Selling my London flat…

I love my London flat. I really, really love my London flat. It’s two streets under Hampstead Heath, one of the city’s largest green & wild open spaces and a short walk from lil’sis & Posetta Baddog’s gaff. I lived there for eight or so very happy years.

After seven of those years I was finally able to address replacing the hideous pine kitchen, bedrooom closets and manky bathroom that were fitted by the previous owners. Goodness the hours I spent on my computer planning the kitchen, hunting down bargains and chasing clever solutions. My father and I ripped out the old units with gusto to save money, lugged it all downstairs and made umpteen journeys to the Waste Depot in Islington. Then the builders started work.

There’s a super long prep counter so I could plate up for twenty at any given time or have multiple airing racks of batch baking cooling. The long, 10″ deep drawers under the counter hold everything from roasting trays to ramekins, and I ordered so many double power sockets for appliances that the fitters started to question my sanity. The dark grey rubber Dalsouple floor was my pride & joy, & I was exceptionally pleased with the magnetic undercoat beneath one sage green wall to be used as an invisible notice board for recipe clippings & photos. There are still high stainless steel shelves on the empty walls where my collection of vintage glass was displayed.

My bedroom had revolting Seventies fitted cupboards so my father & I gleefully ripped those out too, and the builders replaced them with a wardrobe I designed around all my clothes, cases & hatboxes. We added special floor-to-ceiling cubby holes for my, erm, enthusiastic shoe collection. The bathroom is now a white oasis of calm, with a lovely silver heated towel rail for winter mornings & a marble topped basin unit with baskets and built-in drawers for all my beauty samples for work.

The living room is south facing, with huge windows that swing wide open in the summer, opening the room to the private balcony where I hung fairy lights & lanterns, and placed a long Habitat teak table and benches for supper parties and lazy Sunday lunches.

I love it all.

Then just a year after completing the renovation & revelling in my new space, I went off to America. Sod’s law.

And now, I’m selling it. I have to for various dull & eminently sensible reasons. So, if anyone is looking for a large flat in London’s Gospel Oak shoot me an email and I can direct you to my estate agent.