THE JOURNAL

Read the room.

Follow an idea about colour, art and everyday life, or step inside a home with a point of view. For practical decisions and buying advice, explore our Guides.

Latest Stories

23 stories

DECORATION

The house is getting dressed again

A skirt on a table, a generous curtain, a little more pattern. The return of dressed interiors offers something more useful than nostalgia: rooms with softness, depth and a place for the things we love.

9 min readRead the story

SEASONAL · US HALLOWEEN

The House That Goes All In

Witch hats over the porch, a skeleton invited to supper and a sunroom glowing with pumpkin lanterns. Our American Halloween house makes an evening of it.

11 min readRead the story

SEASONAL · HALLOWEEN

Halloween, without the plastic graveyard

A moth on the mantel, dark flowers at supper and the garden disappearing beyond the glass. Dress the house for Halloween without losing the things you like about it.

8 min readRead the story

WHOLE HOUSE · NO. 3

Before you knock down the wall

With its leather sofa, extravagant curtains and rooms full of colour, this Connecticut Colonial Revival has little interest in becoming open plan. A design study in making more of the house you already have.

10 min readRead the story

WHOLE HOUSE · NO. 2

A bungalow with a taste for colour

A low roof, a wide window and a rather adventurous life behind the front door. Coral, wine red and butter yellow take this 1960s bungalow from its picture-filled hall to a bathroom with a taste for drama.

11 min readRead the story

DESIGN & EVERYDAY LIFE

The £500,000 Question

The same budget means radically different homes across England and Wales. Hybrid work promised more freedom to choose. So where did people actually go?

12 min readRead the story

ART & THE ROOM

The art shouldn't match the cushions

Art does not need to match a room. It needs to belong in it. A closer look at scale, colour, framing and the walls we tend to overlook.

9 min readRead the story

WHOLE HOUSE · NO. 1

One Victorian house, opened up

Supper at the back, television at the front, work in the box room. Seven before-and-after spaces explore how a familiar Victorian terrace could work better as a whole.

13 min readRead the story

DESIGN & EVERYDAY LIFE

The pleasure of doing one thing at home

A room for listening offers something more interesting than a place to display a sound system: a reason to stop moving on to the next thing. You can borrow that quality without a spare room or a record collection.

9 min readRead the story

DESIGN & EVERYDAY LIFE

Have we made dining rooms too precious?

A beautiful table can make dinner feel like an occasion. It can also make an ordinary meal seem insufficient. The most welcoming dining rooms have considered the guests long before the flowers arrive.

9 min readRead the story

DESIGN & EVERYDAY LIFE

Why is everyone waiting for the bathroom?

The queue outside the door does not always mean the room needs another basin. It may mean that too many different jobs have been assigned to the same small stretch of floor.

8 min readRead the story

DESIGN & EVERYDAY LIFE

Whose side of the room is it?

Matching beds can settle a photograph. They cannot settle who gets the window, where a half-built model belongs or what happens when one child wants to sleep and the other wants to read.

8 min readRead the story

BEFORE & AFTER · THE DESIGN PROCESS

Your period room needn't live in the past

A fireplace and a fine cornice are fortunate things to inherit. They are not instructions to furnish a room for a life you do not lead. The more interesting task is deciding what deserves to stay, and what the present can contribute.

8 min readRead the story

BEFORE & AFTER · THE DESIGN PROCESS

Does your kitchen really need replacing?

Sometimes a kitchen has stopped working. Sometimes you have simply stopped liking its face. Knowing the difference can change the entire brief, from the first sample to the amount of disruption you accept.

9 min readRead the story

BEFORE & AFTER · THE DESIGN PROCESS

A study worth staying in after work

When paid work moves into a spare room, it can quietly take possession of the whole place. A good study needs to support the working day without losing every other reason you might want to be there.

9 min readRead the story

BEFORE & AFTER · THE DESIGN PROCESS

Can you live with a properly yellow room?

Yellow is often permitted a small, cheerful role: a cushion, a kitchen chair, a vase. Give it the walls and the question changes. The room needs a character you want to spend time with, not just a colour you enjoy seeing briefly.

8 min readRead the story

BEFORE & AFTER · THE DESIGN PROCESS

Who decided bedrooms had to be beige?

A bedroom can be quiet without removing every colour you like. The harder task is making it comfortable at the hours you use it, with the furniture and everyday habits that belong to your life.

9 min readRead the story

BEFORE & AFTER · THE DESIGN PROCESS

The trouble with all that space

A large room can offer wonderful freedom and surprisingly little comfort. Before filling it, decide how much space an ordinary evening actually needs, and where the rest can remain open.

9 min readRead the story

ROOM STUDY · COLOUR & SCALE

The room that starts with art

A geometric picture starts a blue living room. The colours matter, but so does the evening you want to spend beneath it.

5 min readRead the story

LIVING ROOMS · DECORATING

21 eclectic living room ideas for things you want to keep

Twenty-one illustrated rooms, with decisions to borrow when the things you love refuse to match.

10 min readRead the story

CHRISTMAS · LIVING ROOMS

Make room for Christmas

A tree changes the balance of a room. Work with its height, colour and sparkle, then keep the seats, light and little tables that make an evening comfortable.

9 min readRead the story

DESIGN · LIGHTING

The hour the room changes

Plan comfortable evening lighting around seated views, glare, reading tasks, reflective surfaces and separate controls, with practical bulb guidance.

7 min readRead the story

DESIGN · COLOUR

Why we’re so afraid of colour at home

Choose paint with more confidence by testing large samples beside flooring and upholstery, checking changing light and deciding where colour belongs.

7 min readRead the story