At home with TV presenter Amanda Lamb

A trunk is a focal point table in the family living room, which is where the antlers and marble fireplace are. Picture: Debra Hurford Brown

Amanda Lamb has graced our television screens for many years – first as the face of Scottish Widows and then as the fount of knowledge in Channel 4’s A Place in the Sun. Her winning smile and sunny personality have made her an engaging presenter, but she has the added advantage of having a solid background in the property market that means she talks with conviction.

It is fair to say that Amanda is passionate about property. Indeed, she acknowledges that as a country we are pretty ‘obsessed’ by it. She admits that she can’t help the temptation of scouring estate agent websites to see what is on the market, while continually upgrading her own home.

“I left school at 15 and started work with an estate agency, which I left when I was 21,” says Amanda, who lives in Richmond, London, with her husband Sean, a TV cameraman, and their four-year-old daughter Willow. “A love of property has always been in my blood – even when I am not looking to move house I still find myself looking at property websites.

Amanda Lamb. Picture: Debra Hurford Brown

“In the early Noughties lots of people thought they could make money quickly from property, and some made a fortune. The Brits are obsessed with owning property, more than any other nation I have come across. Along came programmes like A Place in the Sun where we show you can buy a five-bedroom farmhouse in France for £40,000 and people realised they could do that.

“We are quite an adventurous nation. A lot of people are fed up living in the UK and want to go out and search for a better life. We like to push the boundaries and go out, make our fortune and have an adventure.”

Amanda bought her own ‘place in the sun’ in 2006 – she fell across the apartment while filming in Apulia, Italy. Having enjoyed it for family holidays for a number of years, family commitments – her second baby daughter is due in July – mean she is now looking to rent it out for a while. Nevertheless, her hands are full at home at the moment juggling the on-going refurbishment of the three-storey Victorian townhouse they bought in 2008. The house had been let out for around four years and was tired and dated, though Amanda recognised its potential.

“I am of the opinion that you know if it is the property for you when you walk in the front door,” she says.

“I knew the minute I walked in here that I liked it. It had been tenanted and had yellow drab walls, laminate flooring and was rough round the edges, but I could see the potential. The semi basement was two rooms which were dark and dingy, with damp in one room.” The couple decided to knock these two rooms together to create a large dining kitchen with play area. They timed the building work around their work commitments which took them to Australia for three weeks, home for two weeks to check on progress in the house, and then away filming for another three weeks.

“When we moved in we just had to decorate the bedrooms, living room and hallway, though we ripped up the floorboards and put new boards down,” she recalls. “We put seagrass down in the hallway – I like the texture and look of it. We then went to Australia to film A Place in the Sun and left the builders here to do the kitchen.

When we came back it was all finished, so we did not have to live with the mess, though I called the builders all the time while we were away.”

On the lower ground floor, the kitchen is a bright and airy space thanks to Amanda’s palette of white and soft muted grey. White Corian worktops sit over chalk units, with the stainless steel range cooker toning with the grey tiled floor. Open shelving and pale blue toaster and kettle inject colour, as does the addition of a rustic bespoke table and benches.

“I got a friend of mine to make the table and benches out of old scaffolding boards,” says Amanda. “He also made a big kitchen cabinet out of MDF which is where I store all Willow’s toys. If you know what you want and can find a good carpenter they are worth their weight in gold.”

While there are good views of the garden from the kitchen, access to the outdoor space is via the sun room’s newly installed bi-fold doors. The family living room is a thoroughly grown-up affair with Farrow & Ball’s Charleston Gray applied to the walls, the original marble fireplace, grey sofas, a trunk used as a coffee table, and Amanda’s prize antlers which hang next to an ethereal painting by artist Catherine Hyde, which the couple bought following their wedding last year.

Grey and white are also used effectively in the master bedroom which features a 1920s German dressing table that Amanda bought from Attic, a local vintage store. This year’s addition to the house so far is a new family bathroom – luxurious marble-clad walls now hug the room which features an indulgent egg-shaped bath and wet room style walk-in shower.

Amanda spent a lot of time in Scotland last year while filming My Flat-Pack Home for the UKTV Home channel – and she is getting ready to return north this month for the Ideal Home Show Scotland where she will be a speaker in the Ideal Women’s section.

“I will be talking about things I know about, predominantly property, with tips on buying abroad, renovating property, some interior design, as well as fashion and beauty tips – I have been a model for ten years and have picked up lots of tips about products and things to avoid,” she smiles. “It is all stuff that I know about, and things that women want to know. I will do a question and answer session too.”

In the meantime, Amanda is in the process of re-jigging the bedrooms at home in preparation for baby number two arriving. Though this habitual doer-upper is also toying with the idea of either replacing her kitchen for the second time, or building a flat-pack room in the garden. “The house is constantly evolving,” she smiles. k

• Ideal Home Show Scotland, SECC, Glasgow, 24-27 May (www.idealhomeshowscotland.co.uk).

• My Flat-Pack Home is currently on UKTV Home; Beat My Build will be on Channel 4 later this month and Amanda is a regular presenter on Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff.