Rooms with high ceilings are as highly prized as good bone structure. A tall room is blessed with an airy elegance. If you happen to live in a hobbit hole, with ceilings a bit on the low side, don’t despair; there are ways to make the most of the lack in height. Whereas in period properties and cottages low ceilings lend character and charm, in featureless contemporary properties low ceilings can feel claustrophobic. The trick is to either camouflage a low ceiling and draw the eye away from it or flaunt it and draw the eye towards it. If you opt for camouflaging, there are a few guidelines. Play with the proportions of the room; create an...

I drove around London for 8 years. I thought nothing of it – apart from when I was stuck in traffic jams (which was all the time).  Now I cycle. I am a confirmed cyclist. I even binned the car. So when the uber-cool Tokyobike announced it was setting up shop permanently (they ran a pop-up shop in London last July) yards from Clerkenwell’s design area in London, it caught my attention. Available in Tokyo since 2002, this bike has been gathering fans as it makes its journey west.  Without a permanent shop, smart marketing placed the Tokyobike in the hands of design enthusiasts and journalists during Clerkenwell Design Week 2010 &...