Fashioning a house with a vintage look

Fashion designer Leigh Tucker has brought her elegant, eclectic taste into the home she moved into two years ago, says Eoin Lyons.

Fashion designer Leigh Tucker has been particularly busy of late. She's just finished showing her collection for next spring, first at Dublin Fashion Week, and then in Paris and London. Dealing with orders, production and everything else that goes with running a fashion business leaves little time for home decoration.

Nevertheless, the house she shares with her architect husband Oran Heron in part of a redbrick terrace just behind Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1, has the soft, elegant style one associates with her clothes.

It has been extended to the rear and includes a courtyard garden. They bought it two years ago, partly because of its location: "I couldn't face a commute. We both work funny hours and couldn't spend an hour travelling. Oran cycles to work and didn't want to give that up."

"When we moved in we hadn't a bean but we were lucky the house had been so well restored. A lot of small houses like this are extended in a slapdash sort of way." The previous owners of this house, however, used a good architect who managed to created large interconnecting rooms.

"The family had lived here for eight years before deciding to sell and when we came to see the house it was the first place that really felt like a happy home. It was the only place that already felt homely." So what they had to do was decorative, changing a few things to their taste.

"My decorating philosophy is that everything doesn't have to be perfect in a home. I grew up in a house with five children and nothing was ever perfect. It's something that's often said, but I still believe a house should be personal to the owner."

The only decorating problem Leigh faces is one of choice: "I change my mind all the time about what to buy. Maybe it's because I work in fashion and get a fresh start each season designing clothes . . . it's harder to change your home every six months. For example, I liked our sofas when we ordered them but six weeks later when they arrived, I'm over them!"

The best new shop she's come across is Kohl, a fashion shop on Duke Street in Drogheda that also sells unusual things for the home such as hammered metal mirrors, vintage coffee tables and mosaic "trees".

A corner of the livingroom at the front of the house has built-in shelving, around which a few choice items are grouped. An antique table was inherited from an aunt of Leigh's husband Oran, and the lamp is from The Drawing Room in the Westbury Mall, Dublin 2. Two decorative dressmakers' dummies on the shelves were found at the same shop.

A Habitat sofa is spruced up with cushions Leigh made from Osborne & Little fabric. The print above the lamp was a present from Leigh to Oran, bought at The Original Print Gallery in Temple Bar. "Buying small artworks is something I like to do, maybe even more than furnishings." The padded white footstool from the Renaissance shop on Capel Street acts as a kind of coffee table.

In a hall that connects the main part of the house with a bedroom at the other side of a courtyard sits a table and chair. The table was a present from Leigh's sister Anne, who found it an antiques market in France. "I like that it's so faded and rough - I don't want to restore it." The chair was bought at Drum's in Wexford (053 58779), a shop selling antique and reproduction furniture. "The chair has its original fabric - I like things that are a little worn." The soft patterned wallpaper is by Osborne & Little.

In the kitchen area, the latest purchase is a white lacquered cabinet from Habitat. "I'm a collector of 'stuff' - odd bits and pieces. There are so many open shelves in the house, I wanted something where we could hide things away. The inside of the cabinet is finished in a nice shade of green. It's perfect because it's so unobtrusive - you barely notice it's there at all." To the right of the cabinet hangs a photograph of Leigh's nephew Cooper, taken by her brother Brian. To the left is a mixed media piece, bought at the NCAD end-of-year show. "I love textural art - this mixes painting and photography."

The chair in the kitchen (also in the hallway, below) also comes from Drum's; the cushion was bought in Japan.

The house is very much still a work in progress: "I try to buy little things when travelling, but rarely end up having time." She's just launched a range of baby clothes for Dunnes Stores and is about to set to designing the autumn 2007 collection, so furnishing the house will stay a slow process.

The LeeLeigh collection by Leigh Tucker is available at Costume in Dublin; Beth in Cork and JuJu in Greystones, amongst others.