Guide
Buying Vintage and Antique
What is worth buying second-hand and what is not, the checks I do before handing over money, and how to tell solid wood from a veneer in about four seconds.
Guide
Guides
What I check before buying something, where the cheap versions give themselves away, and the measurements that actually matter.
Guide
How to Choose a Sofa
The four things underneath the fabric that decide whether a sofa is still good in ten years, the measurements that matter more than the length, and how to check it fits.
Guide
How to Hang Curtains
Curtains are the fastest way to make a room look rented, and it is almost never the fabric. Where the rail goes, how much wider it needs to be, and how much fabric you actually need.
Guide
How to Choose a Bouclé Armchair
What bouclé actually is, where the cheap ones go wrong, and the four measurements that decide whether a chair works in your room.
Guide
Mixing Natural Materials
Linen, jute, velvet, wood, brass and stone. What each one is good at, where the cheap version gives itself away, and how many textures a room can take.
Guide
How to Choose a Rug
Rugs are the easiest thing in a room to get wrong, and it is nearly always the size. The measurements that work, in centimetres, room by room.
Guide
How to Light a Room
Why one ceiling light is never enough, what height each kind of lamp wants to sit at, and what the numbers on the bulb box actually mean.