As a child, and already an insatiable art lover, he was often busy drawing, cutting and gluing. Today Luke Edward Hall is an artist, a designer and a journalist.

In my Cotswolds cottage, faded English chintzes and bits of Italian gilt wood sit side by side with the odd chinoiserie mirror and inexpensive, painted French piece. This kind of mix is the essence of English country style — the look that was made popular by Colefax and Fowler from the 1930s. Our version is a much more humble and cottagey take (there’s no space for swagged curtains, much to my chagrin).In 300,000 Kisses , award-winning poet Seán Hewitt and renowned designer Luke Edward Hall collect these stories--including some of the most beautiful and moving in the classical canon--and bring them to vivid life. Alongside celebrated works by Homer, Sappho, Ovid and Catullus, they include a wide range of rarely anthologized sources: raunchy poems, thoughtful dialogues, philosophical treatises, and even a graffiti text salvaged from the ruins of Pompeii. At the FT Weekend Digital Festival last week, I spoke with Nathan Brooker, editor of House and Home, and put forward my own five design principles. These are the guidelines I offered, and I hope they provide a simplified foundation of what I find to be good design. 1 Try to master the art of the mix Luke Edward Hall’s Cotswolds home (and his whippet Merlin): ‘I crave the magic of contrast’

Their flat is small – just a living room with a built-in kitchen, a cubby-hole-cum-office off to one side, a bedroom, bathroom and an entrance hall – but its high ceilings and the sheer amount of stuff make it appear labyrinthine. The couple changed their living room walls from dark green to pale pink a few months ago. “We originally used a Pepto-Bismol pink – we wanted a bright, intense shade. But in the evenings our lamps made it look really alarming. It lasted three days before we gave up and repainted the room paler. It’s where everything happens: we cook, eat, live and work in this room. It’s the biggest and brightest, with a view of treetops.” a b "Why ski chalet decor needs a cliché or two". Financial Times. 2022-11-18 . Retrieved 2023-04-25. A landmark illustrated anthology of queer Greek and Roman love stories that reclaim and celebrate homosexual love and sensuality, from artist Luke Edward Hall and award-winning poet Seán Hewitt. Unsurprisingly most of the tales are of male relationships, yearning and loss. To call the Greeks patriarchal is being kind--chauvinistic and misogynistic is more accurate. Even so, Sapphic relationships have a decent showing and there is the occasional Butch/Dyke or Gender Fluid Tale that defies category. They were perhaps most startling and remarkable of all. This is a welcome and beautifully presented effort.

I’m sure you know the kind of unholy look I’m alluding to: it’s one favoured by developers of “luxury” properties (although this word seems to have lost a lot of its meaning). To me, those rooms look as if the life has been drained right out of them; they are cold and hard and devoid of personality. Usually a token effort will have been made to bring in some colour: the palest of pale-blue cushions, or a throw in some funereal shade of mauve. I always begin my projects by leafing through old books and magazines; then, I visit galleries and museums. I allow myself the time to dream and invent stories." Breakfast and coffee is also offered to guests in the lobby