I’ve never tried to be an interior designer.  My wife is in charge of the design department – she does it well and doesn’t welcome my views. However, having travelled all over the world, I’ve had the chance to see the work of a lot of very different designers, and wonder why they are paid so much.

A long time ago, I visited a country on the other side of the world. Actually it was Sweden in the old days. I was invited to a big house, newly built by a friend in what came to be known as the “Scandinavian Minimalist Style”. From the outside the house was two concrete blocks with windows. Inside, it seemed to my English eyes that the building was not finished. The walls were plain concrete, with hardly a picture. The light pine wood floors were bare, with only one or two rugs. There was furniture, again of light pine wood, but very little of it. The proud owner told us how his famous architect and decorator had combined to give it a “clean, fresh” look. Empty, I thought and said to  fellow-guest “It’s amazing to me that a decorator should be paid so much for doing so little.” “You foreigners don’t understand,” he replied. Here in Sweden, we are getting rid of the clutter of the old and creating an open new environment. It’s designing the empty spaces that takes the talent!” Well, I was happy to return to my cluttered house and leave the Swedes to their record high suicide rate – caused by too much emptiness in my view.

If the Swedish decorators did too little for their money, I have seen some in other parts of the world who did too much, far too much. Sometimes they make me look back on Swedish minimalism with nostalgia. You know the sort of thing. Drapes with flounces, “highlighted” by ties in contrasting colours. Marble baths with gold taps and water jets that work for a month and then stay inactive and uncomfortable for years. Lighted cabinets showing off collections of china and glass. Sofas with twenty cushions of twenty different fabrics, so plump that you can hardly sit down. Even pets chosen to match the colour scheme – what Garrison Keillor called “accent cats.” What we in England call the “tart’s bedroom” style. Yes, the designer did a lot of work, and it shows.

I like the “lived in look.” Chairs you can sink into, with signs of wear and maybe the odd little stain so that you are not frightened to sit in them. Clutter, yes, but meaningful clutter. A house full of pictures and objects that carry a lifetime of memories.  The only problem for us is that we have so much stuff it takes two houses and an apartment to hold it all, and we recently converted our barn to hold the overspill. A touch of Scandinavian discipline might come in useful.

Isn’t it an odd world that we live in?