Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen talks decorating

Celebrated TV personality and interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen came to fame in the 90s as the flamboyant presenter of hit show, Changing Rooms. His latest book, Decorating with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, attempts to share some of his expertise, showing homeowners how to 'roll up their sleeves, crack open the paint pots and turn a humdrum space into something truly fabulous.' He talks purple flares, 'delusions of blandeur' and why he's really a roundhead.

People have been stuck in ‘no taste'. They're too worried about bad taste or good taste and that it might be defining them socially. ‘No taste' is dreadful. It's all about clashing magnolia and hideous shades of snot and bogey that look really, really unappealing together.

Now they want to re-engage with their living space. The investment is much more emotional because they're not moving. It's about personalising it. There is something really nice about defining your environment to suit you, rather than you trying to suit it.

Never say never when it comes to shag pile. It's a lesson to us all that taste is cyclical. It goes round and it comes back. I think that a lot of people are deliberately using the sorts of things that their parents would throw their hands up in horror about as a way of expressing themselves.

I'm Victorian-aphobic. I think that was a real low-point in history. Other than that, I'm quite eclectic. I do like the early Georgian period. I like it's minimalist masculinity, but I couldn't live with it with my wife and my spaniels and children.

You're either a roundhead or a cavalier. Roundheads are people like Kevin McCloud and Wayne Hemmingway. Cavaliers are quite the opposite. I don't think one is better than the other. Roundheads are very useful as they do things like make the trains run on time and count the money properly. Cavaliers are very friendly, but they're rubbish at returning their videos on time and forget to empty the dishwasher. Actually, I think I'm a roundhead in cavalier clothing.

There were always purple flares involved. I'd love to manufacture a nervous childhood, where I wore a tracksuit and went to Chesea football matches, but oh no. There was always a supposition that I'd end up being in design or fashion and I think everyone thought it best not to get in my way really. Things might have got horribly complicated if I'd been forced to wear scratchy grey shorts.

Suits have evolved over four hundred years to make men look as good as possible. I always wear William Hunt in London and I get quite a few tweeds from Gresham Blake, which are for the country. Simon Castle does my ties and Jeffrey West does my boots. It's all quite straight-forward really.

It's a very unfashionable concept… but actually I do believe that the more you practise at design and drawing and colouring in, the better you get. It's not a little angel that's talking in your ear. The other thing that gives me an ability to cheat enormously is a very good memory. I can trace back the genealogy of my ideas quite accurately.

My wife, Jackie, is phenomenally brilliant at making money out of what I do. She takes the golden eggs that I lay and turns them into multi-million pound wallpaper licenses. As a designer, I get a real thrill from the fact that there are many millions of houses all over the world that have got a little bit of my design DNA in them.

I like that I'm familiar and recognisable, but slightly naughty. I'm like a louche uncle who knows a little bit too much about opera singers. People seem to be very comfortable with me acting as a kind of guide to interiors or The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition or The Chelsea Flower Show or travel and I like that.

I don't do things like I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here! or Big Brother… because they are just about staying in fame. My day job is perfectly successful and people are still asking me to make the kind of programmes that I want to make.

I've got a series on at the moment which is currently breaking all viewing records. It's up against Coronation Street and it's called The Hidden Houses of Wales. It's quite an old fashioned concept with me just travelling around Wales, looking at unusual houses, and it's gone massive.

* Decorating with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (£20) is published by Quadrille. Buy on amazon.

* Laurence's new series, Popstar to Operastar launches on Friday night at 9pm on ITV1.

Emily Jenkinson

12 January 2010