DUBLIN AND GALWAY €1.8M AND €3.8M:The designers of these two houses have paid lots of attention to light and links with the exterior

BEHIND ITS quietly contemporary facade the interior of 27 Bellevue Park, Booterstown, Co Dublin, is a surprise. It is far more dramatic and soaring in style than the teak framed windows and off-white rendering would suggest.

It has an atrium-like family area, overlooked by a mezzanine drawingroom, and a walled courtyard designed to become an integral part of the kitchen/dining room. Each of the four bedrooms are different. In this house architect Cathal Crimmin's design creates a palatial feel which belies the 204sq m (2,200sq ft) of floor space. Built on a garden site, the colours throughout are the contrasting tones of dark walnut floors, doors and fittings and luminous cream walls.

It's a smart house too, neatly computerised so that a touch brings such as heating, lighting, window blinds and flat-screen TVs to life. There are three levels, something else not apparent from the outside, and windows throughout which vary in size and design to make a statement about the spaces they illuminate.

The house has four bedrooms, an open-plan, L-shaped kitchen/dining/family area and drawingroom. The private treaty sale is through Lowe & Associates and the price is €1.8 million.

A high gloss laminate and walnut fitted kitchen and the dining area run alongside a five-panel sliding glass door/wall which opens to allow unfettered access to the sheltered, granite-paved patio with slimline fountain.

The dramatic, double height of the family room doesn't detract from its comfort, nor from the urge to relax in front of the narrow, gas/pebble dancing flame-effect fire under the plasma TV.

A first floor balcony over the patio is glass fronted, as is the mezzanine drawingroom overlooking the family room. The main bedroom, also on this floor but feeling a world away from the kitchen, has a high, peaked ceiling, a wall of windows and en suite shower.

A second bedroom on this level has a raised area. Two other bedrooms are on the second floor, one of them attic-style with a double Velux.

The family bathroom is up here too, and has a free-standing bath on blocks.