Having contacts in the trade and keeping an eye out for new shops is essential if you want your decor to have an individual touch. Eoin Lyons opens his address book.
EASTERN ACCENT Eminence in Sandycove, Co Dublin (01-2300193) sells Asian furniture from Tibet, China and Mongolia. Owner Fiona Barron travels to China twice a year to buy antique pieces that she repairs and restores. There are also new pieces in the same style, but we have yet to find another shop that offers more authentic and more beautiful Asian furniture than you'll find here. Don't miss the long, scroll-legged bench that could be used as a coffee table (€695); a Chinese official's red lacquer chair (€450); Tibetan trunk (€795) and a large Chinese cabinet that could be used for dining room storage (€1,750). The new items can be made to a particular size, but it's the painted detail and faded quality of the older pieces that makes them stand out.
AND SO TO BED Father and son Martin and Paul Buckley, from Tuam, Co Galway will open the doors of The Bedroom Studio (087-3112566) on Castle Street in Dalkey for the first time on Friday. They have a long association with the making and selling of beds: Martin's grandfather started a bed-making business in 1926. Some 16 beds will be on view this new shop, but many more can be ordered. All are from Italian, French or Spanish companies, and there are also other bedroom bits and pieces (lockers, lamps, chests, mirrors). Beds by Flou will appeal to those who like Minotti and B&B Italia, but there are also traditional styles, and dramatic pieces such as the bed pictured here, in ebony wood. www.bedroomstudio.ie
THE ART OF DECO Niall Mullen (below) has amassed a collection of Art Deco furniture from the 1920s and '30s in a warehouse behind Dublin Port. The space is piled high with pieces such as a macassar ebony and amboyna wood dining table and chairs for €37,500, a black leather, three-piece suite with "cloud" armrests for €17,500 and some smaller, less expensive items such as mirrors for €850. He has a console table for €3,750, and trumpet-shaped, chrome up-lighters for €2,250 a pair.
Mullen, whose career in the antiques trade began with his family's auctioneering business in Oldcastle, Co Meath, has impeccably restored them all. Art Deco has never been more desirable, or a more sound investment. "It appeals to young people, and young money," says Mullen. "The antiques market is tough at the moment, but this fits with contemporary furniture and the kind of interiors people want today."
For an appointment to view Mullen's collection of Art Deco pieces, call 086-2575988. Another good source for Art Deco furnishings is Mitofsky in Terenure, Dublin 6.
COPY CATS Reproductions of furniture by designers such as Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray, Charles Eames and Mies van der Rohe vary in quality and price. Janie Lazar, an Englishwoman married to an Irish architect, is importing high quality copies of 20th century classics, and as she is dealing directly with Italian factories, she is selling them at lower prices than you'll find elsewhere. Visit her Dalkey home to see the furniture in situ. For example, she has a version of Gray's Bibendum chair (€1,395) and an Eames's chair and stool set (€1,850). Classic can equal clichéd, so consider less well-known pieces, and if you choose something often-copied, order it in an unusual colour or fabric. www.italianclassicsdirect.ie, (1890-252104).
FINISHING TOUCHES