House style: Lucinda Chambers

WE MOVED a lot as a family when I was growing up, so I think it’s no surprise that we have stayed in our family house in Shepherd’s Bush for 30 years. I love to feel settled, I like the familiarity, and I enjoy the fact that my children grew up there.

I DO change the house up. I love transformation: clothes or interiors. What was once the playroom is now our TV room, while the boys’ teenage den is a light and airy guest room.

WE BOUGHT a farmhouse in southern France 20 years ago. When we’re there we relax, but we always have a project on the go. Each bedroom has a totally different atmosphere: one is faded floral and pretty and French, another is calm and in shades of grey and white, while another is stripy and lively. Everyone has a favourite.

I THINK there is a synergy between styling rooms and oneself. It’s all about trying things out to see if they suit – and comfort has to be pretty far up the requirement list for both.

WE DON’T have a rigid idea of who our customer is at Collagerie. It’s like a restaurant – you should feel it’s “your place”. If you feel like a floral dress day, there’s plenty there, and if you want it to be utilitarian, we have that too.

COMFORT IS super-important to me and, I think, greatly underrated. You can’t be happy in a home where you couldn’t fling yourself on the sofa, read a book or curl up in a chair.

I LOVE the prints by Fred Ingrams, whose work we are lucky enough to have in our online art shop. The colours are so electric, brilliant yet subtle.

I TEND to wear nylon sports jackets under woolly coats, mixing modern and traditional, light and heavy. The equivalent could be textured cushions against a lacquer table. I did a room up recently and it was all getting a bit good taste for me, so I popped in an electric orange chair – a punctuation point, if you like.

MY FAVOURITE museum is Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge. It feels lived in, the mix of art is wonderful and you feel you are by the sea when there. It has touching and personal details like a round of grey pebbles on a table.

I DON’T react to trends – in fact, I rather resent them! I was told recently that our dining room was “this year’s colour”, which is electric yellow. I painted it about 20 years ago, so I will just have to ride that out until it falls out of fashion.

I AM a potter-arounder, a tinkerer, so painting things, sewing things, shifting things is a great source of pleasure. I heard recently that pottering is good for the brain – it certainly quietens mine down.

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