How can calm, modern interiors be achieved in miniature spaces? How can individualism be stamped on a room that might otherwise be numbingly bland? How can clever ideas deliver more panache than bundles of cash? These were the key questions that some of the most inspiring room sets in the Irish Times Interior Design Forum at last week's PMPA Ideal Home Exhibition answered with verve.
The funkiest space by far was the 1950s Studio created by James Kennedy, a young furniture and interiors designer who has so far managed to run his company, Surface Design, in tandem with an acting career. (He played the lead in the Abbey's production last year of Tarry Flynn.) Assisted by his friend, fashion designer Sholto Williams, Kennedy devised an amusing and very inventive 1950s look for a small studio apartment - essentially a livingroom with a tiny shower room at one end and a kitchen area at the other.
Against a backdrop of white and lilac walls stood various pieces of furniture designed by James Kennedy, mainly in MDF painted with a dark, wood-effect finish - a surfboard coffee table; a two-tone screen; a long console with open storage compartments. In the kitchenette, MDF cut with an asymmetrical, wavy edge and painted ice blue made a striking worktop to support both sink and hob. Next to it, a matching pale blue kitchen cabinet, made to Kennedy's design by Scottwood of Nottingham, complete with fluted glass doors and drop-down counter, looked like a miraculously pristine 1950s original. A retro Bosch fridge reinforced the period feel. With a slender cream leather and steel Ligne Roset sofa from Minima, the only really expensive item on display, the Studio showed how much creativity can achieve on a relatively slender budget.
Catriona Shaffrey's Modern Dining was altogether different - an exercise in modern classicism. Restraint and simplicity emerged as critical forces, enabling this Dublin designer, whose main interest is office interiors, to turn a limited rectangular space into a smart and uncluttered but supremely practical dining area for six. If there is still anybody out there who hasn't moved their eating habits permanently into the kitchen, this was the kind of approach that might prompt a diningroom revival.
Peacock walls were a bold foil to light beech furniture with slender proportions from Foko. A narrow table with an extending roller top was paired with tall chairs whose shiny black seats went well with a Le Corbusier chaise longue off to one side. A huge square of space-enhancing mirror entirely filled the area above a shallow sideboard, flanked on either side by a grid of beech storage units. Three small lights in opaque white glass, dangling low over the table, and equally plain fan-shaped wall lights from the same source, the Light Store in Donnybrook, bathed the dining area in gentle light.
The vibrant personalities of Bibi Chambers and Noel Doyle of the Cork-based design company, Inside Architecture, came through in A Modern Kitchen for the Millennium - along with a welcome measure of originality. The focal point was a circular island unit with a split-level top of bright blue ochre and cream mosaic tiles. The hob was on one side, the sink at a slightly lower level on the other. Why? So that a circular mosaic-and-glass table top on a pivot could flip out for dining and slide back over the work area when not in use, without the taps getting in the way. The question had to be asked, alas, because the stand space proved a fraction too narrow to accommodate this clever design extra. The kitchen floor was another attraction. The main part was stainless steel chequerplate - readily available and not too expensive, the designers pointed out - but flush with this in a wide circle around the island unit was an area of toughened glass, sand blasted with foodie words like "pasta" and "champagne". Beneath this, illuminated by under-floor lighting, sat a handsome collection of large stones, making the floor next to the island look like the bed of the sea.
Both the base of this unit and the tall presses around the walls - - designed to hide away as many ugly appliances as possible - were made in MDF by John Goggin of Longueville in Co Cork and sprayed silver with Japlac - an inexpensive alternative to stainless steel, with the advantage that it can easily be repainted when the steel craze wanes. In the meantime, the silver finish looked well next to vivid jade green walls.
The Cyber Creche devised by Swords-based designer Jennifer Ree was an explosion of colour - a room that must have given her as much fun to concoct as it would give any child to inhabit. She was responsible for many of its most striking features, from the marmoleum floor design, incorporating hopscotch and snakes and ladders, to the zany denim curtains on to which she had tacked bright fabric patches. Giving free rein to an imagination as active an any five-year-old's, Ree also added other playful touches - using fabric paints, for instance, to turn a basic, square bean bag into a giant dice.
Colourful bunk beds with a slide for descent to the floor and a corner computer desk came from the House of Denmark. To match these readymade pieces, Jennifer Ree designed a sweet little wardrobe with a pointy roof and shelves projecting out to either side. Needless to say, this unit was painted in a multitude of colours before she added the final decorative touch - glueing computer disks in various shades to the wardrobe door. With fun lights - a free-standing red sun and a pendant yellow sun from Light Plan in Fairview, and cheerful accessories from Habitat, such as a toy-train of picture frames - the Cyber Creche was the liveliest room set in the show.
