Furniture with a future

IT was quite unexpected, climbing the elegant staircase in Merrion Square in pursuit of a shawl, and finding instead a large …

IT was quite unexpected, climbing the elegant staircase in Merrion Square in pursuit of a shawl, and finding instead a large graceful room filled with handsome, Irish made, contemporary furniture. To anyone who knows the work of architects Arthur Duff and Greg Tisdall, this would come as no surprise - they've been making lamps, chairs and tables for several years now. "We could never find Irish made furniture to suit the work we were doing, so we started to commission our own," says Arthur, one of a growing band of architects extending their practice into the decorative arts.

First off, you fall for the tall, slim poster bed, and carefully suppress the desire to dive into it. It is, after all, 11 o'clock in the morning. Discipline is restored by the sight of the stern, ladder back chairs set around long tables in white oak, some with walnut detail inset in the legs. The table is laden with plates they commissioned from the master potter, Anthony O'Brien.

In the middle of all this seriously adult fare, you will find the convertible nursery table they designed for the new RTE programme devoted to home interiors, Through the Hall Door. You may grin. It's inspired.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of parenting will know the futility of investing in anything to do with the "nursery". Talk about having a short shelf life. These days, kids demand their first pair of Doe Martens by the age of three, for heaven's sake, and all that hormonally charged "baby equipment" soon languishes in the attic.

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What is really needed to advance the cause of making children affordable is equipment that will grow with them. And here you will find two such ideas.

This particular changing table - an object useful for those all too brief months when the baby is still relatively immobile - converts into a doll's house/toy store as soon as nappies and unguents can be banished. In fact, the design is so good, it could become a free standing store cupboard in the kitchen, a wellie store for the hallway, a towel store for the bathroom. Whatever, In any ease, the notion of a changing table having multiple lives has definite appeal.

Similar inventiveness is applied to a child's bed, which starts off as a cot and sheds various slats and panels to become a box bed and finally a bed for your independent, school going, scholarship winning progeny.

Both pieces are made in colourfully spray painted MDF, which can be sprayed black or purple with the onset of adolescence. Needless to say, we are not talking bargain basement prices here. But the designs alone should inspire you to approach your own interior problems creatively. And, since the demise of Kilkenny Design, every opportunity to admire Irish design and craftwork is heartily welcome.

Messrs Duff and Tisdall have developed their designs in response to a new - but certainly not hasty - confidence in things modern. "People are saying no to antiques in great numbers," says Arthur, "and that's a huge change." All that old woodworm would seem to be catching up with us.

Duff Tisdall use metal and stone as well as timber, and if you're not quite in the money for a grand table, there are less expensive, portable items such as lamps to soothe that consumer urge. Whatever the state of your bank account - and this is January after all - a visit to their showrooms wild almost certainly give you notions.