Dublin 4: €525,000 A refurbished home between the docks and the beach offers a contemporary living space, writes Rose Doyle

Caught between the docklands developments on one side and Sandymount Strand on the other, Irishtown in Dublin 4 offers a lot that is best in both of the city's worlds. Pembroke Street, where the houses date from the early 1900s, is right in the middle of Irishtown.

Redesigned and rebuilt, 16 Pembroke Street, for sale by private treaty through Gunne, has the smooth harmony of a well-thought out, contemporary living space. The mid-terrace two-storey home has two bedrooms, two reception rooms and a great deal of light filling its 76sq m (820sq ft) floor area. The agent is taking offers over €525,000.

Home to Gavin Kelly, director of Piranha Bar Studios, his film editor wife, Julie Hennessy, and their two children, the house number in stainless steel on a white exterior is an indication of what to expect on the other side of the threshold.

Here architects Simon Walker have made clever use of a great deal of glass in a two-storey rear extension. The white kitchen walls are lit by a glass ceiling and light pours through the house from an atrium-like structure, from skylights and walls of glass on two levels.

This emphasis on light is a feature too in the polished cement (sand laced to lighten and illuminate) of the livingroom floor and fireplace to the strip-of-glass ceiling in the galley-style guest toilet.

In the livingroom, which opens from the small entrance hall, a red, neon glow under polished-cement shelves adds a subtle touch of decadence. It's a cement step down from here to the diningroom, where three of the walls have been filled with shelving.

The kitchen ceiling highlights the polished timber floor, white walls, grey worktops and steel appliances.

Interesting design touches include a bath/shower in the family bathroom built into a glass niche and storage in the main bedroom which uses the stairs alongside to create stepped and pull-out shelving. From the guest bedroom you can look into the kitchen below or across Ringsend Park.

You could also exit, via a rear glass door, onto a timber walk precariously positioned alongside the glass roof of the kitchen.

A wall of black painted, panelled wood relieves the shining white of the other walls in the paved and pebbled rear patio. There is rear vehicular access and a garage.