Article index
All 125 articles on Rooms With Stories, by section.
Room by Room
Section page →- A kitchen is a workflow before it is a lookAug 11, 2026
- The hallway is doing more work than any other roomAug 9, 2026
- Bedrooms are lit for cleaning and used for sleepingJul 3, 2026
- Bathrooms fail at ventilation and storage long before they fail at tilesJun 27, 2026
- Seating plans are conversation problems, not furniture problemsJun 24, 2026
- Open plan solved one problem and created threeJun 22, 2026
- The dining room did not die, it movedJun 18, 2026
- A desk in a bedroom needs a boundary you can seeJun 16, 2026
- Children's rooms are storage problems that change every two yearsJun 10, 2026
- The utility room is the most undervalued space in a houseJun 8, 2026
- Stairs and landings are rooms that nobody countsJun 4, 2026
- A spare room that is only spare is empty eleven months a yearJun 2, 2026
- The front door decides the plan of the whole houseMay 29, 2026
- Extraction is the part of a kitchen nobody looks at until it smellsDec 1, 2025
- The television has quietly rearranged the living roomNov 25, 2025
- A larder works because it is shallow, cool and shutNov 23, 2025
- The downstairs cloakroom is a drainage decision wearing a small doorNov 18, 2025
- A boot room is the difference between a clean hall and a losing battleOct 27, 2025
- Garden rooms are glass boxes with a temperature problemOct 23, 2025
- Rooms that still work when your body changesOct 19, 2025
- Most rooms change use twice in a decade and few are built for itOct 15, 2025
Materials
Section page →- Materials that age well and materials that only look newAug 5, 2026
- Paint finish matters more than paint colourJul 31, 2026
- Grout is the weak point in every tiled surfaceMay 24, 2026
- Board width, species and finish are three separate decisions in a timber floorMay 22, 2026
- The wall behind the paint decides how the paint looksMay 18, 2026
- Stone worktops are four different materials sold as one ideaMay 16, 2026
- Wallpaper does things paint physically cannotMay 12, 2026
- Metals in a house tarnish, corrode or stay put, and it is worth knowing whichMay 9, 2026
- Carpet is an acoustic material that happens to be a floorMay 5, 2026
- Silicone is a consumable and it is supposed to be replacedMay 3, 2026
- Microcement and polished concrete are finishes, not floorsApr 27, 2026
- Upholstery fabric is chosen by touch and worn out by frictionApr 25, 2026
- Cork, linoleum and vinyl are three materials sold as one categoryApr 22, 2026
- Glass does four jobs in a house and only one of them is seeing outNov 16, 2025
- Lime and cement are not the same mortar, and an old wall knows the differenceNov 13, 2025
- Leather is one of the few surfaces improved by being sat onNov 8, 2025
- Plywood, MDF and chipboard fail in three different waysOct 14, 2025
- Every fixing is a question about the wall behind itOct 9, 2025
- Oil, wax and lacquer are three different bargains with a wooden surfaceOct 6, 2025
- Stone floors are cold, heavy and close to permanentSep 22, 2025
- Cane, rattan and bamboo are three plants with different tolerancesSep 18, 2025
Light
Section page →- Most room problems are lighting problemsJul 29, 2026
- North-facing rooms are not a problem to be correctedJul 25, 2026
- Lumens, kelvin and CRI: the three numbers that decide a bulbApr 17, 2026
- Curtains and blinds are light control before they are decorationApr 15, 2026
- Task light has to come from the right angle or it does nothingApr 12, 2026
- Glare is why a bright room can be uncomfortableApr 7, 2026
- A roof light delivers far more daylight than a window of the same sizeApr 4, 2026
- The shade changes the room more than the lamp doesApr 2, 2026
- Bathroom lighting is a mirror problem before it is a room problemMar 28, 2026
- Evening light in a home is doing something to your sleepMar 26, 2026
- How bright a room is depends on its surfaces, not just its lightsMar 23, 2026
- Light outside the house changes how the inside feelsMar 18, 2026
- The central ceiling light is a habit, not a decisionNov 5, 2025
- Dimming is a circuit problem before it is a bulb problemNov 3, 2025
- How a room is switched decides whether its lighting ever gets usedOct 31, 2025
- A mirror is a light fitting that runs on the windowOct 3, 2025
- Where a window sits in the wall matters as much as how big it isSep 30, 2025
- Paint colour is a conversation between the pigment and the light in the roomSep 27, 2025
- Shadow is the half of lighting that never gets plannedSep 16, 2025
