North Strand cottage with digital interiors added for €355k

The villa-style cottages of North Strand may look tiny from the outside but their exteriors can belie sometimes Tardis-like interiors. They also have generous ceiling heights of more than 3m that help to make the relatively small rooms feel far more spacious.

Traditionally these split-level houses have a parlour to the front with smaller, less impressively high ceilinged rooms to the rear and with stairs leading up a half-level to bedrooms and down a level to the kitchen. Number 15 Spencer Street North, a two-bed house of 90sq m /968sq ft for sale and asking €395,000, is configured this way.

Around the corner is number 29 Leinster Street East, a three-bedroom house also of 90sq m / 968sq ft seeking €355,000. It was originally part of a shop that extended onto Spencer Street North and was divided into two units.

The layout has been changed to take advantage of the good ceiling heights and is evident in the second set of windows that sit below the brick surround of the original windows.

This double vision brings valuable southern light into the lower level to the galley kitchen and dining room to the front.

The house now opens into a small hall. The stairs lead down to a living room to the rear. It overlooks a north-facing back yard that extends to over 15sq m. To the right is a utility area and a downstairs shower room, which the current owners added some years back.

There is a decent dining area of 16sq m which leads through to a bijou kitchen that is just over 3sq m in size.

Virtually staging

The house has been “virtually” staged for sale with digital interiors added to the room photography, and the visualisation tool is useful to show how the place could look, with some minor decorative works. They make the property look very smartly presented but upgrades are also required, including insulation to improve the E2 Ber rating.

This could be added externally to the rear but the front wall will need an internal solution on account of the fact that it sits flush with the pavement, meaning disruptive digging up of the pavement to create a thermal break. If the walls are of a block-built construction, these cavities can be filled, a less costly and disruptive solution, especially in smaller homes where you can’t afford to lose valuable wall and ceiling space.

Upstairs, there are three bedrooms as well as a second shower room, especially helpful if you would like to rent a room. Two of these are decent doubles; one measures 13.5sq m, the other almost 13sq m. The third bedroom is just under 6sq m, so while smaller than current building regulations require, will still make a good nursery, child’s room or home office.

Agent Sam Agar puts the ceiling heights at about 9ft/ 2.7m upstairs at bedroom level and 8ft/2.4m downstairs with the lower level the standard ceiling height.