SERENDIPITY is how Pauline Brotherton explains finding Cleish Mill eight years ago.

IN THE greenhouses of Kevock Garden Plants near Lasswade, many unusual kinds of primula, elegant trilliums and dactylorhizas, those delicate orchids that flourish in the harsh surroundings of bogs and heathland, are all in bud.

BANK holidays always seem to throw our household off balance.

Dave Hall and Alida Biagi look at each other quizzically and wonder why they didn’t get stressed out during the two-year creation of their new home.

John Kingsley and his wife Moya Cove knew they’d found their ideal home when they stepped into this Edwardian tenement in Glasgow’s West End

ARRIVING at Fiona McNeil and Stuart Agnew’s home in Edinburgh’s Murrayfield area, the first feature that strikes you when walking into the hallway is the scale and the light.

AS THE sun shone last weekend, our garden was plunged back into life with toys lugged from the garage and the trampoline forced with squeaky protest back into action.

Magazines remain a favourite source of inspiration for the home decorator and using these to compile a mood board is a helpful – and enjoyable – exercise.

I am looking for a high-back, wing chair for my living room. My style is a mix of modern and vintage furniture, but I would like something that will work as a focal piece. Says, D Johnston

AN ARCHITECT working to his own brief is in the fortunate position of not having a communication gap to bridge. Douglas Forrest has been a practising architect for more than 35 years.

LINDA and John Cunningham were already living on the outskirts of St Andrews in Fife when they spotted this house for sale at 19 North Street back in 2003.

OUR interiors and home team solve your problems

WHILE there are some people who appear instinctively to sense which elements make up their personal style, there are many for whom this seems daunting.

IT is alarming how quickly your garden can become ‘undone’ by pernicious weeds. So how do you go about reclaiming it? A weedy garden can be incredibly daunting.

FOR Julia Young, working in the garden can mean anything from weeding and planting, to abseiling and swimming

RUTH and David Hinks will always be grateful to his former childhood home near Peebles for giving them the perfect space to launch their business

WE HAVE a crisis in the garage. The ‘tidied-away’ toys, books, CDs and DVDs in there, along with various bits of garden equipment, a bike shop’s worth of tools, tyres, and plastic bits (that will prove irreplaceable should they be thrown out), a cot bed, and, of course, the two large packing cases that I salvaged, have all become too much. Too much for me to get to the washing machine in one piece. And too much for my other half to set up his training bike in there, which means the so-called sun room is currently a makeshift, inner tube-strung gym.