their space

You can keep the news, the sport, the business section and the advice column (ok, I lie. I kind of like the advice column, you can't keep it) my favourite part of the Sunday paper is always the feature showing the private rooms of the talented and the famous.

The studio in which ethereal gowns of breathtaking beauty are designed, the bedroom where the crazy designer of bizarre handbags sleeps, the study where the former poet laureate writes his words, the conservatory where Britain's favourite fabric designer hides with her jasmine plants, the sitting room where the daughter of an icon and oner of a kinky boutique screens films about Burma for her friends and family (can you guess which room this is? Clue: the poet laureate doesn't have a marble cock on his sideboard.)

I love these rooms because they're lived in. Yes, of course they're edited and polished and the mugs housing banana skins and an inch of cold peppermint tea have been removed before the Observer comes to call but there's still something gloriously real about each and every one, wouldn't you agree?*

*(except maybe Fay Ripley's kitchen, which is just a little too Elle Decoration to be true)

Alice Temperley's studio, Celia Birtwell's conservatory, Andrew Motion's study,
Lauren Child's kitchen, Sam Roddick's living room, Lulu Guiness's bedroom, Fay Ripley's kitchen,