The Irish Times

Light, space, good storage and carefully chosen furniture combine to make a beautiful home. We know that: we've read about it. But what happens if you can't actually pull the look together? Your own kitchen is dark and has poorly planned work surfaces, the house is coming down with clutter, you don't know what paint colours to choose, or the livingroom feels cramped. Your fairy godmother may come in the form of architect Eva Byrne. "I can walk into a home and immediately see all the possibilities of a space," she says. And she has good reason to be this confident. As a child she would often move her bedroom furniture around, and every Thursday she would look through The Irish Times Property supplement with its, then, pages of smallish black and white photographs of houses, and choose her favourite.