Dublin 14 €1.15million:This Churchtown four-bed in a good location has a family-friendly layout, a new extension with more room to expand and is set in beautiful gardens

Acorn Lodge must be one of the oldest houses on Lower Churchtown Road and it certainly has one the most beautiful gardens in the area. The redbrick semi-detached bungalow was built as one of a pair in the 1860s and it sits on a third of an acre of lush, mature gardens. The four-bedroom house is for sale through Sherry FitzGerald for €1.150 million.

Its owner, a committed and inventive gardener, moved in more than 25 years ago, by which time the house had already been renovated and was laid out with two en suite bedrooms. Both bedrooms have access to the back garden.

Gracious proportions

The current owners kept that layout but did make some significant changes. Once you step into the hall, it's very much a period house with tall ceilings, window shutters and decorative plasterwork. There are two gracious, beautifully proportioned reception rooms, one on either side of the front door, both of which have large bay windows.

The current owners kept one reception room as a formal living room and it has a beautiful marble fireplace reclaimed by previous owners from a grander house elsewhere. On the other side of the hall there were two equally large square rooms, the front reception room and the kitchen at the back. They knocked through to make a very large, bright and particularly family-friendly space.

The kitchen with its large scrubbed pine table in the middle, and timber cupboards lining the walls has a lovely country feel and it opens out to the garden. To make room for a growing family they extended to the side, adding a two-storey extension that leads off the kitchen. This has two more bedrooms, both en suite. The downstairs part of the new and very sympathetically designed extension, is a large family room, currently used as a home office. So much of this house is all about the garden: this room also leads out to the back garden.

The extension also provided for a garage which new owners could easily extend into.

Beautiful gardens

Even at this dreary time of the year the gardens, which extend around the side of the house are beautiful, with fruit trees, other mature trees, an impressive range of evergreens, and wisteria that has been there longer than the current owners and must be lovely when it is full of colour in spring and summer. At the end of the garden, beside the thriving vegetable plot, is a large, redbrick potting shed.

There is good frontage along the Churchtown Road and previous owners obtained planning permission to build a house to the side of Acorn Lodge. The current owners were not interested in pursuing it, and so that planning has now lapsed.

There is off-street parking for a couple of cars to the front.

Acorn Lodge, 80 Lower Churchtown Road, Dublin 14

Description: Four-bedroom period house on one-third of an acre, bright, beautifully proportioned rooms and a fabulous garden

Agent: Sherry FitzGerald