Add a touch of drama to your decor with these maximalist looks

1. All the world's a stage so bring a touch of drama to your home by letting any original features shout and by mixing styles and textures. Jan Kath's new Heritage collection of wool/silk mix, hand-knotted rugs will give a luxe feel underfoot and put a sense of contemporary polish to plush period features. Its antique effect is achieved by flaming the yarns in the hand-knotted designs; the wool burns faster than the silk to retain a soft structure. Pictured is Tabriz Canal Aerial, a navy blue wool/dirty white silk mix, 1.7m by 2.4m, €8,000 through RugArt. Rugart.ie

2. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Brave New World is a complex floor lamp design made using simple materials – notched and pegged timber strips with two cast-iron counter weights. Created by Welsh firm Fresh West for Dutch design house Moooi, the 1.8m-high lamp costs about €3,579, ex delivery, from London-based Chaplins, where you can also buy the Golden chair, about €1,146 each and the Prop pendant light, about €1,685, all Moooi. Chaplins.co.uk; Moooi.com

3. The fishbone table is a 2012 design by architect and designer Patricia Urquiola for A-list fabricator Moroso, a firm not afraid to take risks with colour and texture. Spanish by birth, Italian by choice, this coffee table, available in three colour schemes and three sizes, has been designed so that its various incarnations can nestle together or stand-alone. The hand-decorated tops all show the architect's signature love of geometric prints. There are three pictured; the two rectangular styles, €885 and €1265 (depending on size) and a circular style, €2,570. To order from Dublin's Minima. Minimahome.com

4. The appropriately-named Gustave sofa and matching chair is a range from UK-based Pib Home that deconstructs the generous curves of this classic Swedish design period which dates from the 1780s. This Gustavian-inspired range of seating shows off its frame and innards in a way that makes the new pieces look like family heirlooms. Sheathed in a natural shade of linen the set comes in a three-seat couch, pictured, about €1,027, and an armchair, about €510. Both prices have been reduced by 20 per cent, are ex delivery, and work really well with the dramatic panelling and decorative painting of this palace. Pib-home.co.uk

Not strictly Portobello, but redbrick villa comes close for €550k

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Fantastic light in Clontarf contemporary for €795K

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My balcony is covered in pigeon droppings. Who is liable?

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Design Moment: Wiggle Chair, 1972

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5. El Equipo Creativo is a Barcelona-based interior design studio whose work has wowed diners at Michelin star restaurants – and whose clients include chef Ferran Adria. This design is for Tunateco Bafego, an eatery dedicated to red tuna and to the fishing dynasty Bafego, whose skills go back five generations and whose name is a byword for sushi-grade fish. The marine blue walls and period detailing pales into the background when you look up to admire the shoal of laser-cut fish that appear to swim around one of the steel support columns. It's an idea for only the brave and needs careful consideration in terms of scale and location but it is an impressive way to add drama to a space with tall ceiling heights. Dublin 12-based CNC Lasercutting can fabricate such designs but you will need to first figure out scale and motion. en.elequipocreativo.com; cnclasercutting.ie

6. French furniture firm Grange reinterprets classic French styles for our more moderate-size homes. This bow-fronted Louis XIV three-drawer commode is from its Exceptions collection and features a warm cherrywood top with limewood sides and drawers. There is a choice of gold or silver chromed mouldings, which comes with matching drawer hardware. The standard finish of the design, which measures 124cm long by 89cm tall and 61cm deep, is gold and prices start from €4,069. The piece pictured has a custom paint job that will cost extra but is also something you could try at home yourself using one of the many chalk paints on the market. Grange.fr; Arnotts.ie

7. Marble has become a mainstay but this is a fresh way to weave its effects into the home. Decorative paint finishes are making a comeback and this marble-effect architraving manages to look incredibly elegant while dialing up the drama levels in a living room. Knox and Knox is a small father and son firm of specialist painters who can do this sort of paint finish and whose work graces the walls and ceilings of, among many others, Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin and London's Dorchester Hotel. Similar marbling effects will cost upwards of €390. The art deco tray table, also pictured, is €153 from Dorset-based home and gift site Beaumonde. knoxandknox.ie; Beaumonde.co.uk

8. What do you get when London-based maximalists House of Hackney (HOH) collaborate with upscale bathroom outfitters CP Hart? The result is a riot of colour and pattern that makes a plain white bathroom seem positively dowdy. Pictured is HOH's Limerence tiles, about €481 per sq m; Artelinea's Dama bathroom furniture, which is made using a polished or satin-finish crystal to offer cool coloured-glass tops and sides; prices for the sink surround, pictured, start from €2,619; the Marmo basin mixer, from €918, while the matching Cielo Shui wall-mounted toilet is from €543. Here the idea of a matching bathroom suite is a thing of the past with the bath (from €510) being the only white item in the room. Cphart.co.uk; Houseofhackney.com