Rooms should be timeless.

Behind every attractive room there should be a very good reason.

I think everyone must have a first memory of some house, some room, a vivid picture that will remain deep down in one forever.

It is only my eye that has helped me. I am still hopeless with that thing called a scale ruler. I love color, but that comes very naturally to me. From the beginning, I never followed trends. If I was aware of them, I didn't care, for I believed as I do now, that rooms should be timeless and very personal. I don't set out to achieve a particular style. And I certainly don't have a 'look' - just a mishmash of everything that somehow, by instinct, usually turns out to be a warm imaginative, 'living room'.

Home, the idea of home, is my principal purpose. If people have bought a house as an investment or chosen the furniture because they'll be able to sell it for more, you can tell in two minutes. You know, our parents didn't buy a house as an investment. They bought it as a place to bring you up, to give you roots.

It has not been an easy cross to bear. It has caused considerable confusion. My husband constantly complained about the awkwardness of being married to a woman whom he called Sister.

Even my aunt Joan, hopelessly sentimental about every member of our family, admitted that I was hideous.