Inside style experts' homes: Jill Macnair - in pictures

Jill Macnair is a freelance journalist and editor specialising in design, interiors and architecture for print and online media. She has written for Elle Decoration, Elle Online, Guardian Weekend, The Independent, Observer Magazine, Red online, Stella magazine (The Sunday Telegraph) and The Sunday Times (Style and Home). She has also worked as an interiors consultant and jointly runs the daily design blog myfriendshouse.wordpress.com.
She and her husband Neil bought their house in 2007 thinking it didn’t need a massive overhaul. So typically they ended up changing everything over time: "It had a very conservative décor before, including a country-style kitchen with terracotta tiles as a worktop – a cleaning nightmare – and some odd touches like blinds held up with Blue Tack. I’m no DIY guru, but that seemed pretty ‘student flat’ to me." Photograph: Jill Macnair

The first thing we did was knock down the wall here to make one large double living room. All the original plasterwork was there, which was really lucky.
We ripped up the carpets and stained the floors black. The wall is painted in Castle Gray by Farrow & Ball, a dark grey-green that looks brilliant against the bright white of the adjoining room. Creating that contrast was my starting point, then came the curtain fabric by Florence Broadhurst. The two armchairs were a local buy from vintage furniture shop Bleu (Herne Hill). The plan is to upholster them one day, though I like them as they are, partly because they’re totally unfashionable.
The black Plan cabinet is by Jasper Morrison for Cappellini and was the first piece of serious, non-Ikea furniture we bought together as a couple. Photograph: jill Macnair

This is the mantelpiece in the living room. The round mirror is a recent purchase from Crystal Palace Antiques, but I had been looking for one for ages – you can angle this one, which is nice. The tall blue vase was from a charity shop and the smaller blue glass is by Nicole Farhi - hydrangeas courtesy of my mum. The bird is by Ann Wood, a Brooklyn-based designer, and was a present from a good friend who I’ve known since my first magazine job. The little black dish and bone spoon was from a local artists' open studios weekend and is by Nina Gotzsche. The dominos belonged to my husband as a child – goodness knows why they ended up here, but they’re sweet because they’re quite bashed and loved. Photograph: Jill Macnair

We took out a really ugly fireplace here and went for a hole-in-the-wall because we knew we wanted to eventually add a wood burning stove.
The sofa is from Twenty Twenty One and is by Pierro Lissoni for Living Divani. Years after buying it I read an interview with the designer, in which he said he didn’t care about comfort, only about looks. I don’t really approve of this sentiment, but thankfully this sofa has both. The cushions on top are a mixture – Angie Lewin, Rifat Ozbek, and an embroidered cushion from Bethlehem made by Palestinian refugee women – we bought that one when visiting my husband’s cousins who live there.
My Dad made the shelves for us (and countless other things in this house). The George Nelson lights make the room look really elegant to me, especially hung low. Photograph: Jill Macnair

I like having odd individual shelves around rather than a big wall of books and we have quite a few built above door frames elsewhere in the house. The light box, by Lilly’s Lightbox Company, was a Christmas present from my husband and the rug is an old Habitat design – nice rugs are quite hard to come by unless you have a massive budget, so I was pleased to find this one. Also, I like having some black in a room – there is quite a lot of black detailing around this house. Photograph: Jill Macnair

We changed all the radiators in the house installing these old-style B&Q ones instead. I can’t tell you how many socks have become trapped down the back of them, but they look good. The bulk of what’s on this shelf is white, including the beginnings of a ceramics collection inspired by designer Jonathan Wade who groups his work together for impact (as seen at Contemporary Applied Arts). My absolute favourite is the cup by Marie Torbensdatter Hermann, which was a present from an art director friend who has great taste. The cacti is my way of having house plants I can’t kill. The old metal box is from The Old Cinema and the Angie Lewin screenprint was a 30th birthday present from my parents. Photograph: Jill Macnair

We re-did the kitchen a year or so after the living room, using a builder and carpenter to work to my design. I wanted a mix of practical built-in furniture with freestanding pieces, plus open and enclosed storage.
It’s very simple with one long slim island containing drawers and the sink, plus a skinny length of built-in drawers (handle-free) beneath the hob and some open plywood shelves for displaying nice/useful bits. There are also some full-height plywood cupboards, which hide the washing machine and dishwasher.
I had pretty exact ideas about the island, not wanting it to look chunky or slick. It’s based on a shop counter in a Margaret Howell shop. It’s only painted in primer, a notion that tends to make design bods shudder, but it seemed like the perfect grey to me. The worktop company made the stainless steel handles to order. Photograph: Jill Macnair

We used cheap white subway tiles to clad the whole wall behind the fridge and hanging pots, and splashed out on sludgy yellow tiles from Heath Ceramics for behind the cooker – I love the effect of having them above and below.
The little fifties table next to the fridge was bought from Homespun Vintage and the light shades above the island are from Glass Etc in Rye. Photograph: Jill Macnair

This old medicine cabinet contains all our cook books, tea towels and other kitchen gumph. I wanted it to break up the slickness of the fitted units on the other side of the kitchen. Again, I looked for something like this for a long time, finding it in The Shop At Bluebird, but not buying it until I’d exhausted all the more economical avenues. Photograph: Jill Macnair

My son Rafer’s room used to have an ugly fireplace in it too, so we swapped it for another hole-in-the-wall. The entire room was lovingly wallpapered by my Dad in Do You Live in a Town by Mini Moderns and we painted the floorboards white. Those bricks look artfully placed, but if Id pulled the camera back a bit you could see they are just part of a much larger ‘installation’ of toys. I bought the frames with the vintage books from a young design outfit, loglike.co.uk, in Spitalfields. But, it was years ago and they’ve stopped making them now. Photograph: Jill Macnair

We did the bathroom up pretty cheaply, hanging onto the original bath and installing smaller-than-average subway tiles behind the basin and bath. We added a new Duravit basin with taps from Aston Matthews and painted the walls in Elephants Breath by Farrow & Ball. The same colour appears in the Neisha Crossland wallpaper that hangs in the recesses next to the fireplace (just seen in the mirror) and on the outside of the shower wall. Our builders made the MDF storage unit – I wanted half as open shelving and half to be concealed behind mirrors. The lights are from Habitat and make the whole thing look less uptight. Photograph: Jill Macnair

This old shop fitters chest is the bargain buy of our house. I’d always wanted one and found it at £250 at the brilliant Glasgow Architectural Salvage. It may be a bit knackered, but all the drawers work. On top is a re-edition Gatto table lamp by Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni, a Pure radio, another Loglike book frame and three bottles from an ‘everything 50p’ box at Ardingly Antiques fair. The painting on the wall is by Gill Rocca bought from Cavaliero Finn as a birthday present to Neil, who usually gets a jumper or a book. He saw this and loved it. The other painting was found at an antiques fair in Alexandra Palace years ago. It’s not very well executed as works of art go, but the colours are lovely. Photograph: Jill Macnair