I returned from a recent holiday in the Algarve in Portugal fired with a mission to bring a little Portuguese pizazz and exuberance to my corner of north Dublin. What better way to banish what had been a murky, gloomy winter and spring?
Warning: Going on a sun holiday this time of the year can be hazardous to your house. Despite numerous warnings to exercise extreme caution, I remained undeterred.
"Remember you can get away with a lot more when you have the sun," were the prophetic words of tiles distributors Doramics general manager, Frank Egan.
I should have listened. I had asked him about the gleaming vibrant blue and white tile I had seen adorning the front of Portuguese houses and shops and covering park benches and fountains in a blaze of colour.
"Irish people are still quite conservative in their tastes so you won't see the decorative ceramic tiles you see in Portugal on the shelves here. They are not commercially viable," said Frank Egan.
Undaunted I conducted an extensive trawl of tile stores in the Golden Pages which only confirmed Mr Egan's information. While only a handful of shops import tiles from Portugal, the most lucrative and popular source being Italy and Spain, they tend to stock mostly plain indoor tiles.
The good news is that some stores will order the tile you require from their suppliers in Portugal - if you are willing to wait.
"The best thing is to bring a photograph of the kind of tile you want so there is no second-guessing and we can pass that information on to our suppliers," said Egan.
While tiling over a red brick exterior might spark a few impromptu Residents' Association meetings, I thought a tastefully tiled garden seat would be just the thing. Wrong. "Portuguese ceramic tiles are not frost proof so they can't be used outdoors," said Mr Egan.
"I'd recommend that if you want these tiles then use them sparingly indoors in a conservatory or a porch," he said.
Buying the tiles while you are on holiday in one of the many ceramic workshops dotted around Portugal is perhaps the best option. They are extremely inexpensive and you know you are getting the real thing. Care should be taken when packing or you could end up with a mosaic porch step instead of a tiled one.
And remember to steer clear of the priceless variety if you want to avoid a Jemima Khan-like ambush at the airport. The heiress, who is married to Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan, was stopped at the airport with a batch of tiles that the authorities claimed were priceless antiques. In fact they were cheap imitations.
Caution was again advised by Paul Bates of MRCB paint store in Cornmarket, Dublin, who advised against choosing strong colours for Irish walls. "Colours never look the same here as in a sunny country."
Many of the houses in the Portuguese countryside are whitewashed hacienda-style, with red-tiled roofs and Moorish minaret chimneys, a sort of High Chaparral meets Morocco look. The houses in the towns are more colourful, splashes of vibrant blue or deep red on doors and window frames. Sometimes butter yellow on walls combined with deep green. So how do I go about recreating these colours?
"I'd recommend that if you see a colour you like when you are abroad, try to get the name of it, or a sample there and then. We can make it up here, if we have a fragment of it no smaller than a 20p piece. We try to steer people away from bringing in photographs because the colour can look different in them."
Nothing gives artistic licence like the sun and no interior decorator alive has its powers of transformation. Does that mean that we should resign ourselves to forgetting the look altogether?
"No I would say if used in small doses it can look great and the smaller the world gets and the more people travel the more adventurous they will become in their tastes. In five years time, more people will come in asking for these things and then they will start to appear on the shelves."
And while it is probably prudent to exercise some restraint when it comes to the exterior of your house, there is nothing to stop a bit of flamboyance when it comes to the inside. One option is to buy a few eye-catching accessories while on holiday.
Colourful ceramics are everywhere you look in the Algarve and it is quite easy to find fabulous pieces by local artists that are a world apart from the usual souvenir tack.
Fish appear on everything from wall plates to pottery and tablecloths - understandable considering fishing is one of the main staples of their economy. I picked up some fabulous pottery by Algarve artist Roda Viva who is famous for her fishy motifs and some colourful purple and yellow wall fish which look great in the bathroom and cost less than £3. Vibrantly-patterned Arabic wall plates are also widely available and so are exquisite hand-painted glass vases and wine glasses which look fabulous against the light.
If you haven't got room in your luggage, then it's easy to improvise when you get home. Think big and bold: large cushions in reds, blues, and yellows; imposing brightly-coloured oil paintings; wall lanterns and some strategically-located eye-catching pottery. And of course, let as much light stream in as possible or create mood and atmosphere with spotlights and lamps.
And if you go overboard and end up feeling slightly bombarded by your technicolour palace then take heart: a pair of strong sunglasses and you'll really feel as though you've been transported to sunnier climes.
