...need most of my art around me.
“You just need things that fit how you live your life. So, if you’re a house mouse – which I am – you do need somewhere comfortable to sit and read.
“I know how I use my home. I know what colours Im attracted to. I know what calms me instantly. ...
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...’ve known each other since we were teenagers, but met again later in our lives and rekindled our relationship 17 years ago. We have five children between us – I’ve got three and Thomas has two.“The move was partly because my children’s education was centred here and also a strange kind of ...
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...eriod homes are beautiful and really fun to do up. But they can be hard to live in, especially with small children, because they normally have lots of stairs and narrow floorplans.
“What finally got me was how prescriptive it was to have the kitchen in the basement, with the living space upstai...
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... seven years ago he was touring a lot with his band; he was really keen to live with friends when he was back in London. I met him years ago, when he was doing the rounds at the festivals and I was working as a celebrity booker for T4. Mike works for Dunhill, my husband works at Edelman PR, and our ...
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...have two pictures up and one or two other things, but not many. We can’t live a totally aesthetic, monk-like life… it’s impossible.
“So, there’s a kettle on the kitchen surface, there’s a toaster. But we’re both aware that the house looks best when we clear things away and we have i...
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... that that allows me to make Christopher Dresser collections – I couldnt live like this dealing in ceramics!
“Although Im very interested in contemporary art (every artwork on the walls here is modern) my feeling is that the market is such a casino at the moment, which makes it tricky to pro...
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...Im lucky to have those things here but it was also a conscious decision to live laterally because you get all your square footage to enjoy. If we were in a big Georgian house, the square footage would be the same but, while you get to hide the kids toys much more easily, you dont get to see all your...
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...ed working to my own brief. You have to really think about how you want to live and how a space can facilitate that. For me, that meant things like keeping the kitchen and living areas open, so I can be sociable while I cook.
“More than anything though, the design of the house was centred aroun...
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...uses and ended up thinking ‘I just don’t want to pay all this money to live with someone else’s ideas.
“So I wanted to find a wreck or, as corny as it sounds, a blank canvas that would allow me to start from scratch.
“I grew up with parents who renovated everything – that’s sort ...
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...them to reflect on the significance their self-designed house has in their lives. Read their thoughts on memories, landscape, home and creativity below.
Rachel: “A friend of mine, years ago, made the point that people always buy the house, or the car, for the stage of life they’ve just passe...
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...p last year, Korean aesthetics are a huge, dominating force.
“But we live in Bath, the most English place in the world.
It would be silly for us to not recognise that this is where we are. And I
always think interiors, or even how you dress, are dependent on your location. How
I dress in L.A. ...
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...or simple ingredients is a great place to start: a lovely salad with good olive oil, a bowl of pasta with herbs from the garden and Parmesan, or a well-roasted, good-quality chicken – it’s the simplest things that are the most delicious.
“This place, one of several apartments in a former fa...
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...ear the gardens and suddenly began to think about what it would be like to live here.
I moved to London for university and always lived north – around Chalk Farm, Primrose Hill and Camden.
Moving to the Barbican was quite a change from the leafy neighbourhoods there and the big buildings, co...
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...place to be. But now I realise I’m much happier here in Brixton.
“I live here with my Pomeranian, Ham, blue parrotlet, Tomato, 12 canaries and four Gouldian finches. I looked after a snake for a friend who was doing a deep-sea diving course for a while too. Tomato wasnt keen, and Ham just sor...
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...o the balcony open in the summer.
“I also love the area. I’d always lived in west London, previously in Holland Park and Notting Hill, but De Beauvoir Town really drew me in.
“But, and perhaps most importantly, I felt this house had a soul to it, with a lot of character and a homely feel...
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...urs in the natural environment.”How do you connect with nature where you live in LA?“We’re in the middle of LA, but our neighbourhood, Mount Washington, is very hilly and has lots of trees. It’s very rustic looking – we still have A-frame wooden houses up here and there are even some unpav...
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...ing good food.”
Margot: “We’d been here to visit our friends, who live up the road. We’d had many happy times with them and I think that it’s enough to pull you to an area, to have even just a couple of mates around.
“Our centre of gravity is very much Soho, so we felt east was jus...
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...ed a five at the end of ours, which won us the house.
“Our children, Oliver and Isabella, have had different houses for different periods of their lives, I suppose. Now, Isabella, an artist, lives in the basement flat below us and goes to her studio during the day.
Oliver has fled the nest b...
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...to get his thoughts on using colour, where he finds inspiration and how he lives at home. Subscribe to our newsletter to get more home visits like this delivered to your inbox.
,Martin: “Personally, when I enter a white space I feel like Im being deprived of something! I remember when I studied...
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...from culture, psychology and philosophy to help people lead more fulfilled lives, Morgwn knows a thing or two about how the way we approach everyday interactions – otherwise known as life – can improve our wellbeing.Naturally, her home, a converted loft space in a former Methodist chapel she bou...
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...t worked out well, which was a relief.
Michelle: “Its been amazing to live in a house that was custom built to our lifestyle. We have a lovely dining room/living room/kitchen set up here, so its really good for family and friends to come over – we can have big dinner parties and all our famil...
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...odern living?
“Modern living is about supporting every aspect of how we live; to attain a desired quality of life. We all have complete control over this, through our dedication (being all choices and movements).
“A part of this which is especially important to me is the home environment. I ...
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...ng in some kind of sealed box, but that’s not the case.
“We used to live in a lock keeper’s cottage by Regents Canal in Islington. It was really beautiful, but we completely ran out of space with two small, very energetic young children.
“We were looking for a bit of a project. We star...
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... – sometimes you just find somewhere and know that’s where you want to live.
The house ended up being a bit more of an undertaking then we’d anticipated. The building work took eight months; we decided to take the building back to the structural bare bones as it allowed us to rebuild it wit...
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... converted Victorian building in Forest Hill, south-east London, which she lives in with her husband, Tatebayashi talks to us about the joys of living near so many parks; why memories of her grandparents’ countryside home is still a fruitful source of inspiration; and how she transformed her commu...
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