Living Room

Nothing changes a room faster than what you light it with.

The overhead light is almost always the wrong one. What a room actually needs is two or three small warm sources at different heights — a lamp on a low table, something washing up a wall, a candle that is doing the work of a fire. That is most of what this room is.

Almost everything here is cordless. Not as a gimmick: it means the lamp goes where the room needs it rather than where the socket is, and it means you can do this in a flat you are renting without an electrician or a hole in the plaster.

The rest is texture — linen, felt, walnut, concrete — and scent, which is the one thing that changes a room without being seen at all.

Worth reading first