It’s a familiar story in today’s Prime property market – a Cheshire mansion bought for £1.85 million in 2007, bull-dozed, re-built and put on the market for £5 million. Two years and a price drop later Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff has finally sold his Prestbury pile – to another sports star, footballer Peter Crouch.

Apart from the set of cricket wickets carved above the front door and a mosaic of the Ashes urn in the swimming pool, this is the type of uber-luxurious house that was built for a footballer – even though it was actually built by a cricketer.

Flintoff bought the plot in October 2007 from ex-Fulham football manager Mark Hughes and after fights with locals and an initially refused planning application, he was able to knock down the existing property and build a six bedroom mansion akin to others on one of the UK’s most expensive streets, Withinlee Road, AKA Footballer’s Alley.

The house was designed for Flintoff family life and includes a large pool plus a smaller one for their three children. It also has a luxury gym and home cinema but the Flintoffs never lived in their made-to-measure home. Instead, they turned their attention to the dizzying heights of Dubai and their Cheshire mansion has waited patiently for two years for a buyer.

Despite being in Prestbury – the centre of footballer land (the Rooneys, Ferdinand and Tevez all live nearby) – Freddie wasn’t bowled over with offers for his £5 million pad. And only after changing estate agents, dropping the asking price by £500,000 – the price of a decent size house to most – plus the luck of footballer Peter Crouch moving Clubs, has the house finally sold.

Crouch is transferring from Tottenham Hotspur to Stoke City and moving up North with his new wife, Abbey Clancy and their six month old daughter and we have no doubt the house will suit the star couple’s needs perfectly, model Abbey will surely love the huge walk-in wardrobe (pictured above) and the WAG neighbours.

You wouldn’t think that paint could be controversial. Once lead was removed from the product during the 1970s what’s not to like?

The current debate, in part stirred up by Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs fame, circles around whether ‘posh paints’ or ‘heritage colours’ are worth the vast extra expense – Farrow and Ball paints are costly as petrol, after all.

Nevertheless, if you do own a period property then there is increasingly peer pressure these days to use paint, fabrics, furniture and fittings that faithful to its architectural era. So what do you do, for example, if you’ve just bought a 1930s property in need of a refresh and want to take it back to that era’s style?

Our friend Donna Hardie, who is editor of property magazine Completely London, says that unless you’re an antiques collector it’s very difficult to create an authentic 1930s interior but that, by staying true to its original paint colour palette and mixing in some Art Deco-style prints and a few period furniture items, the years can be rolled back.

Art Deco was all about the influences of increasing mass travel so African safaris made animal skins, tortoiseshell and mother of pearl to popular in the home, and after Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb, Egyptian sphinxes and pyramids kicked in. The bold colours of the Ballets Russes were a strong influence too, so theatrical velvets, satin and fringing were used in strong shades of coral, cobalt blue, bright orange, jade green, mauve, black and gold.

Rather than coordinating different colours in one scheme, Art Deco homes featured rooms in one all-over colour. Accents and definition were added in the form of wallpaper borders featuring a Greek or Aztec geometric print in gold or silver but, as borders are a bit passé in the modern home, bring in geometric accents with printed wallpaper, cushions and drapes.
Also, chrome, glass and mirrored surfaces dominated the Art Deco home, so look for 1930s pieces such as Eileen Gray’s side table or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair.

But if Art Deco is not your style, here are some pointers on other periods:

Georgian
Early colour schemes in the Georgian period used darker shades of green, burgundy and blue-grey, but in later years they lightened up and featured vibrant shades of Wedgwood blue, dusky pink, dove grey and stone. Wallpaper was popular above panelling and came from the Far East, so Chinoiserie designs were the order of the day.

Victorian
There’s a commonly held belief that Victorian colours were dark and dreary – quite the contrary. Wall colours were similar to their Georgian predecessors, in shades of salmon, fawn, ochre, French grey, lilac and sage green, but architectural mouldings were picked out in shades of dark green, brown and purple. The Victorians also typically used embossed paper under the dado rail and painted it in a shade richer than the wall above.

