Beyond the usual bookcase

DesignSolutions: Problem: Sinead Moore, one of the interior designers on the television programme Beyond The Hall Door, made over the livingroom of a house in west county Dublin.

Apart from choosing new furniture, carpets, curtains and so on, one of the most pressing things she had to do was address a storage issue.

The livingroom is quite small but the family had a great deal of books, CD and DVD disks to store.

So to create as much space as possible, Sinead came up with shelving that would put some order on these things but not overwhelm the room.

"Most people try to combine different types of storage in different pieces of furniture," she explains.

"There's usually one piece of furniture that does only one thing or the other. We wanted to make something that housed everything together but in an attractive looking way."

The answer lay in a wall-mounted unit designed by Sinead and built by the Beyond The Hall Door team.

Solution: Sinead had shelving units built into alcoves on either side of the chimneypiece with sections that are just the right size for CDs, videos and a variety of different books.

"It's what I'd call an ad hoc style," she says, by way of explaining the configuration of shapes that make up each unit. Some are vertical and stand out from the main body of the shelves; some are horizontal and recede. This makes for an interesting pattern of jutting shapes that are decorative in themselves.

"We mounted them midway along the wall but they could be designed floor-to-ceiling or around whatever space you have and depending on how much you need to store," says Sinead.

"The owners of this house wanted to get rid of a lot of stuff and the shelves were designed around what they wanted to keep but also allowing for what they might buy in the future.

"The shelves probably look best when not overcrowded so you can see the colour of the wall coming through.

"The strong orange colour behind brings out the geometry of the thing. But you could use almost any colour. Black and white would be great too."

The shelves are made from MDF, that great friend of those on a budget, which was lacquered with white paint.

When planning shelving (or any kind of storage) Sinead suggests it's good to over anticipate what you're going to need, but always try to eliminate clutter as you go.

This is one of the theories she'll be putting into practice with Lisa McNulty, her co-presenter of Beyond The Hall Door, in a new business they recently set up to offer a similar service to that seen on the television show - but off-screen.

The painters, carpenters, plumbers and electricians who work with them on the show are now available, under the direction of Sinead and Lisa, to make over everything from one room to an entire house.

Or just create great shelving and storage.