Home sense: How to create a home

Creating a home is more than painting a wall, buying some cushions and putting down a rug, according to product designer, pundit and TV judge Helen James in her first how-to book, writes Carol O’Callaghan.

I have little time for what are typically described as coffee table home interior books. You know the sort, full of luscious images, designed to take us away from our own, perhaps, less inspiring environment. Equally unimpressed, am I, by the likes of Marie Condo, the scary international decluttering and tidying guru who takes her topic to competitive sports level, with regulations delivered to her devotees with an attending tone of chastisement.