At Home with Laurence... (Home Front)

Member Name: helgro1

Product:	Home Front
Date:	14/03/01 (212 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great detail, new design ideas

Disadvantages: none

As those of you that have read my other ops will know, I have a slight obsession with Laurence Llewleyn Bowen. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the new series of Home Front was to be hosted by none other than LLB himself, ably assisted by Diarmud Gavin (of Home Front in the Garden fame).

The show is currently being shown on Wednesday evenings (8pm) on BBC2.

Each program focuses on one house and the makoever of one or two rooms and the garden. Last week's show (the first in the series) was based in Luton, in a fantastic Moderne house, originally built as a show home for the Ideal Home Exhibition in the 1930s. During the show the Home Front team restored several original features of the house including the pagoda and bedroom, giving it a luxorious and elegant 1930s feel. The garden also received a makoever and was transformed into a stunning, sophisticated piece of Hollywood glamour.

Unlike shows such as Changing Rooms and Ground Force, Home Front does not really focus on the actual decorating and gardening techniques so much as the process of design. Several useful tips for both inside and outside the home are given in each program but it is the way in which the makovers are designed that really give the show its edge. Each program encourages you to look at space and design in a completely different way.

Each house is viewed as a style (eg Moderne -1930s) and this style is then thoroughly researched. Last weeks's show saw the team heading off to France to visit some of the works of Le Corbusier, the most prominent Moderne designer.

One of the most exciting aspects of the show is the way in which the garden is also seen as a space to be designed and as an extension of the house, rather than as a piece of turf! Anyone who has previously seen Home Front in the Garden will be familiar with DG's inimitable style and flair. His brand of gardening has been likened to civil engineering and it is not
unusual for his projects to involve large diggers, huge amounts of concrete, buildings, outside movie facilities, glass walkways etc.

Overall, the houses featured on Home Front recieve a fantastic inside and out treatment from a team of highly skillled professionals. Their fresh and innovative styles of design make compulsive viewing and can provide many ideas and sources of inspiration to the artisitically-challenged amongst us!

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