the shiny bathroom is hardly a new story, but the light inflating qualities of reflective materials on bath-sides, large frame-less shower panels and super glossy flooring, is amped up in the bathroom of 2022. Sparkle, sheer whites, deep peaches, copper, matte-black tap-ware and the inclusion of gilding metallics, the bathroom continues to trend to downright glamorous.

If you have a small space, and don’t want to go to natural stone styling, reach back to the era of art deco for a crisp, lean but decadent comfort next year. In showering, we want the area to all but disappear in terms of framing, and anything in Merlyn Showering’s latest Arysto collection married to gentle ambient LED lighting will inspire, merlynshowering.com.

The stand-alone bath is holding back the waves of super showers and wet-rooms, with magnificent polished metal baths a determined fashion that hit last year and is likely to extend into the coming decade. Set against matte terrazzo or marble (faux or real) — the great big riveted tub is an acknowledged classic.

For the best of the millionaire cruise lines in polished bateaus look up the work of Catchpole & Rye (catchpoleandrye.com from €7,825 for a highly architectural splay-footed nickel bath) and Drummonds (€15,000 plus for hammered copper),  drummonds-uk.com.

Choking back the tears, my choice would be the slightly more affordable La Rochelle 1700mm slipper bath with a copper leaf finish at The Bathshack, €2,339, bathshack.com. For an accent colour, rather than going off the rails to salmons and purples – emerald greens and terracotta have a far better potential to survive a decade.

do you want to update the cabinets you have (please God, they are wood-fronted) and are utterly and entirely sick of all things safe, blocky, glossy and neutral? Well, cheer up. The colourful kitchen press is making a shy but delicious return.

It’s worth remembering when you buy things that need “no maintenance” that is generally because they cannot be maintained, or cannot be easily painted over.

If the carcasses are quality, look to replace the doors with sustainable wood panels if the layout is working well. Together with glass-fronted cabinets (including the pantry door), new colour can kick up a jaded space this spring-summer.

For the entirely terrified, Cash & Carry’s Savana in Marine Blue has been around for a couple of years and still looks spectacular.

Future-forward with its ply kitchens, Pluck Kitchens, based in London, illustrates several of its most recent projects in shades of salmon pink (Ruskin Blossom), various species of green and a calming grey-based yellow. Clutter-free with the inclusion of organic, strokable grainy wood, combined with the honesty of cork flooring and Corian counters, they say everything you need to know about the direction of relaxed family kitchen/diners in 2022, pluck.co.uk.

When shopping for a commercial kitchen, see what bespoke elements be it colour, materials mixes or layout that will inject what Pluck describe as “the personal twist”.

The alternative? Stormy and flush-fronted, monumental and contemporary. Expect determinedly dark floor matched to ceiling high banks of storage walls style cabinetry with bump operation. Tailored, chic, The Next125 German kitchens from Evoke are lightened with clever blonde wood detailing and perfectly encompass broken-plan living. Prices form €12,000, evokekitchens.ie.

we have become completely unafraid of putting on the Ritz in our interiors and that jazzy 1920s shine is coming through in glass style porcelain flooring and a surprising return to full gloss paint over slavish devotion to egg-shells. If rectified large format tiling is not enough for you underfoot try going to a high polish with glass pretenders. Any super sleek flooring is better used in officers’ quarters as wet it could prove slippery.

Otherwise, look for a family-friendly key in durable glowing porcelain.

Versatile Tiling offers a whole division of glassy gorgeous, and underlines its Vitri collection as “combining the technical performance of stoneware with the emotional power of glass — opaque and transparent, robust and fragile”.

The tile (pictured above) comes in some huge formats up to 120cm X 278cm, and hover in the €90-€100 per square metre area ex.installation, versatilebathrooms.ie.

Renovating or building new, if you want your windows to look entirely frame-less — look up the products of Lumi. These aluminium framed windows feature glass that rides on the frame, producing a luminous, edge to edge look with super-slim sight-lines and no dirt-traps when cleaning them down. lumiwindows.com (for suppliers in Ireland).

jane Addis, products and design manager for the widely loved brand Original Style Tiles, explains that their choice of tile for 2022, Wildflower Rose was influenced by the cottage-core trend “which ignited during the summer of 2020 when rural walks and exploring the great outdoors was a welcome escape.

"We spent many weeks sketching and painting an abundance of wildflower varieties before working closely with our skilled production teams to bring these gorgeous designs to life.”

This unashamedly quaint, embroidery-on-linen like tile was teamed up with paints from the brand Coats in a range of complementary shades, pulling colour from the print (as you would with wallpaper). These include “Adulting” a deep teal green, and “Ciao, Sofia”, a dusty pink that picks up the blush elements. €95 per square metre, orginalstyle.com for suppliers

Delicate pink, as an overtly fashionable colour that comes and goes in a queasy wave, is unlikely to last 24 months but can be refreshed with new colours when you mix up those tiled and plastered walls.

You can find dramatic immersive tile colour from Original Style and other makers for the kitchen and bathroom taken from the catwalks, including gold, forest green, ink blues and even violet if you’re truly unafraid to stick it all up there for 2022. Larger-scale prints for those geometrics in a dusty Moroccan or sharp monochrome with rippling texture will remain as dynamic choices all over the showrooms this spring. Remember if it’s cemented into place, always be sure, you simply cannot live without that bold character.

if you’re one of the legions of workers or self-employed people working from home as I do, it’s time to get a little more serious about that home office exile in 2022. WFH is here to stay, and you could say in this respect alone Covid did us a favour, shaking up the working landscape.

Sort out the storage and give up on that wobbling trestle or cheap flat-pack desk and dining chair. Invest in a solid table of 120cm-170cm in length, at least 76cm deep, and 74cm-76cm in height depending on your stature and chair.

If your laptop is straining your neck, start by introducing a separate keyboard (wireless or USB) working with the screen of the laptop, now elevated to allow you to look only very slightly down. Consider a separate all-in-one computer with everything built into the area behind the screen to supplement working on the go with the laptop.

Acer Aspire 22” models from €599, harveynorman.ie. The surface of any desk should be just below your natural wrist height when it is straight out from the forearm.

The standing height is in the area of 90cm for a surface, but ensure you get this right as there is no chair to tickle up or down a few millimetres. If you’re less than arm’s length from your monitor, it’s too small or your desk is too skinny.

Choose a flexible chair intended for regular rather than “occasional” use — your back will thank you. Style up some chic surroundings in your sliver of space where you can Zoom in confidence and take pleasure in the view rather than blushing through the meeting and apologising for the glare on your Nosferatu forehead.

Don’t forget you can also use Zoom backgrounds (only if you have good even light) or just blur it out to clean up your act (and the room). For all the executive detail you need to put on a professional front, see our feature here.