Restored artisan cottage with ‘magically private’ backyard on Meath Street

Few of us get to try before we buy, but the owners of number 17 Meath Place, a single storey artisan cottage, got the chance to live in the property for several years before they bought it.

When they first rented it in 2015 they recall the property, at the Pimlico end of this side street connecting it to Meath Street, was already a “cute one-bedroom house”.

It had a formal living room to the front and a decent-sized back yard “that was magically private” and surrounded by ivy clad walls. They already knew the area, having lived on Reginald Street, just around the corner.

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Entrance hall

“It did not feel like living in the city. We fell in love with it then.”

Fast forward to a city break in Berlin when the pair saw an email from their landlady, the kind that most renters dread. She wanted to sell up but the silver lining was that she was offering them first refusal on the place.

They weren’t really thinking about buying, but the email prompted them to set up a savings account that they put money into every week.

They were both in good positions, in permanent and pensionable jobs and spent the next five months having friends around for dinner rather than going out. While they’re not pretending that they managed to rustle together a deposit in this time, “it motivated us to buy”, they explain.

In 2017 they paid €230,000 for it according to the property price register. The following year they got a dog and they realised they needed more space.

The couple were in the very lucky position to have fathers in the trade. One is a builder, the other a plumber and electrician. With such expertise in-house, they also hired architect Aoife Grogan of Optimise Home to help them reconfigure the layout.

Now all the rooms are set to the left of the tiled hall where the walls are painted India Yellow below the dado rail, and there is bench seating and a coat hook system designed to unburden you of all your outerwear.

What was once the sitting room is now a double bedroom, its original cast iron fireplace still in situ, amid a feature wall papered in a print by Louise Body, a design one of the women had spotted on Pearl Lowe’s Instagram feed years before.

Next door is the shower-room which is lit from above by a rooflight, has a large stall with a slate base and smart black brassware.

Adjoining it is the room the couple call their main bedroom. Bright, thanks to the installation of two large rooflights, this space does not have a window so under building regulations cannot be called a bedroom.

These spaces are all part of the original footprint of the cottage with good attic space above, accessed via a Stira.

In enlarging the property they added an open plan kitchen living room to the back that opens out to a now smaller yard, which is east-facing and private.

The space extends the width of the house and is home to a cobalt blue sofa, custom-made to fit the room by Monaghan-based Drumbriston, while the kitchen cabinetry was designed and fitted by Cullenview Interiors. The ceiling heights here are 2.4 metres.

Now a D2-rated house of 57sq metres/613sq ft, the property is asking €395,000 through agents Felicity Fox.

With a new baby, the girls are departing the city for life in Cork.