Why a tree could make your living room look bigger

Design Rules (BBC2)

Having caused havoc in homes up and down the land with his interior design ideas in Changing Rooms, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen goes back to basics for this new series. He's following the tried and tested example of both Delia Smith and Alan Titchmarsh who did much the same thing in recent cooking and gardening programmes.

They cut out the fancy stuff - such as, in LLB's case, turning a living room into something resembling a tart's boudoir - and talk about the things we can all understand and utilise in making our homes nicer.

Llewelyn-Bowen has even abandoned the fancy suits and flouncy shirts, opting for a simple dark jacket and trousers coupled with a plain white shirt. He realises that viewers may be tiring of the old Laurence, having taken on board everything he's been saying over the past couple of years.

"I know you lot are getting very good at finding your own style, finding your own taste, and making a room that expresses you," he admitted at the outset, adding: "This programme is not about any of that."

What he's dealing with are the principles of design. In the first programme, that was making the most of the limited space most people have available for living quarters. This basic instinct didn't stop him getting all flowery with his language, muttering about space being "the ultimate luxury" and "the height of conspicuous consumption".

The information he imparted was a mixture of things you already knew, things you do unconsciously and things that hadn't crossed your mind yet. Most people will be aware that white paint makes a room look bigger. Making the maximum use of space available would mean white walls and little furniture - "so minimalist as to be almost unlivable".

His play space on which to demonstrate his ideas was the living room of a typical 1990s house, somewhere that had to be a play room, TV room, somewhere to chill out, and somewhere to entertain for a family of four. A feeling of conflict struck him on entering. Patterns were fighting, colours were fighting and the place, in common with many British homes, was occupied by "agraphobic furniture that feels the need to keep its back to the wall at all times in case something unpleasant happens to it".

He showed us ways of "pushing back the walls" using light, glass and space. Putting something, like a tree, outside a window provides a distant focal point that's a very cheap extension to the room. Perception and proportion were words he mentioned. Working with what you've got, by using the right kind of colours and making the right architectural choices, you can make a room feel bigger.

He summed up the makeover in four words: colour, de-clutter, light, tricks. Very nice the finished space looked too. My only worry was that the TV set was on floor level. Still, I suppose if you have to lie on the carpet to watch, that does away with the need for chairs or a sofa - and gives you more space