House Designer

Sage green kitchens are having a moment. But unlike a lot of trends that arrive loudly and date quickly, this one feels different. Green has been creeping into kitchens for a few years now and rather than fading it keeps gaining ground, partly because it solves a problem that grey never quite did. It is warm without being obviously colourful, calm without being cold, and it w...

I was invited to run design sessions at the Ideal Home Show 2026 at Olympia, London. Over several days I sat down with homeowners at every stage of a project. Some had just exchanged on a new property. Others had been living with a room that was not working for years and could not pinpoint why. Several brought their floor plans with them, ready to work through their layout pr...

Friluftsliv, pronounced free-loofts-liv, means open-air living. It’s a Norwegian word that does not translate neatly into English, but once you understand it, you start seeing it everywhere in good garden design.It was first used by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in the 1850s and has since become central to how Scandinavian cultures relate to the outdoors. Not as a des...

North facing rooms have a reputation that is only partly deserved. Yes, they receive less direct sunlight than any other orientation. Yes, the light they do receive is cooler, softer and more diffused. But the idea that a north facing room is a decorating problem to be solved is where most people go wrong. The rooms I have enjoyed designing most over the years include some th...

The boundary is the first design decision in any garden, and it quietly shapes every decision that follows. It determines how private the space feels, how much light reaches the planting, how the garden reads from the house, and how the whole scheme sits within its setting. Get it right and it becomes the backbone of the design. Ignore it and even the most considered planting...