Industrial design in streamlined spaces

Vanessa MacInnes runs Industry Design, an interiors shop on Dublin’s Drury Street, where she sells the kind of style that she has surrounded herself with in her three-bedroom, semi-detached house in Foxrock Close, off Kill Lane.

The look is industrial, a homage to Europe’s manufacturing past, with lots of repurposed lighting, stripped-back metal furniture and talking-point accessories. MacInnes shopped for furnishings for the house while she was on her first buying trip for the shop.

“It was a case of one for me and one for the shop,” she says.

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When she and her husband bought the house, it was an executor sale. They demolished most of the original property, save for its front and side walls, constructing a contemporary build within its footprint. The pointed bare redbrick walls, in the sittingroom alcoves, are all that remain of the old house.

Patrick Lynch, of House7 Architects, installed high doors throughout the ground floor to draw the eye upwards and make the space feel bigger than it actually is.

Similarly high double glass doors lead through to the kitchen, a lovely uncluttered room that spans the width of the house.

MacInnes didn’t want any tall units ruining the line of her streamlined space, so she put a pantry and a fridge freezer in a second utility room, off the kitchen, along with the washing machine and drier.

The painted kitchen has quartz counter tops, a square island and oak open shelving on a metro-tiled wall. Through the smart wooden glazing, designed to look somewhat Bauhaus, there is a good-sized northwest-facing lawn to the rear. The flooring throughout is a narrow-strip mahogany that came from an old school in the north of Ireland. It has already withstood heavy wear and tear and remains very easy to maintain, MacInnes says.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms, two doubles and a single. The master, to the front, is a lovely room and the other double overlooks the garden. While well laid out, neither has much in the way of wardrobe storage.

The family bathroom has a separate bath and shower and features porcelain penny-mosaic tiles. Parking is on street.

The asking price for the house is €575,000 through agents SherryFitzGerald.

WORK THE INDUSTRIAL LOOK

TASK LIGHTING

This tripod table lamp (right), €40, from Carolyn Donnelly’s Eclectic range at Dunnes Stores (

[ dunnesstores.com ]

), will add colour and illumination to bedrooms, kitchens or living spaces. Also try Anonymous, 72 Francis Street, Dublin 8 (087-0963350) for fun neon lighting and vintage pieces.

COUNTER INTELLIGENCE

The stools in MacInnes’s kitchen are vintage. The Harlem, €351, and the Canteen (left), a used-wood design, €197 excluding delivery, are similar in style. The bar stools are available from UK-based Alexander and Pearl (0044-208- 508 0411;

[ alexanderand pearl.co.uk ]

).

STEELWORKER

BSM is a range of steel frame pieces at Arnotts (01-8050400;

[ arnotts.ie ]

) that uses recycled oak from railway sleepers and old buildings to create convincing metallica for a warehouse look. A shelving unit (right) costs €1,349, a dining table €1,349 and a narrow rack, ideal for small homes, €1,099. The online vintage shop Retrorumage (086-8566866;

[ retrorumage.tumblr. com ]

) is another good source.