Doing it for yourself

Sawn-off kitchens

To create a feeling of space in your kitchen, saw the solid plinths off the bottom of your kitchen units and replace them with adjustable steel legs. Any steel merchant can make these up and they are fixed to the units with screws. Seeing the continuation of the floor and the fact that the units appear to be floating pieces of furniture create the illusion of space.

Look - no handles

Keep your kitchen unit doors flush and plain. Replace them with plain MDF custom-made doors with bloom hinges (which you can't see from the outside). Spray the doors to the colour of your choice. If you keep overhead units light in colour and floor units darker it will give the feeling of height in your room. For a sleek minimalist look do away with kitchen door handles. Ask your carpenter to incorporate shadow gaps, between the top of the door and the counter, which you can open by sliding your fingers in. Alternatively, attach touch latches which are opened by pressing the cupboard door.

Lighten up

Update your lighting and establish a mood by doing away with the one central pendant light. If you can't do that, install dimmer switches so you can change the mood. Ask an electrician to install 5 amp plug sockets at the wall so that you can turn on all your lamps at the main switch. Installing recessed floor lighting with low voltage lamps under sofas and behind furniture can give a soft halo of light which encourages people to relax and sit down. Do away with the standard strip light over the bathroom mirror. Conceal fluorescent tubes behind mirrors and create a halo of light around the edge. You'll have to back the mirror with plywood and baton it out from the wall. If you want to illuminate original cornicing in hallways, do so with a modern commercial uplighter (try ECI Lighting 01-8601860) and a low-voltage lamp.

Old and new

If you're updating a Georgian or Victorian house, keep as many of the existing features as possible. A blend of old and new looks very effective. Old-fashioned sofas look great upholstered in a modern fabric.

Sort out the storage

Sort out your storage and invest in inserts for your kitchen presses and bedroom wardrobes. Hafele Ireland (01 287 3488) and Storage Solutions (01 491 0400) have a huge range of furniture fittings, drawer inserts, pull-out hanging rails, carousel corner units and so on.

Show it off

A very effective way of displaying small collectible objects and pictures is to place them along a narrow shelf about 120 cm off the ground. Secure a length of 8cm x 3cm timber to the wall. Then add a 2.5cm x 1cm length of timber to the front of the shelf with tacking nails and wood adhesive. This will stop pictures from slipping off. Give the shelf a light sanding and paint it the same colour as the wall. It gives a simple and uncluttered line of interesting pieces. You can also change pictures often without having drill to new holes in the wall.

Lay down your heat

If you happen to be relaying a floor, invest in underfloor heating. Electric mat systems are so slim now they will add only 5mm of depth to the floor (Devi Heat, 01 460 2622; Euro Tech, 042 40762; Qualplex, 021 48847000) are amongst the companies that do underfloor heating). If you can afford Italian marble carrara tiles this will make sure they are enjoyable to walk on as well as look at.

Sink about this

Anything that can contain water can be used as a basin. The high-tech movement is popularising non-domestic sanitary ware. Many manufacturers produce basins intended for commercial use, including ceramic or stainless steel troughs. Square utilitarian sinks mounted on a storage unit or a half shelf can give a modern feel. If you have to expose plumbing, use stainless steel piping to match taps.

Feelgood fabrics

Update curtains with contemporary tactile and textured fabrics in plain colours. Cream brushed velvet will add warmth and a modern, clean touch to a room. In the summer, do away with curtains if you already have blinds. Choose a fabric colour, preferably in a natural shade, that will not go out of fashion. Make slip covers for cushions in a contemporary fabric to give your room an up-to-date feel.

Get into the frame

Freshen up walls by re-framing old pictures. Keep frames simple and experiment with different sized borders. You don't have to place the image in the centre of the frame. If there is a high narrow area of wall you want to fill, keep the frame dimensions high and narrow.

Anything but tiles

Consider using materials such as Formica, marmoleum, steel, nickel-plated chrome, Perspex or Amtico for splash backs and areas around baths and showers. Unlike tiles, they create a seamless look. Just because a product is seen as a flooring material doesn't mean it can't be used elsewhere.

Architraves blend in

If you're tired of looking at outdated architraves and wood finishes around windows and so on, paint them the same colour or a shade close to the colour of the walls. This will make them blend in and, if your walls are a light colour, it will brighten up the whole house.

Joanna Sloan and Christina Manson run F2K Design Ltd in Baggot Street, Dublin 2, www.f2kdesign.com. Emma Cullinan is editor of Select magazine