Mad About . . .

Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to The Mad House. I ended up taking a rather longer break than scheduled but it has been lovely to have a pause and some time for thinking. The builders are also back and work continues at a rate - one bedroom is complete, one is

I thought you might like to see some progress shots from the renovation so far. As I type we are waiting for the bedroom windows to be replaced - what a week to schedule that as I gaze at snow outside. That will mean one bedroom is completely done and by early January two others

If there was space behind the sofa from which to write this that is where I would be. For here the madness starts. For two weeks. So I will drop in when I can to share updates with you and in the meantime I'm sharing pictures of the old house to remind myself that out

We have reached that stage of the build where you go to take the builder a cup of tea and 40 minutes later you are still deep in a conversation about exactly how wide a shelf should be and what sort of beading should go on the front of it. Then you spend 20 minutes

The builders are back! Today I had planned to show you the culmination of a project I have been working on for a year but for publicity reasons I'm not allowed to share until next week (hopefully) so I'm going to give you an idea of what we are doing in the bedroom. Oddly, although

It's eight weeks since we moved house, one room is almost done and today we embark on a big push before Christmas. It's going to be hellish but it should take five weeks and we will have one bedroom finished, two more almost done and the sitting room begun. via The Old Potato Store, table

Something about this house immediately caught my eye and I can't decide if it was the shape or the colour or perhaps the garden. Whatever the case it deserved a closer look. I think it's partly that it's end of terrace and the dramatic blue grey colour of the brickwork makes it appear detached and

Last week I took a trip out of London to visit the HQ of Corston Architectural to give a talk on the importance of details and I thought I would share some of that detail (as it were) with you here as I realised, when writing my speech, that the scheme for this house was

I've never been one to show you a picture and encourage you to scroll down to the end to see more but today I'm going to do just that. In addition to sharing the rooms and interiors that have caught my eye this week today is also the day that the cover of my next

We're off to the North-East of England this week to this very pretty three bedroom former station house in Rowlands Gill, Tyne & Wear. It's on the market with Inigo for £580,00 and has three bedrooms arranged over nearly 1,300 sq ft on three storeys. The house is tall for its setting because it was

Following a reader's question about which episode of the podcast contained the most recent books review (no 87) I wanted to tell you a little more about it. I'm never sure how many of you listen to The Great Indoors so for those of you who are new to it, and for regular listeners, I

It's Monday, it's raining (in this corner of North London at least, I'm going to assume Monday is almost universal) and we are going to look at some warm and cosy spaces to cheer up this gloomy day. As always I hope they provide inspiration and spark ideas as you stroll through clutching your virtual

In contrast to last week's colourful London townhouse, this week we are heading to the Yorkshire Dales to a remote farmhouse billed as being perfect for anyone who fancies living off-grid. And, given the way things are going I can see that might be increasingly attractive.  A recent Grand Design episode followed the build of

We’re going on a factory tour today. Way back in the mists of time (before the pandemic – henceforth to be known as BP, but actually 2019) I started working with USM, the company that makes modular adaptable furniture from its factory in Switzerland. The family-founded firm had nearly finished renovating the family house which

As ever a collection of images that have caught my eye this week - some in relation to my own renovation and others just because they are, as the title suggests, beautiful rooms. We tend to think of rich russet, golden yellow and conker brown when it comes to Autumn but pink is also rich

So this was clearly meant to arrive yesterday but I got the date wrong when scheduling! My apologies. Here you are  - a colourful Edwardian House in London. Don't panic - it's not the high contrast colourful which upset so many of you the other week rather this is a warm layered effect that feels

I’m slightly obsessed with What3Words. It’s an app that describes your location to a precise spot of about three square metres using three random words. It doesn’t take you to there - for that you need to use a map – but it was designed to be useful, for example if someone was lost in

The decorator is IN the building! And we're off. Well sort of. He has juggled things around to come to us for two weeks (one room hopefully) and will then leave for two or three and come back again until Christmas (another room, hopefully). By then the radiators should be in - which means the

To Royal Bath Spa this week and a three bedroom flat on Great Pulteney Street and, since we are in the area, we're going to pop our heads into another, smaller, apartment at the other end of the street. Seems a shame to waste a virtual train ticket after all. First up is this, which

There are countless posts on where to start when you are redecorating your home. I have written many of them! But the truth of the matter is you need to start from the bottom up and that means the floors. Alternative Flooring Jute Big Panama Brioche runner This is partly because flooring is the most