We have finally started - slowly - redecorating our home after years of living with my partner's bachelor pad furniture and $2 shop accessories. It might sound bizarre, considering what I do for a living, but I never realised just how expensive a few new furnishings could be. It's not that we have excessively expensive tastes (although a lust for the finer things is admittedly an occupational hazard) but more that with each new item that comes into the house, three more items simply have to go.

Take my latest purchase: two weeks ago, I knew that all I needed to make me happy was a wool/sisal-blend rug - just the right combination of softness underfoot and beach-chic texture. So we bought it and brought it home, and it's all that I imagined. Except that, bathed in its glow, the surrounding objects have gone from looking a little tired to positively frightful. The floor lamp looks suddenly bland, beige and masculine, while the coffee table - a retro-inspired folly of MDF and peeling veneer - looks more squat and grey than ever. The only solution, obviously, is to hit the shops again to correct this criminal aesthetic imbalance. So, as soon as I've defrosted my credit card and quelled that pesky inner voice of fiscal responsibility, I'll be off to Beachwood in Avalon. Among their selection of beautiful recycled wood furniture and ocean-inspired accessories, I'll find the coffee table (pictured above) that perfectly fits my stylish-beach-pad vision. That's all I need to be happy. Honest.

Read last week's blog