Interiors: eight ideas for spring

1 A seating sea change 
Seaweed, a resource in which Ireland is rich, has often been an underrated material. You can swaddle sushi in it, soak in it, eat it in ice cream or use it in vaccines and fertiliser. Now, two Danish designers, Jonas Edvard (jonasedvard.dk) and Nikolaj Steenfatt (steenfatt.dk), have transformed the slimy substance into a collection of beautiful items for the home, prototyping a dining chair and a series of lampshades made from it (see image above). When dried, the alginate, a naturally occurring polymer, is ground up into powder and then mixed to a glue-like consistency, so that it becomes a malleable material which the designers liken to cork.

2 Make furniture

multitask Most of us live in spaces with limited storage, so every item you put in your home should work hard for you. The Vista Girevole bookcase system, by Massimo Luca for Albed (0039-0362-36-7112,

[ Albed.it ]

), acts as both as a repository for your reading matter and as a room divider. Each bookcase, 80cm by 43cm, is open on both sides and can rotate on its axis to flip around. It is attached to sliding panels set into the floor and overhead beam, so the shelving can close to form a dividing wall when you want to shut off an area of an open-plan room.

The shelving, available in three heights (212cm, 240cm and 268cm) is both decorative and functional, and costs from €2,408 per unit, including rails, excluding delivery.

3 The Tudor home

2.0 BBC2’s

Wolf Hall

, a drama of intrigue, lust, betrayal and general bad behaviour in the court of England’s King Henry VIII, is one of the new series glueing goggleboxers to their screens. Channel the look at home with a twist on the Tudor riff by using a Peacock chair designed by Dror

Benshetrit

(studiodror.com) for Italian firm

Cappellini

(capellini.it). Made from three sheets of felt and a minimal metal frame, the folds are woven tightly to form the structured but comfortable lounge chair. There is no sewing, weaving or upholstery involved. The chair, however, costs a king’s ransom – €7,150 in one colour, €8,880 in two colours – from Minima (01-6337716,

[ minima.ie ]

).

4 Art as glass

The Fondation Vincent Van Gogh in Arles, Provence, features a Raphael Hefti installation set above the roof of its atrium. Entitled The violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red house, it consists of coloured glass fins that cast shards of colour into the interior, fading as the light becomes stronger in summer and intensifying again when the season changes. Adrian Lambe, a director with Dublin architect Douglas Wallace Consultants (douglaswallace.com), loves the installation’s inherent simplicity and the way the light plays a changing role. He can see how the idea would translate into a residential environment if you paid homage to Hefti by using sheets of perspex (of various shapes and sizes) instead of glass and hanging them under a roof so that they project colour and pattern into a space. Depending on the scale of the plans, he believes such an installation would cost in the region of €2,500 to €5,000.

5 Baring all in the bedroom

Sleeping well is the new selling point in the luxury-hotel sector, with the US leading the slumber charge. A pillow menu is no longer enough. The Westin Hotel, which led the way in bedroom restfulness more than a decade ago with its specially commissioned beds, has now introduced sleep monitors that track restlessnesses.

Atlanta's Crowne Plaza has installed padded headboards to minimise sound transfer, while Las Vegas's MGM Grand has invested in more supportive mattresses along with what it calls "dawn simulation", whereby guests are gently awakened with gradually increasing levels of light and sound. Paring back the room to a bare and simple set-up also helps create a restful environment. An aesthetically pleasing bedroom helps too. The Mah Jong bed, in a Missoni fabric, for €5,170, and felt Corum side table, €1,220, both Roche Bobois (01-6531650, roche-bobois.com/Dublin), help to create a calm, decluttered space.

6 Think vertically

The French botanist Patrick Blanc first mooted the idea of a living wall (

[ verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com ]

). His work can be seen in the chic Paris hotel Pershing Hall and on the exterior of the Musée du Quai Branly.

It's an idea that has flourished further in the work of Eoghan Riordan Fernandez, of Greystones-based Sequoia Design (086-1080045, sequoiadesign.ie), who is greening spaces in Dublin, including one at Crampton Court, just off the quays in Temple Bar. In the home, he suggests using them to divide up large open-plan spaces.

They will need maintaining, as much as houseplants or a small garden would, but a good irrigation system is the secret to keeping them healthy. A small one-metre-square framed garden that can be hung indoors or outside costs from €300.

7 Pastels with punch

Say goodbye to grey and hello to punchy pastels that will refresh your interior with a single coat of paint. The Crown colours Gentle Yellow and Winterbloom each cost €26.99 per 2.5 litres (crownpaints.ie), and a floor-mounted slab of texture is key to keeping this colourscape from looking flat.

Try a panel of corrugated iron roofing painted a flat and warm white. Corrugated panels have been used by savvy designers to create wavy blocks of interest and they work really well with concrete to create all manner of panelling from wall features to wainscoting to shower walls. Pinterest (pinterest.com) has oodles of visually interesting ideas. A pale-pink acrylic chair adds another veil of colour.

8 Shower praise on new washrooms

Kohler’s Moxie rainshower head and wireless speaker means you can drench yourself in your favourite music as you shower yourself awake.

Each head features water-saving air-induction technology with 80 angled nozzles delivering an all-encompassing spa-like spray.

The showerhead comes in two sizes, the small spraying two gallons a minute, the large 2.5 gallons a minute. The Bluetooth-operated speaker sits in the middle of the head, is battery operated and held in place magnetically.

You can hear the sound quality at Davies (davies.ie) showrooms in Raheny (01-8511700) and Kilmacanogue (01-2765689), where the small version is priced €159. The device comes in four colours: retro blue, chartreuse green, navy blue and cherry red.