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10 Beautiful Rooms: Warehouse Home

88 illustrator Sara Bergman, Stockholm credit Kristofer Johnsson
I met Sophie Bush about four or five years ago. "I'm thinking of starting a blog," she told me. "What's stopping you?"I asked, having only recently set up The Mad House. Sophie muttered about preparing and getting ready and more preparing and then I apparently said to her (I have no memory of this bit):
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The Househunter 24/6/16

I am writing this the day before the morning after and I have literally no idea what the morning after is going to bring. It is a strange feeling and one I can't remember having had before. Perhaps it was like the day before the A Level results were due. When you were pretty sure
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The Househunter 18/3/16

Now I don't know about you but most of my late night, one too many glasses of wine, mad schemes involve winning the lottery and buying a house in Italy. Usually I content myself with the almost realistic; buying something really cheap like a rustico (old, generally knackered farm building) and gradually converting it to
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The Househunter 4/9/15

The Househunter is back. There's a new crop of properties on the market and whether we can afford them or not it's always good to spent a little moment poking round other people's houses isn't it? So shall I hang on while you grab a cup of coffee/glass of wine/mug of water/whatever your poison... grab
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The Househunter 3/7/15

Just one property for you this week. Because it's a rather special one and I wanted to have a proper look around. It's an early design by the architect Norman Foster, who, if you're not up on your architects is like the Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney of his world. A sort of architectural rock
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Beautiful Rooms For Monday

quirky bloom by kate watson-smyth for alternative flooring shot by ben robertson
Goooooooooood Mooooooooorning everyone. I trust you are well-rested and fully caffeined and ready to start the week. I have some lovely room inspiration for you today but I'm going to start with a picture of my new Quirky Bloom carpet that I designed for Alternative Flooring as, if any of you are heading to Decorex
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Five Beautiful Rooms

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
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AUGUST POSTCARDS: Beautiful Rooms planning a colour scheme

design by Nicola Harding (one of House & Garden top 100 interior designers)
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
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AUGUST POSTCARDS: Beautiful Rooms

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
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Monday Inspiration: Beautiful Rooms

The newly renovated @plainenglishdesign showroom in New York shot by @garruppo
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
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Monday Inspiration: Beautiful Rooms

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
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Monday Inspiration: Beautiful Rooms

langdon court manor by donna ida image by nico wills
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
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Beautiful Rooms for Inspiration

designed by Hannah Pemberton of Wandalust
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
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Snapshots from a Reno III

A fleeting visit this week as there hasn't been a huge amount of visible change. The sitting room is now finished but there's still a pile of boxes in the middle of the back of the room. This will be moved in the next week or so and replaced by the contents of the kitchen.
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Beautiful Rooms: Inspiration for your own places and spaces

the william morris room from wow house at Chelsea Design Harbour summer 2022
Today's post is brought to you from the sick bed as I appear to have succumbed to the so-called supercold. Or perhaps it's just that I haven't had a cold for three years so have forgotten how wretched they are. Or perhaps it's because the bedroom is currently the nicest room in the house as
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AUGUST POSTCARDS: Clever ways with paint

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
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Beautiful Rooms for Monday Inspiration

the cocorico hotel in porto
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
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Monday Inspiration: Beautiful Rooms

Oxshott Kitchen by Devol
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,
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Postcard from the Podcast (112)

the open shelving in my old kitchen This week on the podcast Sophie and I take a deep dive into kitchen design. Sophie is in the process of moving her small kitchen across the house to what was her huge sitting room.  She has changed a window into a door to take advantage of the
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Monday Inspiration: We’ve all gone dotty for checks

image by sara margareta hellman
A week since I showed you the house we have bought in Italy, less than a week to the publication of my new book and the start of the first week without the builders - don't worry they'll be back next Monday - but, for now, we have a few days of calm. Well I
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