Address: 19 Fairfield Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 9
Price: €895,000
Agent: Sherry FitzGerald
View this property on MyHome.ie
In the heart of Glasnevin village, 19 Fairfield Road is a 1920s redbrick with the Botanic Gardens at one end of the road and Griffith Park at the other. Now fully renovated, the three-bedroom house is a perfect blend of period charm and modern efficiency.
It wasn’t always this way, however. When the current owner first viewed it in 2014, it was in a sorry state.
“At the time it was very unloved, but structurally sound,” he recalls. “I remember the first time we were in it, you could barely see through the front bay window as it was so dilapidated, but you could definitely see the potential with the high ceilings and the original fireplaces, and it was just flooded with light.
“We loved it from the first time we saw it.”
From 2015 to now, the property has had three rounds of renovations. The first one was the most extensive, taking the best part of a year to complete.
“That was when all the heavy lifting was done, like taking the floors up and laying new reclaimed ones from Wilson’s Yard,” says the owner. “The hardest part of the job was the bay window. They had to take it down fully and rebuild it. The guy we used made a full new timber-frame piece. He did such a good job, but it took months. We were living there with the thing boarded up the whole time.”
The granite sill above the window was also replaced with a new piece of stone, cut to match the curves of the window. The original railings around the front of the house had been removed, so new ones were made to match the original design.
The less glamorous but all-important jobs such as insulating, replumbing, rewiring and replacing all the windows were also done at this stage.
Entrance hall 
Livingroom 
Kitchen 
Diningroom
Creating a house that was comfortable to live in all year round was top of the list for the owners, so in 2022 they set about upgrading further. The house received a whole new roof, a porch door was put on to the front and a stove was installed in the livingroom.
“That all just kind of really transformed it in terms of comfort and brought the energy rating up to a B3,” says the owner.
The same year, the gardens were redesigned. The front was landscaped with a new granite path up to the door. The rear garden now has one patio near the house and another seating area and bench at the end of the lawn to make the most of the sunshine, with borders full of trees and plants.
The 114sq m (1,227sq ft) house, which is on the market seeking €895,000 through Sherry FitzGerald, has been tastefully decorated, allowing for the original features to shine, from the stained-glass insets in the hall door to the plasterwork in the reception rooms. The ground floor has a livingroom which opens into the diningroom through pocket doors. The kitchen is fully fitted and has doors out to the patio.
Upstairs the principal bedroom spans the width of the house with not one, but three sash windows looking out to the road. There are two more bedrooms and a bathroom with a free-standing bath. The attic has been converted and is currently set out as an office.
Principal bedroom 
Converted attic 
Rear garden
It is not an easy house to say goodbye to, but with a change in work circumstances, the owners are moving on but are proud of the work they have done to it in their time there.
“The homes on the road are gorgeous old houses so all we did was try to capture that and bring it out as best we could. Also, you can underestimate how important it is to be comfortable and warm in older houses, so now for us in winter in that front room we close the pocket doors and light the stove and it’s so cosy, and then in the summertime, it’s full of light.”