Julia Kendell chats to AboutProperty
Thursday, 16 December 2010 11:27 AM
Celebrity interior designer and real-life self-builder Julia Kendell tells Ele Cooper about hydraulic garages, being airlifted from the sea on DIY SOS, and the shade of yellow she just can’t get enough of...
When you first decided to build a house, what were your priorities?
My husband and I wanted the house to be in harmony with its natural surroundings as it sits on the River Thames. We wanted to build a contemporary home rather than something traditional, and to use natural materials and as many renewable energy sources as possible – that’s very important to me.
Which is your favourite part of the house?
We have a mezzanine level which I use as my study area. I absolutely love it because it’s got beautiful light and I can see down to the kitchen and watch the rest of the family buzzing around. I can also call out for cups of tea, although I usually get ignored!
Julia combined contemporary design with natural materials when decorating her home
Are there any high-tech touches?
We live on a floodplain and the house is built on stilts, but the garage is on the ground – which is obviously pretty vital if you want to be able to get your car in! – so for insurance purposes we had to think of a way of protecting the cars if there was a flood.
We ended up with a hydraulic lifting system, which is a bit like what they use to lift your car when you’re having it serviced, except this lifts the entire garage. It’s operated by a float switch which activates the system if it detects water. Of course, my husband absolutely loves it: although we haven’t had severe flooding since building the house, we know that it works because whenever we have friends over he insists on showing it off!
The eco-friendly house is situated on the River Thames
Based on your own experience, are there any golden rules you can give people who are thinking of building a house?
Do as much forward-planning as you can before you tender to builders. If you embark on a project and you haven’t thought through all the details, even down to what door handles you’ll be using, there’s every opportunity for your builder to up the price.
What would your advice be to people who are worried about the ‘cowboy’ image that builders can sometimes have?
Only hire people who have been recommended to you, and go and see the work for yourself, don’t just take a friend’s word for it – your standards might be very different to theirs! Make sure that you monitor the work that’s going on and work out right from the outset what the expectations are on both sides. There are a lot of fantastic builders in this country, they’re certainly not all rogues, and they need to know where they stand as much as you do. It’s definitely worth waiting for six months, maybe even a year, to make sure that you have the right people for your job.
What are the key interiors trends this winter?
The vintage look is still very prevalent and I’m enjoying it because I’m anti-flat-pack furniture; I think we should be reusing and customising solid old pieces of furniture rather than sending them off to landfill. There’s also a very glamorous streak coming through this winter, with Russian influences and lots of colour which is nice to see too.
Do you have a personal interiors style?
To be honest I’m not actually the sort of designer that follows the latest trends to the letter. I like fairly clean interiors and using organic materials. I’ve been completely hung up on chartreuse yellow for the last three years; I don’t know if I’ll ever come out of that, I seem to be decorating with that at home an awful lot. I like using lots of textures as well; whether it’s wood or wool, I’m big into texture.
Which episode of DIY SOS has been most memorable for you?
There are two that really stand out, for very different reasons: on my first ever show, in order to make me feel 'welcome', the team threw me into the Solent in the middle of December. I was wearing a dry suit but it was designed for huge lifeboat men. I’m fairly wee so the cold water entered the suit and I nearly froze to death! They airlifted me out of the sea in a helicopter which was an extraordinary experience… But from a personal perspective I think actually the most recent show we’ve filmed has got to be up there.
What happened?
The single father of two teenage sons had rather foolishly given a builder all of his money up front, and the builder had then done a runner. The family was left with an entirely unliveable house with no running water, no kitchen, no bathroom. It was just ghastly, and the poor chap understandably became very depressed, which you would do if you were living in what amounts to a cave in the middle of winter.
When we transformed this house for him it was life-changing – they were all crying, and it’s so rare to see teenage boys cry but they were just thrilled that their dad was going to have a home again. We were crying by the end too – it was so emotional and just brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Which member of the DIY SOS team are you closest to?
I love them all dearly – they’re all very different characters and what you see on screen is absolutely what you get; they are hilarious. We’re rather like a slightly odd family because we go away for ten days at a time when we’re filming. But I’m probably closest to Mark Millar, our little Irish feller, because it’s he and I that actually go out and speak to the families and draw up all the designs; we work very closely together.
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline at the minute?
I’m going back to do another series of DIY SOS but I’m not going to be in all the programmes: we’re changing the format slightly to freshen up the programme. It’s very exciting.
Can you tell me anything about the changes?
No I can’t! I’ve been sworn to secrecy I'm afraid...
Catch Julia on the new series of DIY SOS on Thursday 30th December at 8pm, BBC One.
