Never a dull moment at home with Laurence

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has always preferred bright and bold and now that the trend pendulum has swung back to colour and pattern, who better to coax us into being brave.

"It's an exciting time right now. A few years ago people were treating their homes like a commodity and estate agents were telling them to keep everything neutral.

"Now they're treating their house as a home. Thank goodness," he says.

Neutral dcor and minimal interiors do not suit the British, according to Laurence.

"We live in a dull northern European climate. The last thing we should do is paint a room magnolia.

"As for the minimalist

thing, it was a very Roundheaded, tight-lipped way of thinking, contrary to the magpie minds of the British.

"The problem is that we've had five years of people convincing us that colour is a bad thing. Rewind 10 years and we couldn't get enough of it. A purple room was nothing unusual.

"What we're suffering from is low self-esteem."

He's hoping to boost that with his latest book Decorating with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, which is certainly an inspiration and easily the best he's produced.

It features 30 "Rooms to Inspire" followed by a "How it's Done" section detailing DIY techniques from hanging wallpaper and tiling to painting a trompe l'oeil and customising lampshades.

With flamboyant Laurence predicting a decade of fun for interiors there are also tips on techniques last seen in the 1980's – stencilling, dragging, sponging, rag rolling and making a shell mirror frame.

"The point of the book is to show people how diverse interior design can be and I also wanted to show that you don't need a lot of money to do something stylish.

"Money and time are what hold people back from re-decorating but I don't think there are any excuses.

"When I first started on Changing Rooms 15 years ago it was hard to find anything decent on the high street. It was all high end. Now there's some fantastic, affordable stuff available from places like B&Q, Matalan and John Lewis."

He styled all the rooms in the book himself and they include the drawing room and master bedroom in his 17th century manor house in the Cotswolds and his Cornish holiday home, which he shares with wife Jackie and daughters Cecile and Hermione.

The schemes range from daring to full-on Gothic fantasy, but though many are dramatic, they are more sophisticated than the shock therapy for drab interiors he carried out on Changing Rooms. But he notes: "I stopped doing Changing Rooms and everyone went beige. If we'd have carried on perhaps we could have safe-guarded people's homes.

"However, I'm glad to report that I'm back and I'm encouraging people to go for it and be brave."

Decorating with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is published by Quadrille, 20. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. P&P is 2.75.

LAURENCE'S STYLE TIPS

n Storage

I find myself at a loss when faced with the present obsession with storage. It is all part and parcel of minimalism. My general feeling is that if you have got stuff that cannot be put on display why have it in the first place? I am a maximalist. I love to be surrounded by objects I own that give me pleasure. I love the combinations and relationships they strike up. Wherever I can I use chunky, open shelves on which books, lamps, televisions, plants, flowers and clutter all jostle for attention.

Colour

If architecture is the intellect of a room then colour is its emotion. It is also the first thing we notice about any interior. We have all got favourite colours and none of us can look at a colour without it unleashing all sorts of wonderful prejudices and preconceptions.

Pattern

From experience I have always found very small-scale, close-repeating patterns difficult to pull off. From distance they tend to merge and become a mushy visual puddle. A good rule of thumb is to choose a pattern where a repeated motif can fit roughly five times vertically in the room.

Pattern provides us with a very important weapon in the war against small-scale space. A paper with strong contrast and non-geometric pattern is the best camouflage money can buy. Run over all four walls, it does a vanishing act with the room's corners.

Lighting

Whatever else you do, avoid having just the one strong, centrally placed light source. This may work well in a morgue – it's a disaster in a domestic setting, casting shadows that will make everyone and everything look unbelievably ugly.

To the Manor Born

Personally, I think it's a little pointless to live in a manor house and not indulge yourself with panelling, antlers, big stone fireplaces, concealed passages and all things that such a space demands.

Or perhaps that's just me...