Deirdre Noone
Colourtrend Colour Consultant

This space is extremely hard working and really the heart of our home. This is where we cook, dine, have family catch ups, Zoom calls and the kids play. If you look closely, you will spot the two tots that have helped pass the months of lockdown in the blink of an eye! The double-height ceiling allowed us to play around with darker colours like Colourtrend’s Dressage on the ceiling and Inkwell on the wall stairs. Both shades give the space some real depth and dimension, creating cosier nooks in an otherwise open space. www.yellowgatedesign.ie

Kirstie McDermott
Content Studio Editor, The Irish Times

Our sitting room became even more of a retreat than normal: like so many others, both of us were working from home – me in the kitchen and he in the office (junk room hastily turned miserable office once lockdown hit). The layout of the house means we’re both busy downstairs nine to six. In the evening, when laptop lids lowered, we’d go up to sit down – it was a nice bit of separation. There’s a lot wrong with this house that I am fantasising hard about fixing, but I’m really glad we have one nice room that works. So, when spending our evenings powering through boxsets, we are generally joined by one or both of the cats, depending on how busy they are doing their bits elsewhere. We have a wifi catflap for them so we can track their movements – yes, we are those people. Stan (the white and black guy) and Boo (the calico) commandeered the box from a recent craft beer delivery, and absolutely won’t give it up. I think houses are for living though – so that’s fine by me.

Leonard Daly
Make-up artist and beauty consultant

We painted and decorated our home throughout the pandemic, there isn’t a wall that wasn’t painted. The first room we decorated was the hall/stairs/landing. I curated over 140 family photos for the wall, purchased tape to hang them and spent hours making sure they were stuck and three hours later they began to fall off, and continued to fall for two days until every single one was off the wall. I then purchased a nail substitute tape and re-hung them, the larger images have started to come away from the wall again. It seems symbolic to the pandemic, you can prepare and plan as much as you want but sometimes things will just do as they will and you can not change the outcome.