Catherine

It is strange the tradition of having another bedroom, when if you tally up the amount of times it is used, it may not be needed! However, we had a bed and furniture to put somewhere. Our second bedroom is also in the Feng Shui sector of travel and helpful people and we wanted to incorporate the metal elements and colours of grey and silver. Key decorating tips: Don't be afraid of large furniture in a small space, if the room is small, it is small - so make it have a presence Try to add a wow factor

Someone once told me, if you can't afford to renovate the bathroom and kitchen, don't buy the place. These two rooms are the most costly to change as they involve electricity, plumbing and other labour costs. When considering renovating the bathroom, look around to see what you can live with or keep to reduce the budget. Unfortunately, our Berlin bathroom was strangely laid out, had poor cabinets and a classic European tiny bath/shower unit. We decided to renovate the whole lot.   Budget Some key advice we received was to reduce the number of tiles where we could, try

People who love to eat are always the best people - Julia Child I love to cook but I am not the chef of the house. I am lucky that my husband has taken on that role with a passion for food and all kitchen gadgets. I will never be skinny but I enjoy my food! In each place we have lived the kitchen has been a core feature and according to Feng Shui principles, it is one of the big three areas - the bedroom and bathroom being the other two. Check out my Feng Shui section for

Christmas for me, offers mixed emotions, poignant memories of childhood and a sense of having lost something and then there are the decorations. A traditional winter Christmas needs lights, colour, magic and a touch of snow. A Southern hemisphere Christmas is all about the beach, summer holidays, a sense of a fizz in the air. Both make sense at each time of the year.

When we moved to Berlin we bought a lovely renovated apartment in a classic old German mansion near stunning lakes. It was beautiful, spacious but lonely. I had worked from home the last couple of years and that was a whole new experience - if you don't have an office to go to, you need to be outside with noise, people, activity and life. After over two years, we decided to move to a more active area. We assumed that we would end up in a similar apartment with high ceilings and classical features within a German style apartment