1950s
This was the Atomic age, when exposure to technological advances paved the way for bolder shades, space-age prints and geometric shapes. Popular colours were robin’s egg blue, sunny yellow, pink, avocado green, brown and gold. Red was dominant in upholstery, while black and white chequerboard linoleum covered floors. Plastic, chrome, Formica and abstract wallpaper were in every home.

We have all seen House Doctor, Selling Houses and the host of other programmes telling us how to prepare our house to sell.  You know, the ones where the basic premise is to ‘paint your house magnolia’ and stick a new carpet in.

But while neutral colours do appeal to a mass market, how do professional interior designers suggest their prime clients prepare their homes for sale? After all, the more money you’re asking for a property, the harder you may have to work on presentation, right?

Before and after (below): How the lounge of a two-bedroom Georgian apartment in London was 'staged' for sale.

Our friends at Brahm Interiors say they are increasingly being asked to dress properties for sale or to let rather than just to make homes more beautiful. They say ‘don’t go for the minimal look but rather embellish and edit your possessions’.

Apparently a good edit of your possessions can do wonders. Coco Chanel once said “before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory, less is always more”. The same can be said of interiors accessories.

Once you have had a thorough edit, it might be time to add. Whatever your property size or budget, a few savvy props can transform a home. The breadth of furnishings and accessories now available on the high street means that there are solutions available to give a property that elusive X factor. Brahm often utilise ‘statement pieces’ and simple accessories that work with the existing interiors. A large mirror, an sculpture or a prized antique can completely transform the room by giving it a focus. Tie in other items in the room and you end up with a coordinated scheme that will appeal to any buyer.

Recently Brahm were called in to revitalise a Georgian flat in London (see before and after pictures, above). They added a large rug to the living area to provide some warmth and a focal point to the spacious room. Existing furniture was joined by floor lamps to frame either end of the sofa. Light coloured cushions were placed to contrast with the sofa’s dark brown fabric while tired armchairs were swapped with two neutrally coloured ones that added ‘structure and sophistication’. They then positioned large vases of flowers in the centre of the room to provide drama.

Such simple additions can make a huge difference.

Do you watch Kevin McCloud on Channel 4′s Grand Designs TV show and think ‘that could be me building my own home?

Then from 7th-9th October Birmingham is where you should be for inspiration. The live version of the TV series is at the NEC exhibition centre this year, which will be hosting the all-painting, bricklaying and roof tiling Grand Designs Live starring the ever-eloquent Mr McCloud.

Kevin McCloud speaking at last year's Birmingham Grand Designs event

Hundreds of suppliers and experts will be joining McCloud at the show so if you want advice and information about building your own home including interiors, technology, bathrooms, kitchens and much more, then PrimeLocation.com the show’s official property partner, has a 2 for 1 offer on tickets to the event. To find out how to take advantage of this deal and for terms and conditions go to the PrimeLocation.com website.

As Caroline Quentin struggles to impress the viewers of her Tuesday night BBC2 TV show ‘Restoration Home’, we spoke to a couple who have radically restored an apartment on one of Britain’s most famous squares, Brunswick Square in Brighton.

Flashy kitchens or the latest home entertainment gadgets are what tempt most buyers when looking for their ideal home. Few have the vision to see beyond a grimy bathroom, stained pea green carpet or rotting ceilings – but Ricky Paugh and girlfriend Jemma took a leap of faith when they bought a flat in Hove near Brighton, especially the agent told them “I don’t know why anyone would buy this property”.

The ulgly duckling

Ricky, 34, and Jemma say they like unsightly properties. “The uglier the better because we like to add value”, he says. When they bought their one bedroom first floor flat in Brighton’s historic Brunswick Square they were appalled by how disgusting it was. The reception room had been carved up into three small rooms, there was a foul smell and the bathroom was “caked in grime”.

