JUST as 'nude' is the new black on the fashion catwalks, and make-up counters have gone au-naturale after all of that fake tan, so too are paint colours for the home going down the 'barely there' route. Atlantic Homecare has noticed a considerable take-up for its brand new skin tone neutrals range of flesh colours from Dulux. . . Pale is always interesting, y'know.

IKEA, I SEE

GET a first glimpse of IKEA on Irish soil (not in Ballymun . . . that'll be next year) but at The Roadstone Our House 2006 Show in Punchestown (7-9 April). The Swedish interiors megastore will dress a room-set with its popular products as part of the Inspiration Boulevard section. Other rooms will be dressed by Habitat and House of Fraser, among others. Visitors can also take up a free 15-minute interiors consultation with the finalists of the first annual Interior Designer of the Year competition, hosted by Limperts Academy of Design (www. ourhouse. ie).

CRAFTY IDEAS

IRISH craft continues to see off its former 'homelypottery-class' image and a new exhibition at the National Craft Gallery, Castle Yard, Kilkenny, (7 April until 14 May) , aims to bridge that gap between gallery and home. Curator Anne Kennedy has created Lifestyle . . . a series of five rooms, dressed with contemporary pieces to show how interior design can become more craftily stylish, but without looking like a souvenir shop.

THAT'S SO LAST CENTURY

THE Modernism exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, (6 April- 23 July) demonstrates the diversity and design innovation of that period between the wars when everything from the Tube map to the fitted kitchen combined function with art. Closer to home, Olivia Delaney's shop within a shop at Habitat (Suffolk Street, Dublin 2) is the place for the committed modernist. Olivia has just brought in a new collection of 'Scandinavian Modern' items and while this might be the sort of stuff that your parents got rid of decades ago, it is oh-so-fashionable now.

GO WEST, YOUNG WOMAN

THAT'S Kimmage Road West, to be exact, and where the recently opened Interiors Library is a veritable one-stop-shop for textiles, wallpapers, blinds and carpet samples from the top fabric design houses.

The showroom is the brainchild of interior designer Lucinda Batt, who brings her experience to the tricky business of pulling a room scheme together. Shown here is a romantic floral by Jane Churchill. The Interior Library, 6 Shelton Drive, Kimmage Road West, Dublin 12 (Tel 01-405 9855).