Our homes are not a bag of sugar, a commodity. They are the background to the rest of your life
*There was as much creative drinking as there was creative building
BACK in the 1990s, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen was one of the biggest names in design on our TV screens. The luscious locks, the flamboyant clothes, the outrageous colour schemes with lashings of gold brocade caused a stir in a world where the walls had been magnolia for years.
These days things are slightly different – the leather trousers are gone and at 54, Laurence has become a grandfather. And far from putting a stop to his gallop, the arrival of baby Albion has instead put a pep in his step.
‘Becoming a grandfather made me feel incredibly young – it really did. Both my wife Jackie and I absolutely love it. We have friends in the Cotswolds who have children who are the same age as my grandson and I absolutely love that, it’s so cool. I will be able to have a relationship with my grandson that may well potentially go on and meet his children. I could be known by my great-grandchildren. And I think that is such a wonderful position to be in.’
Laurence might have left the leathers behind but when we meet he’s still impeccably dressed in a blue three-piece suit, his hair, though somewhat shorter is still a glossy shade of black.
And what is striking about him is that his personality is as warm as it is large. He shows little sign of his 54 years but admits he leads a more healthy lifestyle than in his hellraising Changing Rooms days of the 1990s.
‘I like the fact that I feel now, at 54, more on top of all of that,’ he tells me.
‘I feel fitter, more stable more established. I feel like everything is going better for me at 54 than it ever did when I was 34. So it’s a really nice position to be in.
‘We occupy a world which is so skewed towards youth, where to be young is to be the best. But I am beginning to really question that. I have been married for 30 years and I am a grandfather and I love the stability and establishment of this.
‘At 34 I was a bit of a d**k! I can’t wear the leather trousers any more but who wants to? I’m much happier just doing my thing and being who I am.’
Laurence is in Dublin hosting a housewarming party as part of Bank of Ireland’s Wherever You Go campaign, leaving Jackie at home with Cecile, 23 and one-year-old Albion, and their youngest daughter, 20-year-old Hermione.
And he admits that they were considering changing their own rooms by leaving their 17th-century house in the Cotswolds behind until circumstances changed.
‘Three years ago we wanted to move because the girls were away at school and stuff but now they are all back,’ he explains.
‘Cecile’s got a child, we are grandparents and the fact that we can actually be able to continue to have the same base for this flourishing burgeoning family that is going into the third generation is amazing.’
In fact, Laurence firmly believes it’s time to forget all about the property ladder as we’ve taken a misstep where our houses are concerned. I don’t think there should be a ladder,’ he says emphatically. ‘Why should there be a ladder?
‘Our parents were better at this. They bought houses for life, which was I think, a goal for our grandparents, but they probably didn’t have the resources to buy a house.
‘So we need to be a bit less disposable when it comes to where we live. It’s fine to have a built-in obsolescence with a dishwasher, a computer or a telephone but don’t have a built-in obsolescence with where you live.
‘Look at it as somewhere that can grow and continue. It might mean that you move but it might mean that you improve too.’
IN the societal trend to bid to race up the property ladder, we’ve lost sight of what’s important, he says. ‘There was so much going on, too much going on ten years ago and 15 years ago and now we feel we are paying the price and have been for a number of years.
‘But we are looking at our homes as if they are commodities. And the thing is, your home is not a bag of sugar. It is the background to the rest of your life, the heart of your home life. I want people to be putting down roots again. When you are in a space for less than two years, you never properly engage with it.
‘We have this idea that we are going to live in a house, occupy it and then sell on,. You wouldn’t do this with your grandmother.’ Aanyone who watched Changing Rooms won’t be surprised that Laurence is against the minimalist white walls favoured by many as he feels your home needs to be an expression of yourself.
‘What you now need to be doing is getting as much of your personality into that as possible,’ he insists. ‘Don’t believe that thing of you’ll only sell a white house and paint everything white. When you paint your house white it becomes a product. It becomes homogenised. Pasteurised.
‘If you want to sell your house, then sell it with beauty. You wouldn’t go on a blind date underdressing yourself.
‘You need to be expressing your personality as much as possible and that is exactly what you need to do if you are going to sell your house. Make it attractive so that people are going to love it.’
As a nation, he says, the Irish are passionate about most things and he wants to encourage us to start putting that back into the areas surrounding our fireplaces.
‘What Changing Rooms did all of those years ago was it suddenly made interior design part of popular culture. Up until that point the way that you decorated your house was the same way as everyone else. Our parents did what they had to do, what they felt they ought to, what they felt was right to do.
‘Changing Rooms was the cat amongst the pigeons as what it said
to everyone who was watching Eastenders was: “Watch this as well. This is fun and it’s furious, it is a little bit panto but actually you are going to get two design schemes, you will get Linda [Barker] doing something internationally inspired, New Yorkinspired and you’re going to get me doing something drama inspired, maybe historically inspired and possibly gin-inspired.’
Indeed, the programme paved the way for many more including our own Room To Improve which has made a household name of architect Dermot Bannon.
‘It showed people that interior design is not objective, it is not a science. All of us bring our own reaction to it. Your home should be like a photo album where every single thing in it means something to you. It should be the place where you can shut the door on the world and feel safe, warm and happy.’
Although Changing Rooms is long gone, Laurence has more television viewers than ever thanks to his shows House Rules in Australia and The Apartment which is shown in countries across Asia, regularly racking up over 138 million viewers.
WITH all the travelling, he hasn’t had much time to hang out with his old pal Diarmuid Gavin of late but he says they are still in contact.
‘Diarmuid was all about the operatic gesture and I used to get frustrated with him sometimes,’ Laurence says. I would say: “Well, how are you going to build that?’
‘And he would say: “Oh I don’t care!” That’s a very powerful artistic expression and it was great to watch.
‘He still gets a Christmas card – I did a couple of things with him a couple of years ago. But he is very much based in Ireland now and I spend a lot of time in Australia and Asia. But I look back on those days very very fondly.
‘We were a couple of Vikings of design back then. There was as much creative drinking as there was creative building.’ Laurence has been married to Jackie for 30 years and now that he’s travelling across the globe, she often goes with him. ‘I left her a trail of miniature gin bottles all the way across the Pacific and she followed them,’ he jokes. ‘And like me she had a great time over in Australia. The problem is trying to tempt her away from Albion at the moment. There are three people in our marriage right now and one of them is my grandson. And he is far cuter than I am.’ You can hear the pride and delight in Laurence’s voice as he talks of the baby, before he dashes off to the place where he feels safe, warm and happy – that 17th century-listed building, to his girls and Albion, the apple of his eye. But that’s not to say the mansion is drab or bleak in any way or, for that matter, immune to a makeover whenever the notion takes him. ‘It’s our home,’ Laurence says. ‘Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it should be well behaved. I mean, look at me!’
I left my wife Jackie a trail of miniature gin bottles across the Pacific... she followed