DesignSolutions: Eoin Lyons offers some solutions to design problems

Problem: Italian interior designer Michaela Mantero lives in Dublin with her Irish husband. She works on residential projects and moved to her own new home about a year ago.

The three-storey house was newly built but, like a lot of others, it had surprisingly little storage space for domestic bits and pieces such as a vacuum, ironing board, laundry basket and so on. She had nowhere to put the kind of things usually found in a utility room.

"There was none built onto the kitchen and nowhere to put those things you don't want sitting in the kitchen," recalls Michaela.

"Under the staircase in the hall was a cupboard - but because the door was so tiny I couldn't use all the space. The area underneath the bottom half of the stairs was wasted."

To add insult to injury, it was also a really ugly door and not very attractive in a hall opposite the entrance to the livingroom.

Solution: Michaela designed two panelled doors that fit along the front of the staircase and when open they allow her use the entire space underneath it.

Things can now be lifted in and out easily, as needs be. It's a simple idea that could be adapted to any standard staircase.

"The partition-type wall that was there had to be broken down and a timber frame built onto which the doors could be hinged," says Michaela. "Ray Shields of Natural Wood Designs in Co Laois did it for me.

"He's really very good and also makes wardrobes and kitchens. The details are finished perfectly and that makes a big difference. He's not cheap I have to say. It cost €1,200 to do it all, including making and fitting the doors. But it's not worth trying to save money on these things. It could have looked cheap if not done the right way.

"People tend to think of halls as spaces to pass through, but they give the first impression of your home." The staircase is the biggest feature in this hall and, apart from creating storage, the other point of the whole project was also to make the room more attractive and get rid of the ugly little door. It's nothing fancy but "the panelled effect just makes it a little nicer", says Michaela.

"I wanted a streamlined look so you wouldn't know there were doors there at all. So we used press and release catches instead of handles. "When they're closed, everything is flush to the wall." Best of all, no one would ever guess that behind it all are the items, such as the humble ironing board.

PHONE BOOK

Natural Wood Designs, Rathmiles, Killenard, Portarlington, Co Laois
0502 26483/087 2761684

Michaela Mantero
087 6821269