But what attracted them to the run down regency home were the tell-tale signs of its former grandeur in the bedroom, which would have been the main receiving room for guests before the homes were broken up into flats. It had a 14 foot high ceiling with original cornicing and coving yet next door, the lounge had only an eight foot high ceiling.

They “bought it on a whim”, believing that behind the suspended lounge ceiling would also be hidden grandeur. And they weren’t disappointed. Ricky says it was the “greatest find by far” during their ten month renovation. They uncovered completely intact cornicing as well as a centre ceiling rose. There was also ornate Victorian gold-leaf wallpaper still on the ceiling.

A victim of the times

Ricky thinks the ceiling was lowered in the oil crisis of the 70s when people couldn’t afford fuel to keep large rooms warm. The fireplace was also filled in to prevent drafts and the sash windows stuffed with newspaper dating back to the 70s.

The couple have spent £33,000 on the flat and have created a hallway, taken the bathroom out of the bedroom and turned the front room into a large open plan space. As well as revealing the original ceiling, they’ve also unblocked the fireplace and made the windows wind-tight.

Restored coastal home for sale in Brighton

Now, the property is for sale and, being on the beach, would make a seaside bolthole for someone working in London during the week or someone looking for a coastal home which seamlessly blends modern life with traditional features.

Ricky hopes whoever buys it will appreciate its history – the square dates back to the 1800s and the property was once lived in by Sir Horatio George Walpole (the great nephew of former Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole). And, of course whoever buys it now will be tempted by the flashy new kitchen and gadget-filled bathroom – which includes a plasma TV in the shower.

7, Brunswick Square is for sale with Sawyer and Co for £280,000

PrimeLocation has admired Wayne Hemingway from afar for some time. His career has been extraordinarily diverse starting with a ‘vintage’ clothing stall at Camden Market, London during the 1980s which he developed into fasion giant Red or Dead, and which he and wife Gerardine sold in 1999 reportedly for multi millions.

He then set up a general design practice offering urban (i.e. housing) design, landscaping, garden sheds (sold in B&Q) and much more.

Wayne is also a keen cyclist and is patron of the Sustrans National Cycle Network which he helped win a £50m National Lottery grant a few years back, and has designed an affordable folding bike. Also, he ensures that any of the housing developments he designs (13 so far all over the UK) have full-on cycling facilities.

So given this interesting track record and his almost cult status as a quirky spokesperson for design, we chased him down for an interview. Wayne is not an easy man to catch, nevertheless.

His schedule is manic to say the least plus he’s not prone to smiling in front of cameras, we’ve noticed – no exception in our video – although a member of the team here says a snap they took at an exhibition recently disproves this rule.

Nevertheless Wayne gave us an hour of his time down at his gorgeous, self-built house in near Chichester in West Sussex – and we’ve turned it into a six-minute or so video.

Ahead of Grand Designs Live at the end of this month, Primelocation went to see the star of the show, Kevin McCloud, during which he held court about his eco-homes development called The Triangle, in Swindon, nearing completion – and his vindication following its unexpected success.

At the moment, your company Hab is involved in building 42 eco homes in Swindon. What’s the response been like?

The response has been extremely good. We’ve now allocated our social housing tenants, they are in 21 of the homes and the other 21 homes are going not to open market sale but we’ve done sort of open market rent-to-buy and open market home shared ownership. We’ve had a fantastic, overwhelming response. Which after five years of work on the scheme is a wonderful vindication.

Kevin McCloud's eco-homes project, The Triangle in Swindon

So were people sceptical about the project?

One property developer said to me, you’ll never sell temporary housing, you’ll never sell terraced housing, people want detached and they want traditional with little lead porches. I said, really? They said, yeah, it’s safe. People like the idea of safety, they like the idea of a building which will never age. I said well what about the fact that all the interior layouts are useless and that you’ve got huge amounts of circulation space in tiny rooms? He said, no, that’s not right, people don’t want it. And I honestly thought at that point, no you’re wrong, people do respond to good design.

What is it you think people want?

