Thinking of heading to the Ideal Home Show? Here’s everything you need to know

With the weather finally picking up (ever so slightly) and the promise of summer appearing, now is the best time to get some spring cleaning done and update your living space. We love a good interior here at IMAGE, but we also know that there’s no way we could ever choose the perfect combination of colours, furniture and decorations all by ourselves for the entire home. Everyone needs a bit of guidance, so heading to a home show is a no-brainer to get some inspiration. Lucky for us, one of our favourite options, the Ideal Home Show, is coming to Dublin in just over a week!

The permanent tsb Ideal Home Show is returning to the RDS this year from April 20th to 22nd , with celebrity interior designer and television personality Linda Barker of BBC’s Changing Rooms on hand to kick-start the weekend. This year’s spring show will offer loads of inspiration and advice to create your ideal home. It’s suitable for everybody, from brand new homeowners to those who’ve been settled for years and will have tonnes of options to create your dream space.

What’s really interesting about the show is that they’ll have designated areas of design inspiration for each of the key rooms of your home. For example, the Living Room space, built by Martin Prunty and designed by Kathtrina Furlong, will have a display for every element of the living room at the show. Brilliant Irish paint brand Colourtrend will be hosting an Interior Design Forum, so you can check out the seven specially designed room sets to help you choose the ideal shades of colour for your own space.

When you move on to the Kitchen and Dining Room section, there will be loads of great fit-outs from Christoff and Schmidt Kitchens, and plenty of options for dining tables and chairs too. Optimise Design will be on site during the show to offer advice, so you won’t be stuck wondering what works best. From there, you can head to the Bathroom section to choose tiles or that dream bath we all have always wanted in our homes, or to Garden where you can flex those green fingers.

But everyone knows that the bedroom is where we love to design and mould it to our own personalities the most. It’s safe to say that the Bedroom section will be a really popular fixture at the event next week, so make sure to head there early if you’re going along. Dublinbeds.ie, the Irish Times Home Interiors Fair, the Irish Times Home & Design Theatre and QS Patricia Power (formally of everyone’s favourite Sunday night fixture ‘Room to Improve’) will all be there over the two days, so there’s no danger of choosing the wrong option for you, which let’s face it, we all need help with.

So by now, you’re probably thinking; “this all sounds amazing and I’d love to do up the house, but where the flip am I going to find the money for it?” This is always a concern, and it’s always so tough to figure out where to go for advice on it. A really brilliant feature of the Ideal Home Show is the fact that Revenue will be in attendance, to explain about the Help to Buy Scheme (HTB) which can assist first-time buyers with deposits to buy or build a new place. If bills are more of a worry for you, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) will also be there to talk about the Better Energy Home scheme, which helps out with the cost of energy bills when you opt for more sustainable measures. permanent tsb themselves will be there too, to chat about any financial requirements you may have.

If you’re interested in heading along, make sure to grab discounted tickets at www.idealhome.ie. We’re predicting this one will be sell out, so if you need more information, make sure to move fast and visit the show’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for the details.