on something newer, shinier, sleeker, or even more comfortable.

Interconnected rooms

As the co-owner with husband Conor Twomey of Pod Furniture, in St Patrick’s Mills, Douglas, and also active online with a warehouse in Dublin, Marie is used to scouring and scouting internationally for unusual pieces, following and creating trends and her home has had a walk-on role in her business success.

She has created luxe looks here and photographed them over several years to post to her Instagram account (it’s @podfurniture.ie) which has 18,000 followers.

A loo to view

“You can create more of an experience in a liveable space than in a shop,” says Marie, noting Instgram is all about looking and creating and says right now lots of influences are coming here from US creators.

En suite main bedroom

In a case of if you can’t beat them, join them, Marie has built up her following over hundreds of posts, many of them shot in her own home and is getting more into ‘how-to’ videos as well.

In a few months she might well be posting “How to sell your home and contents,” as No 12 hits the market with estate agent Stuart O’Grady of Sherry FitzGerald, with a €395,000 AMV … that’s for the home and fixtures and fittings, carpets, curtains, kitchen appliances, etc.

The rest is, as they say, negotiable, and is described in the property sales blurb as ‘loose furniture’, some of it likely to come from ranges she stocks like Ethnicraft, SITS and Skovby.

The 1,400 sq ft detached No 12 the Lawn is in the Westbrook section of Donnybrook, above Cork’s suburban Douglas and has been her home for nigh on 25 years, ever before meeting and marrying Conor.

It’s got an open plan kitchen/living/dining area, separate living room, and large utility, plumbed for WC use if necessary, and above one of the three bedrooms is en suite.

Yup, comfortable

Needless to say, it’s in showhouse condition (because it sort of is one) and features include wainscoting and wall panels, bespoke lights and bathroom fittings, and a mature back garden (with side access) with garden room with wiring and plumbing, plus a smaller implement shed with side passage access from front to back gardens.

Entrepreneurial Marie started her first furniture business, Jelly Bean, selling children’s furniture and bedding, and five years ago opened Pod Furniture, also at unit 107 in the former Douglas woolen mills which is also a locus for a wide range of interior design items, furniture, rugs, flooring and decor shops.

Dine at ease

There’s now a core and loyal team of about 10 in her businesses (“I have to give them a mention too”) and she and Conor are doing a short leapfrog past the shop, from Donnybrook to move to a 1960s estate off the Douglas Road.

Ergonomic flow too

“It will be a bigger house and we can use it for the business,” she explains, giving the strong impression that she can’t wait: “I love buying for the business, and buying for the house.”

The couple’s next home needs updating, and there’s a suspicion the challenge will be tackled with relish, if not Insta-shadowed, but for house-hunters who haven’t the energy for work, or shipping, or shifting furniture, well, No 12 The Lawn will fit like a glove.

VERDICT: There’s bound to be a sort of ‘tyre-kicker’ curiosity factor here among style-istas to see what works and what fits and what can be copied, taken as ‘inspiration’ or bought, separately

The vendors might as well put price stickers on their home-pod possessions right now.....