You won’t need to get the builders in at this €495,000 Douglas Drive home

FOR a lesson in how to get the most from your home without running the risk of financial ruin, see No 12 Douglas Drive, aka Abbeymount, where the couple did just the right amount to improve it, without blowing the bank.

In saying that Mary and Michael Brennan did invest the bones of €72,000 in their Ballinlough home, but managed to make it go a long way.

While previous owners had built on a conservatory and an en suite to the rear of the house, the Brennans did some smart renovating, raising the roof and reinstating a large skylight; replacing windows around the conservatory, replastering walls and putting in new French doors to the garden.

 It’s a brighter, airier space now, with the garden providing a nice backdrop for diners.

The rear section of No 12 was much more enclosed when the Brennans bought the house in 2013. “My late dad said ‘You can’t buy this place it’s like the Black Hole of Calcutta’,” Mary laughs. The kitchen was a galley and the remaining space was divided in two. Now it’s all open plan and much more functional: kitchen, living area with stove, dining/sunroom and WC/utility. 

A separate reception room to the front has a feature electric fireplace.

Renovations were also undertaken upstairs: walls were moved to make the box room and bathroom bigger and the house was re-plumbed, re-wired and re-plastered.

Having improved the layout of the house substantially in 2013/2014, they took on more work during covid. The misery of a cancelled trip to Disneyworld was marginally offset by being in a position to fund a garage conversion. 

It delivered an ever-so-convenient downstairs shower room, with space too to work from home. 

There’s access off the hallway and from the front of the property.

Abbeymount has garden front and back and the rear garden is a particularly lovely space: the warm tones of an Indian sandstone patio extend beyond the dining area; flower beds are marked out by stones from Fountainstown beach. Enclosed and not overlooked, it’s a low maintenance green oasis. 

Having done all the work, the Brennans are now returning to Capwell, where Mary is from, to the family home, where another renovation project awaits.

She’s been edging closer to it for years, having made the move from Carrigaline to Douglas Drive, which she spotted on the return leg of a holiday to Boston, as she browsed through houses on the drive home from Shannon Airport.

“It was 5am in the morning, and we made an appointment to look at it the same day,” she says.

Selling 124 sq m Abbeymount is Jeremy Murphy of Jeremy Murphy & Associates and he says “the big thing is that it’s ready-to-go”.

“So often with houses around here, you have to get the builders in, but not this one,” Mr Murphy says. The energy rating is excellent too, he says (a B3, so better green mortgage rates are available).

The guide price for the three-bed semi-d is €495,000.

VERDICT: Nimbly-done renovations created a fresh-faced, walk-in home. Mature neighbourhood, great location, with plenty of schools and green areas. Douglas village is a 10 minute walk away.