Architect Peter O'Malley and his wife Iris are building their dream home in Dalkey on a site that will give them panoramic sea views. But before that, they've built two large detached houses next door, living in each before selling on, and while building their final home.
Collingwood, a house on Dalkey Avenue facing The Metals close to the corner with Cunningham Road, is the second of the houses to go on sale. The couple moved into the detached modern five-bed in February this year, moving out of the first house they had built next door in 2014 and sold for €1.277 million.
Now Collingwood, the matching 265sq m (2,850sq ft) five-bedroom house, is for sale through Vincent Finnegan for €1.55 million. It has excellent views of Dublin Bay over towards Ringsend – though only from the main bedroom on the first floor, where O’Malley built a deep circular bay window.
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Neutral colours
The house is smart and efficient in every way: it has plenty of storage, an A3 energy rating, with underfloor heating downstairs, solar panels and triple-glazed timber windows, and a simple layout where the downstairs rooms all flow into each other. Colours are neutral, floors downstairs are light oak (in livingroom/diningroom) or light grey porcelain tiles (kitchen/ hall, downstairs bathroom). All the doors in the house and wardrobes upstairs are a smart pale oak.
The livingroom is a long room, stretching from the deep bay at the front – underneath the bedroom window – to double doors that connect it to a small snug/family room at the back. Glazed double doors open from here into the kitchen/breakfastroom/diningroom. The couple’s polished granite diningroom table matches the countertops, upstand behind the hob and breakfast bar in the kitchen.
A utility room off the kitchen has a wall of cupboards, and access to a side passage. French doors open from the diningroom and family room into the wide back garden.
The downstairs toilet – like all the en suites upstairs – is fully tiled. Next to it is a good-sized hall closet and study at the front of the house.
The beige-carpeted bedrooms are all doubles, all with good fitted wardrobes and with smart en suites – although two bedrooms share one. The fifth bedroom on the top floor – where there are views of the Dublin mountains from a dormer window – has a good-sized closet and more storage in the crawl space under the eaves.
Collingwood is opposite the last stretch of the The Metals – an old track from Dalkey Quarry to Dún Laoghaire – providing easy access to Ardbrugh Road and Dalkey and Killiney Hills. There is parking for two cars outside, with an electronic gate protecting a shared driveway to the two homes.