Five million people watch Grand Designs, they’ve come to understand the principle of compression and release, what a big white window will do for you, what a high ceiling will do for you, what a view of the sky will do for you. They’ve come to understand that to be given a tiny, low ceiling hutch isn’t good enough and it’s lovely to be vindicated in a very quiet way.

What are the properties in the development like?

We’re building terraced houses, really, really affordable, standard housing association budget stuff with small gardens, but lots of shared space. With small bedrooms, but with a larger sitting room. With small parking spaces, but a big shared garden and playground area. And so we give, we take; we try and play tricks.

Do you think this way of living will be successful?

In a way the big moment of judgement will not be the day that everyone moves in at all, it will be a period over the following year, as we see people, we hope, form their own community, it may not work, we don’t know, but pray God it does and pray God that they don’t decide collectively, because they can, to tarmac over the vegetable garden and turn it in to a car park.

Read more of our exclusive Kevin McCloud interview and get half price tickets to Grand Designs Live.

The lavish interior and unusual layout of 120 Kensington Park Road would make it an iconic Notting Hill home even if Robbie hadn’t lived there between 1998 and 2002 after he’d left Take That and moved down to London from Manchester.

It must have seen some life whilst he was there, especially as this was during his ‘wild’ times. He was dating Nicole Appleton, singer with All Saints, whom he got engaged to but was unceremoniously dumped outside the address when they broke up.

Robbie also let Geri Halliwell move into to his home after the Spice Girls split up so she could get away from the paparazzi. But it probably wasn’t the best place for privacy, as it’s over the Paul Smith shop on the corner of Westbourne Grove and right in the heart of Notting Hill with all the shops, restaurants and antique shops just around the corner.

The house is on four floors with a great little sun trap of a roof terrace designed by the vendor’s brother – landscape gardener, Caspar Gabb, a gold award winner of the Chelsea Flower Show in 2006. The current owner completely revamped the property when he bought it four years ago, putting the living room on the top floor and opening it up to the rafters and turning one of the bedrooms into the kitchen.

Now the V-shaped 30 foot long living room has a vaulted ceiling with sky lights and a pale wooden floor. At one end is a section of solid wood with a very real looking contemporary fireplace at the bottom, breaking up the otherwise large expanse of white walls. There are stunning views from this floor and the terrace, with its teak decking and bench, over the roofscape of London and also the very pretty Kensington Park Gardens.

On the second floor is a large kitchen with central work station and dining area. Stretching above this into the reception room above is a curved double height gallery. This feature really makes a difference to both rooms with a glass balustrade set around the top and a stunning light installation hanging down, created by Irish designer, Niamh Barry. There’s also a small bedroom and smart little bathroom with dark grey granite tiling on the second floor.

On the floor below are two en-suite bedrooms, one of which is the master bedroom with large bathroom tiled in marble and a large walk-in shower. The bedroom is very light with four sash windows including the curved corner one and has plenty of fitted wooden wardrobes.

Throughout, the property is very high tech – with Lutron lighting, a Bose integrated music system so you can listen to different music on each floor and pop-up TVs in the living room and at the end of the bed in the master bedroom. The 2,040 square feet property has its own entrance and is for sale through Domus Nova for £3.45 million.

He was famous for his fast driving and even faster personal life and now the former home of James Hunt – the 1970s sex symbol, F1 champion and all round racing legend, is up for sale.

It’s a four bedroom mews house in Normand Mews, West Kensington, London W14 and yours for £2.75 million.

Ok so the smell of petrol smeared racing outfits and Brut after shave has long gone – Hunt left three years after buying in 1980 – but the changes he made to the house linger.

The current owners, Peter and Carol Harrison, say Hunt bought the house (which is in fact two mews homes put together) because the garage had space for his beloved Ferraris and classic car collection.

The property, which is within a gated mews community, witnessed some of his rocky personal life including a marriage to Suzy Miller (who left him for Richard Burton) and also happier times with Sarah Lomax, with whom he had two sons but also later split from.