- LEDs rarely blow, they fade, and that changes how you buy themSep 12, 2025
- Lighting the things you want people to look atSep 10, 2025
Small Spaces
Section page →- A small flat needs fewer things, better placedJul 23, 2026
- Renting well is a set of reversible decisionsJul 19, 2026
- A studio flat needs zones, not dividersMar 16, 2026
- Ceiling height changes what a small room can takeMar 12, 2026
- A galley kitchen is efficient if it is planned as oneMar 8, 2026
- Small bathrooms are won and lost in fifty millimetresMar 4, 2026
- Doors take up more room than anybody countsMar 2, 2026
- Storage in a rented home without a single drilled holeFeb 26, 2026
- Most noise complaints in flats are about impact, not voicesFeb 24, 2026
- Two people in one room fails on timing, not square metresFeb 18, 2026
- A room with no window can still be worth being inFeb 15, 2026
- The bulky things you own decide how small a home can beJan 26, 2026
- Small rooms are not rescued by small furnitureSep 6, 2025
- White paint does not make a small room biggerSep 3, 2025
- The top third of a small room is usually wastedAug 31, 2025
- In a small room, circulation eats the floor before furniture doesAug 25, 2025
- A balcony is a room that people treat as a shelfAug 24, 2025
- A flat with no hall makes the front door part of the living roomAug 19, 2025
- Platforms and mezzanines buy floor area and spend head heightAug 15, 2025
- Furniture that does two jobs usually does one of them badlyAug 13, 2025
- Drying laundry indoors is a moisture problem before it is a space problemAug 8, 2025
Renovation
Section page →- Renovation sequencing is where budgets are actually lostJul 16, 2026
- Damp has three common causes and they need different fixesJul 12, 2026
- Reading a builder's quote is a skill worth learning before you need itFeb 12, 2026
- An extension rarely adds as much usable space as it looks likeFeb 8, 2026
- A loft conversion is decided by head height and the staircaseFeb 6, 2026
- Insulating an old house wrongly can damage the buildingFeb 2, 2026
- Repair, secondary glazing or replacement: the window decisionJan 31, 2026
- Rewiring and replumbing are the invisible half of a budgetJan 24, 2026
- Insulate first, then size the heating systemJan 19, 2026
- Living through a renovation costs more than people budget forJan 17, 2026
- Find out what you are allowed to do before you design anythingJan 13, 2026
- The last ten per cent of a renovation is where projects stallJan 8, 2026
- Buying a house that needs work: what to check and what to costJan 7, 2026
- Taking out a wall is a structural question with a decorating disguiseAug 6, 2025
- The floor under the floor decides how the finished floor behavesAug 4, 2025
- A tighter house needs deliberate ventilationJul 30, 2025
- Old houses hold materials that must not be disturbedJul 27, 2025
- Original features survive because somebody decided not to remove themJul 22, 2025
- A drawing is a communication device, and arguments start where it is vagueJul 20, 2025
- Which jobs are worth doing yourself and which are notJul 16, 2025
- Underfloor heating is a floor decision before it is a heating oneJul 12, 2025
Objects & Craft
Section page →- Buy furniture slowly, and leave the gapsJul 9, 2026
- Repair is cheaper than replacement and almost nobody does itJul 6, 2026
- A mattress is a support system and it has a shorter life than the bedJan 3, 2026
- Chairs are the hardest thing in a house to get rightDec 29, 2025
- A rug that is too small makes a room look smallerDec 28, 2025
- Bed linen quality is about fibre and weave, not thread countDec 23, 2025
- Shelves sag for reasons you can calculate before you build themDec 19, 2025
- What you are paying for when something is handmadeDec 18, 2025
- Looking after wood furniture without ruining the finishDec 12, 2025
- Storing textiles: moths, light and damp are the three threatsDec 10, 2025
- What to check before you pay for second-hand furnitureDec 7, 2025
- Flat-pack is good at some things and bad at othersDec 3, 2025
- A sofa is a frame, a suspension and a filling, in that orderJul 11, 2025
- The table is the hardest-working surface you ownJul 6, 2025
- Handles and knobs are the parts of a house you actually touchJul 2, 2025
- Wardrobe storage is measured in rail metres, not doorsJul 1, 2025
- Boxes and baskets postpone decisions rather than create storageJun 25, 2025
- Inherited furniture arrives with obligationsJun 23, 2025
- Houseplants are a light problem wearing a watering canJun 20, 2025
- Pans are three metals answering the same question differentlyJun 16, 2025