Changing Rooms | Interview with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen

It feels like this day was always going to come and Changing Rooms would return. Did you expect it?
I was trying to run as fast I could away from it at every available opportunity, I found the whole idea quite weird… But when lockdown happened, shows I was doing in Australia and America were cancelled and then I made the stupid mistake of actually talking to someone about Changing Rooms and saying, ‘well of course I’m not going to do it, I’m a 57-year-old grandfather living in the Cotswolds, why on earth would I squeeze myself into a pair of leather trousers?’ And the minute I said that was the minute I knew I had to do it for all the 57-year-old Cotswolds squires out there who thought their leather-trouser-wearing days were over. The weird thing for me is that the last time I was designing rooms on Changing Rooms, I was 37. I’m now 57.

So what can we expect from the new series? How does it differ from the original?
Channel 4 has a very good track record, with things like Bake Off and Pottery Throwdown, of understanding the essence of what the audience wants, but bringing in a kind of subversive cheeky twinkle. Even 25 years ago, Changing Rooms had that subversion, it had that cheeky twist. Changing Rooms was the first reality show, so it’s incredibly important to maintain that immediacy. But the big thing for me was the phenomenal commitment that Channel 4 and Dulux made to creating the rooms properly and that was a really, really big thing.

I really enjoyed what I did on Changing Rooms originally, but it was like the Crossroads. With the best will in the world, you’d lean on something and it would go sideways. Now, throughout this series, we have been so fabulously resourceful with talented personnel to make some really inspirational rooms… We have to inspire with the rooms, we have to lead with the rooms, we have to do something that people get very excited about. And the problem now is that if you don’t like the rooms, you can’t get rid of them, because they’re so incredibly well built!

Anna Richardson is hosting this series. What is she like to work with?
In many ways, she has the Changing Rooms identity incarnate, she’s like a beautifully carved figurehead on the HMS Changing Rooms. Presenting this show is about the immediacy, the reality and the naughtiness, and the audience has to feel as though Anna is them in the room, asking the questions the designers don’t want to be asked and talking to the homeowners about what they’re worried about. Anna’s got that absolutely right. Also, she was incandescently glamorous in a boiler suit!

What can we expect from Russell and Jordan on the series?
They’re two designers who basically grew up within the tradition they are now stepping into. Sometimes I look at the rooms they do and go ‘Oh my god, that’s so Changing Rooms’, because it is. The wheel of taste has definitely revolved on this one and the 90s is so back, and their designs have a sort of grounding in post modernism in the 80s and 90s. I know their work very well and I think they have a very specific take on where taste is at the moment which is quite exciting. I like their internationalism and I like their storytelling.

One of the main things people remember from the original series is the disappointed or horrified reactions. Have you now learnt how to avoid that, or can we expect to see more of the same?
I was never frightened of what people think about my work, or me. As far as I was concerned, I was doing the room – and this is something that my real clients have to get their head around – and my main responsibility is to get the room right otherwise I am not doing the job properly. I don’t give people the rooms they want, at all, ever, I never have done, I give people the rooms they need, or the rooms they deserve.

In the first series, only three people didn’t like their rooms, yet I got this enormous reputation. Ever since then, people have always been braced for absolute silliness, but they open their eyes and go ‘Ah it’s not that bad, funnily enough, I quite like art nouveau. It’s naughty, but I think I can live with it.’ So in this series, I want to find people’s design pain barrier. It’s not about breaking it, it’s about pickling it and so woe betide anyone that says to me, ‘Oh well you know, whatever you do, don’t do brown’, because guess what…

Design is about movement, it’s about pushing everything forward, so the minute you start saying something doesn’t work, I’m immediately trying to think it does work. So, the reactions are without doubt every bit as big as they ever have been and, in many ways, bigger, but we have more of an appreciation and a literacy now. People are no longer opening their eyes and going ‘Oh wow, it’s a red room I had a white room before but now I’ve got a red room’. Suddenly they’re opening their eyes and saying, ‘It’s raspberry and look it’s almost Baroque in its detailing,’ and it’s really nice to see that.

What are the worst interior design crimes that people are committing these days?
The big thing of course, and I’ve been quite public about this, is the greynaissance which is a very very good idea, grey is the most incredibly good colour for your rooms. But the thing is, you just don’t stop there, grey is about bone structure and once you’ve got a grey room you’ve then got to add colour and personality to it. I think the United Kingdom forgot to turn the page on that particular interior decoration manual. Paint it grey, it looks bigger, it creates light but, actually, on the other side of the page is, whatever you do, make sure that you put in a bit of raspberry or a bit of emerald or a bit of banana or just bring in something that will actually bring it to life. The hill I’m dying on in this new iteration of Changing Rooms is about making Britain bright again, it is about bringing colour back into our interiors, because it’s about fun. I want people to understand that expressing your personality through the place you live is extraordinary.

Finally, are we going to see a return of the famous leather trousers?
We are and, yes, I’ve discovered baby powder. The whole leather thing is very practical, cover yourself in emulsion when you are wearing a pair of jeans and you’ll never get it off, but you can scratch it off leather. The funny thing is, thanks to Bridgerton, I am back in fashion.