Guides for a bright home
Plain-English guides to measuring, decorating, lighting and looking after your home, with the rules of thumb behind our tools and the numbers to check them.
Colour
The 60-30-10 colour rule: how to build a room colour scheme
How the 60-30-10 rule balances a room's colours, how to choose the three colours from one you love, and how to test them before you paint.
· 3 min read
Layout
How much space to leave around furniture
The walkway and clearance measurements that make a room comfortable to live in, from coffee tables and dining chairs to beds and doors, in centimetres and inches.
· 3 min read
Painting
How much paint do I need? A room-by-room guide
Work out how much paint to buy for walls, ceilings and woodwork, why the second coat matters, and how to avoid running out halfway up a wall.
· 4 min read
Lighting
How to light a room: lumens, lux and colour temperature explained
How many lumens a room needs, what lux and kelvin mean, how far apart to put downlights, and how to layer lighting so a room works by day and night.
· 3 min read
Rugs
What size rug do I need? Living room, dining and bedroom rules
Simple rules for choosing a rug size for a living room, dining table or bed, with standard rug sizes in metric and feet, and the mistakes that make rooms look smaller.
· 3 min read
Upkeep
Seasonal home maintenance: what to do in spring, summer, autumn and winter
A season-by-season list of the home maintenance jobs that prevent expensive repairs, from gutters and heating to smoke alarms, with notes for the southern hemisphere.
· 3 min read