Kate Watson-Smyth

Well come on then own up? Who's spent the weekend cheating on instagram, twitter and blogs with the new app Threads? Me first? Yes, yes I have. And I have to say I rather like it. Having given up on the toxic cesspool that is Twitter some years ago (even this blog has somehow disconnected

As a history nut who loves the Tudors I had to post this house this week. I saw it on Twitter a couple of weeks ago but by the time I tracked it down it was no longer available but now it has popped up on Inigo so I assume the vendors changed agents. I

I’m very excited to be teaming up with The White Company today for a post sharing their high summer collection. I promise the sun was shining as I wrote this. Now I don’t know about you, but I feel The White Company has been around for so long bringing its classic style to homes and

Last week I was in Portugal where I was taken as a guest of Colour Flooring Company to see the cork harvest. I will tell you more about that next week, but first a moment for the stunning hotel we stayed in in Porto. The Cocorico is a converted townhouse with 10 bedrooms and it's

A two bedroom apartment for you in Marylebone, W1, this week and it's a riot of deep saturated colour and a lesson in how to use it. Bear in mind you might not like these particular colours but it's about how they have been used which provides the lesson. It's also a call to action

Monday again and we seem to be having a bit of a summer moment. And while I have been inclined to complain* (*mention in passing) that the kitchen is dark compared with the last one as it has no skylight, I have to say that at the back of the house with a stone floor

It's time - this house is a few minutes walk from the beach and it has an outdoor pool and it lies in a protected area of outstanding natural beauty which means no-one is going to come along and build a house right in the middle of your view. And this week had the longest

A few weeks ago I shared with you the news that we have recently fulfilled a 30 year dream of buying a house in Italy - just outside Turin. Those of you that follow me on instagram will have seen the odd story that my architect has shared as the building is fully rewired and

I was going to show you a pretty flat in central London and then I realised that at £1.1m it was the same price as this five bedroom semi-detached villa with its own garden folly in Stroud, Gloucestershire and it felt like no contest. It's on with Inigo and is a Grade II listed building

I was recently invited to Oslo for a 24 hour press trip to learn more about three Norwegian businesses. It was my first time in Norway but the last of the Nordic countries I had yet to visit. We didn’t get to see the fjords as they are all on the western side of the

Welcome to a new week and a new set of rooms that have caught my eye and which I thought might inspire you for your own places and spaces. Now perhaps I was drawn to this as I have just made a curtain for my own kitchen to divide it from the hall - and

I had thought of trying to find a white modern palette cleanser for you today after the reaction to the Wow!house on Wednesday but instead I found this and I liked it more. To address that - yes it is full on but it is also a showcase for the designers' ideas and as such

It is, as someone wrote on social media, the time of year when the interior designers get to tell their own stories. Eighteen room sets at Chelsea Harbour loosely following the idea of a (large) house from the entrance hall, via a dining room, morning room, library, office, bedroom and bathroom out to a garden

Welcome to Monday and I hope you all had a restful half term if that was what you were doing. Suddenly after a month of bank holidays it feels like a long time until the next one although I imagine working parents are quite pleased they're over for now. I took the week off as,

If you ever read blog post titles this one may not mean that much to you but if I show you the pantry that possibly broke the internet it may seem more familiar. This narrow pantry was pinned and admired by everyone. My mother-in-law got contractors' quotes to recreate it, I revised my whole philosophy

Well here we are again on a Monday and I thought it would be appropriate to start with an inspiring little home office as some of us will be heading deskwards shortly. Now many people talk about creating a working space under the stairs and it's definitely cheaper and takes up less space than a

Yes it's a palace. Well part of a palace and it was named for King Ina of Wessex, who reigned from 688 to 726. His lands stretched from Kent to Devon although this house wasn't built until the 14th century, and it's not certain if the King even had a palace on this spot although

Today I want to return to a company I first wrote about in 2018 when they launched a range of sustainable white cotton bedding at accessible prices. Rise & Fall was set up to try and cut out all the noise around bedlinen and strip it back to its core components – stuff to sleep

Hello to you all and hoping the sun is shining with warmth wherever you are. Welcome another week in The Mad House mad about the house in italy We paid a lightning visit to the house in Italy last week to make a lighting plan. The house needs completely rewiring as it that hasn't been

Right get your coats we're going to Somerset. The slight hitch is that we need three million quid, but let's worry about that when we get there. This fabulous modernist house was built in 1935 as a home for the composer Sir Arthur Bliss. It's set in 25 acres of gardens and ancient woodland and