Midleton home has a €38k garden room and more extras than a Ricky Gervais show

No 20 The Courtyard, Castleredmond has more going for it now than when it was built 22 years ago

Mon, 04 Mar, 2024 - 14:02

Catherine Shanahan Pictures: Tamas Haasz

Midleton, East Cork
€395,000
Size	93 sq m (1000 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
BER	C1

GIVEN our obsession with home makeover shows, maybe a new series could take the lead from the London project that champions innovative house improvements called “Don’t Move, Improve”. Obvious contenders would be the owners of this Midleton home. Over the last 22 years, they’ve made more improvements to No 20, The Courtyard, in Castleremond, than Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has made to its giant Starship ahead of its next test flight.

They’ve pumped stacks of cash in, from the €38,000 garden room, to the €10,000 Miele four-piece integrated kitchen set, (oven, steam oven, coffee machine, microwave).

An LG double fridge with a “quick look” window cost €2,500. Anyone unsure of what a “quick look” window is need only knock twice to find out. As the manufacturers tell us, it’s like a magic portal that lets you peek inside without disturbing the chilly internal equilibrium. Knock twice, and a tinted glass panel will reveal the contents.

It’s a winning combo of convenience-meets-energy efficiency.

Everything about the house interior at No 20 is carefully chosen. Some of the credit goes to Cork-based interior designer Fiona O’Keeffe, who trained in London at the Inchbald School of Design.

Her website says that she prides herself in creating a space that is “a true reflection of each client’s individual style”. Modern glamour and old-school elegance are reflected at No 20, where the homeowner’s line of work suggests that she is someone well versed in texture, shape and colour.

There’s great flair on display in the gardens too, where the professionals were also drafted in. Initially, the rear garden was nothing more than decking – until Charlie from the Pavilion Garden Centre in Ballygarvan was hired to come up with a re-design.

“The first time we did it, I was a bit naive. I didn’t want a back garden, I was working too hard to be bothered maintaining a lawn, so I decked the entire back garden. After a few years, I hated it,” the owner says.

Charlie’s design created a much more enjoyable space, divided between limestone patio (dining) and timber decking (lounging), in a split-level arrangement.

The patio is off the kitchen/dining room and the deck adjoins the garden room, by Dublin-based gardenrooms.ie, which is exempt from planning as it’s within the permitted square footage, the owner says. It has all the bells and whistles: heating, spotlights, timber flooring, sliding doors. It sounds ideal for anyone working from home who is looking to keep work and home life separate.

“My husband loves cooking and barbequing. We spend a lot of time out the back so that’s why the garden is done so well. We can go from indoors to outdoors to the garden room, and it’s great when entertaining. It’s essentially a large social space,” the owner says.

There’s an expensive water feature too, and an olive tree and downlights on some of the garden walls.

It’s as inviting a space as is possible to create in a standard-size back garden, where the garden room adds considerable “oomph”.

Out front is a bounty of buxom trees and shrubs, compact, slow-growing evergreens that Charlie comes and shapes twice a year.

The owner tends to them in between, with great dedication. All told, about €20,000 was spent on the gardens.

While her husband loves cooking, the owner loves coffee and the expensive built-in Nespresso machine in the solid wood kitchen makes five different kinds. The kitchen, by Glenline, is light grey with an expensive quartz worktop and there’s a couple of fancy taps, including a separate hot kettle tap with filtered water. There’s also a heating drawer and a wine fridge.

There are plenty of other extras around the house too.

There’s a step up to the bath in the fairly new main bathroom, fitted with spotlights and an entire former bedroom is now a walk-in wardrobe with fitted walnut drawers.

“It was on our wish list for years and when our daughter moved out, we took the opportunity. It’s still big enough to be a double bedroom,” the owner says.

Seven or so years ago, they converted the attic and insulated it, as well as pumping the walls to improve energy efficiency (the BER is C1). Plantation shutters were fitted on the rear windows; the front door is handmade (designed by the owner); and there’s also a handmade side gate with a keypad that matches the front door design. Essentially, no detail was overlooked when improving the house.

It’s fair to say that No 20 is at the top of its game, a better house now than when the owners bought it new in 2002. But after more than two decades of Don’t Move, Improve, they’ve decided to move on anyway.

Selling the 1000 sq ft house is James Colbert of Colbert & Co and he says it’s “one of the best finished houses I have seen in Midleton”.

“People mention ‘turnkey’ these days but there is genuinely nothing to do here only walk in and enjoy.

“When you consider new builds and the blank canvas you get with your keys, you still need furniture, carpets, appliances. Here you have almost €100,000 worth of extras just ready to go,” the agent adds.