Changes Hunt made to the addresss – No. 7 & No.8 – during his three year stint there included adding new bedrooms, a 19th century spiral staircase, a domed ceiling in the master bedroom and a Jacuzzi, some of which remain.

But Hunt may not recognise much else now. Recently, the house has been refurbished with state of the art, luxury amenities including an Italian Valcucine glass kitchen and Basalt worktops, an in-wall gas fireplace, a home cinema and a hidden wine cellar with space for 1,060 bottles.

The master bedroom has sliding doors opening on to an astro-turfed sundeck and each room comes equipped with TVs and Sonos Music systems.

Despite these modern-day embellishments, the Harrisons were nevertheless keen that Hunt’s time at the property isn’t forgotten. Several years ago the couple asked English Heritage to put up a ‘lived here’ blue plaque but the rules are clear – only 20 years after someone’s death or 100 years after their birth can it be added. So the couple, keen not to hang around, had their own plaque made instead.

There are several ‘real’ ones in the area, too. Including one for one for Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mahatma Gandi.  There are some less deceased famous faces in the area though, including singer Estelle and TV presenter Konnie Huq.

So where did Hunt after shipping out of the house in 1982? To Wimbledon, and a spell in suburbia before he sadly succumbed to a heart attack in 1993, soon after proposing to what sadly wouldn’t be the third Mrs Hunt.

Mews properties like this have become popular in recent years; they’re quirky, have bags of personality and character compared to the huge houses they’re usually behind.

A pregnant Kate Hudson recently purchased a £4 million Mews house in North London which she will share with boyfriend Matt Bellamy (lead vocalist in Muse) when she stays in London.

This is a guest blog by writer Roger Hunt.

When a plastic window salesman comes to my door I like to keep them talking. Why? Well, it gives me a tiny crumb of satisfaction that I’m wasting their time and maybe stopping them calling on someone who’s going to fall for their sales patter. It’s petty I know but few things upset me more than seeing perfectly good wood windows being replaced with ugly, unsustainable and far from cheap unplasticised polyvinyl choloride or uPVC as its better known.

Windows make up the face of a home and contribute hugely to its character. Estate agents agree. In a survey by English Heritage 82% of them felt that original features such as sash windows tend to add financial value to properties and 78% believed they helped to sell a property more quickly. 

© Boris Baggs, courtesy of English Heritage -an original timber door (left) that compliments the characters of a terrace row of Victorian homes, an effect destroyed by the plastic replacement on the right © Boris Baggs, courtesy of English Heritage

Replacing original windows is incredibly wasteful and it’s worth remembering that the timber used to make them was usually of very high quality. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find wooden windows that are 100 or even 200 years old and still going strong. If they are damaged it’s possible to make relatively inexpensive repairs which is something that’s virtually impossible to do with plastic windows – they invariably get shipped off to landfill.    

 Modern wood windows made from sustainably sourced timber by reputable firms are of a high standard and are expected to last at least 60 years. With plastic windows it’s not unusual to see signs of deterioration quite early in their life despite claims they’re ‘maintenance free’. That’s why there’s now special paint to “transform weathered and discolored uPVC”.

 The common argument for replacing wood windows is energy efficiency but this is largely down to the glazing within the window rather than what the frame is made of. Wood itself is extremely thermally efficient and there’s lots you can do in terms of draught proofing and adding secondary or double glazing – specialist companies can help with this.  
 When it comes to sustainability, wood is naturally renewable and as trees grow they soak up CO2 from the atmosphere. uPVC is a product of the petrochemical industry. 

 Then there’s that all important question of price. High performance, double-glazed timber windows need cost no more than their PVC-U equivalents: research for the Wood Window Alliance reveals that wood windows work out between 2-7% cheaper than uPVC over their lifetime.

 So what are you going to do next time the plastic window salesman comes calling? I’m going to carry on talking!

Roger Hunt is one of the UK’s leading architectural, environmental and property writers. Follow him on Twitter at @huntwriter.