Gone to print: space and colour in a textile designer’s cottage

Her home studio may have changed little in 40 years, but Pauline Caulfield is revisiting and reinventing her work

Tucked down the side of a London terrace is an enclave of 12 red-brick studio houses built in the late 1800s. Pauline Caulfield moved into hers in 1975; previous residents include the painter John William Waterhouse, the abstract artist John Hoyland and the illustrator Arthur Rackham. The interiors have barely changed since. A pair of red checked sofas she bought in the 1970s have been re-covered, but in a fabric very close to the original. Likewise, the squat coffee table in front of the fireplace has been repainted, but in a similar shade of yellow. A precarious fibreglass sculpture by the pop artist Nicholas Monro has balanced on top of a wooden chest in the corner for decades. “I love it. It’s always been here,” she says. “I don’t like the idea of hanging on to the past, but some good decisions were made when we moved in.”

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2tMHEIg
via IFTTT

Gardening tips: plant violets

Then cut back winter jasmine and visit Lanhydrock in Cornwall to see the magnolias

Plant this I would gladly lie belly down on a damp lawn to get a whiff of sweet violet blooms (Viola odorata), such is my love for these tough little plants. They are best planted under deciduous trees and look wonderful with snowdrops and wood anemones. The flowers and leaves are edible, too.

Snip this Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is a reliably cheery shrub for the colder months thanks to its flushes of egg-yolk-yellow flowers, but it’s now due a tidy-up. Cut back a few of the oldest stems at the base and trim the rest back to a set of buds to rein in floppier growth. Tie in any loose stems.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Hgal86
via IFTTT

How to get the best harvest from seed potatoes | Alys Fowler

Our gardening expert on the case for chitting spuds before planting them

It is most likely too late to debate whether to chit or not. Across the land, egg boxes are full of sprouting potatoes willing on the first good days of spring. There is something so pleasing about those little fat shoots appearing at the end of a tuber.

The idea is to develop the chits (shoots) on the seed potato before it is planted out, to speed up growth so you can harvest your crop three to four weeks early. If chitting speeds up growth at the beginning, it also hastens the end with the onset of senescence – and this can do quite the opposite to what’s desired. It can reduce yields. The trick is to keep those chits as healthy and chubby as possible.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2tMHBfy
via IFTTT

Look inside John Terry’s old Surrey mansion

This is what it's like to live as a Premier League superstar.

from Property blog https://ift.tt/2TtZpKA
via IFTTT

Is co-living the new Airbnb for millennial nomads?

Digital nomads in cities around the world are finding a way to live and work on the road

My housemates don’t hang around for long in the seven-bedroom loft I’m sharing in Brooklyn, New York. Matthew MacIntosh, a 44-year-old digital copywriter from San Francisco, leaves three days after I arrive on a miserable wet Saturday afternoon in November. Two twentysomething Americans who work in marketing and social media respectively wheel out their suitcases just 48 hours later. There’s no mouse problem, or squalid living conditions and, on this occasion at least, it has nothing to do with my washing-up skills. Instead, this revolving door of housemates is the norm at Outsite, a co-living company aimed at remote workers, freelancers and entrepreneurs – or to use the more frequently used but slightly nauseating term – “digital nomads” – those who aren’t restricted to a physical location and can stay just for two nights or for as long as three months.

With more people working remotely in roles varying from software developer to photographer, co-living is on a rise, with this kind of fluid house share cropping up in all corners of the world, whether Miami, Dublin, Bali or Berlin, and catering to those who want to mix up their backdrop while they work – and, let’s face it, play as well.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ILlWi4
via IFTTT

Will these be the worst new ‘rabbit hutch’ flats in Britain?

A developer plans to squeeze 26 flats into this building, some smaller than a budget hotel room

Twenty-six studio flats measuring as little as 18 sq metres – that’s just under 14ft by 14ft for residents’ entire living, washing and eating space – are set to be crammed into a scruffy two-storey commercial building on an industrial estate. A typical Premier Inn hotel room, by comparison, is 21.3 sq metres.

Some of the flats would apparently be windowless, with the only natural light seemingly coming from a roof light or skylight – so they would offer no view out.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SCGgSv
via IFTTT

What can we do with an unwanted swimming pool?

We’re worried it will turn it into a money pit and wonder if there’s something green we can do

Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.

We have fallen in love with a house that is perfect for us in every respect bar one – it has a swimming pool. We have never wanted one, and fear it will turn into a money pit. Short of paying to fill it in, is there anything that can done with it – preferably something green that would encourage wildlife?

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Xxd3Mw
via IFTTT