Mad About . . .

A small one bed flat for you today but one which has made the most of every inch of storage and still made it look cool and, crucially, not cramped. It's in a Victorian mansion block in east London and is on the market with Inigo for £465,000. image via inigo It was built by

As I may have mentioned once or twice before at the start of the summer I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to have a go on the world's fastest Zip Wire. All that needs to be said here is that I have done it. I have no need to do it again. However,

Welcome to the new look blog and to celebrate a tour of my new kitchen. The blog hasn't changed much but it's just had a little refresh and looks a little cleaner. Also you can see more posts on the front page so it shouldn't be hard to find your way around and will, hopefully,

PLEASE NOTE: The site will be down over the weekend for essential maintenance, updates and a small tweakment. So you need to read this post and visit its delicious house now! All being well we will be back up and running on Monday.... These Georgian Huguenot townhouses in Spitalfields, east London, are just dreamy and

It's time to share the new bathroom with you all and I'm excited to show you as it was a big transformation in a small room. When we moved in there was a power shower (that didn't work) over the bath, a loo that was very close to the radiator and a door that opened

Back into familar routines at last and it's our regular post of beautiful rooms to get the week off to a good start. I'm assuming by now the kids are back at school - as far as possible (don't mention the concrete). The 20yo has finally found a student flat and is off at the

Welcome back to the regular househunter slot after last week's Italian extravagance. That said, there were lots of inquiries so fingers crossed we will be visiting that at some point in the future. But for now we're back on more familiar ground with this pretty Victorian house in London. And the reason I wanted to

Firstly thank you all so much for your lovely comments about the finished house. As I said, I will be going through every detail for you in the coming weeks but it seems only fair to let Red Magazine have its moment before I do that. In addition, I saw a feature at the weekend

It's been nearly a year and now I'm thrilled to show you the finished house as it appears in the 25th anniversary issue of Red magazine which is out now (even though it's the October issue). I will go through all the rooms in turn showing you what we did and where we sourced things

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog. I hope you have all had a lovely summer. In an effort to prolong that holiday feeling I have a very special househunter for you today which is a fabulous flat in Lerici, Italy, that is complete 70s vintage from the floors and light fittings to the

As you read this we should just have returned from a site visit to the house where (hopefully) the rewiring and plumbing have been done and the builders are getting ready to put everything back again. This means that over the next few weeks and months the pictures should go from being mostly rubble to

Taking this moment to reshare some of the painting ideas for Italy as there have been a couple of updates since I posted this. I will be sharing the full journey so far on Wednesday for those who haven't seen what has been going on. And, all things being well, by the time the blog

This beautiful house belonging to the Interior Design Studio Berdoulat sparked a conversation about how to get your partner to agree to your interior plans as well as providing a tour round a fabulous building. Have a look if you missed it the first time round and if you saw it then well welcome back.

I was looking for a post on my new book and realised that I have shared only a preview and as part of a review of other books. So, in an exception to the postcards I'm going to do a round up of the book. I wanted to write about the three issues that affect

This post started off with a lighting plan for the house in Italy and ended up being about planning colour schemes. A perennial subject and one that is always useful so whether you're currently poring over paint chips or just want some inspiration I hope you will enjoy this look back over some beautiful rooms

This week we're heading to the north east of England to this pretty stationmaster's house which is still on the market although it turns out I posted it towards the end of last year. But it's had a price reduction since then and you might even be able to make a cheeky offer given the

A perennial subject but one that feels particularly apposite for August as my younger son is flat-hunting for his second year of university  - not that there will be money left over for furniture mind you, but given that most of us start (and these days may finish) in rented accommodation it's worth knowing a

We're already in the middle of August - how does that happen? For today's postcard we're going back to the beautiful rooms of June and a room with a stripe that we all loved. I am definitely holding on to this idea for the house in Italy. designed by gulmen interiors  To see the other

I loved this house when it came on the market back in March. We all agreed that the £1.1m price tag was optimistic but given that it has now vanished from the website one can only assume that they got what they wanted or needed for it. But let's have another look as it was

Budget is one of the most complicated factors when it comes to renovating. You might think you've got it all sewn up and then there's an unexpected leak, or a rotten joist. This is why all the advice is that you need a contingency fund of around 10 per cent your budget to cover emergencies.