An interior decorator builds things up I break them down she says

An interior decorator builds things up, I break them down,” she says. She was asked to do a storage book years ago but had to withdraw because of family illness That book would have taken a room-by-room approach It would have been about boxes and shelves and cupboards. She once met a burglar going out her front door as she was going in and decided not to be very polite about it The tabloids called her a “have-a-go” heroine. Obviously just the kind of person to tackle storage.She guides me past the most incredible amount of stuff in the hall, explaining that she and her husband and three children just moved here three weeks ago from Yorkshire.

They have downsized from a five-bedroom to a three- bedroom house. She has thrown out a lot of stuff but has to throw out a lot more. That much was obvious.Most of lizabeth Hilliard’s books are about interiors of one kind or another. She has a degree in art history which she found dry, but appreciated because it forced her to analyse “So that is how I approach interiors.

The door opened and the first thing I saw was a stack of boxes in the hall Behind them was another stack of boxes. My eyes darted left: the lounge was a mess! I looked ahead: the study looked a mess! I started to relax This felt familiar. Hello Chaos, Goodbye, Perfect Order.lizabeth Hilliard is 37, tallish and constantly moving. If she had to be described with one word it would be enthusiastic. Her brown-grey hair floats around her face and she has a large smile and a dimple, too.

She is wearing a red cardigan that seems to match her personality. The wardrobes would be full of clothes hung according to length; the shelves lined with jumpers folded as if by an anally-retentive shop assistant. In short, I just knew this home would be full of solutions and no problems I knocked. Chaos? Hah! No, the Hilliard home would be whiter than white with alphabetically organised bookshelves.

Never mind that she had assured me that she had just moved and everything was in chaos. I have friends who say things like this and it turns out that one of their books is a few degrees off kilter. By the end of the visit, the poor woman had run the equivalent of several miles from sofa to waste-basket. verything seemed to either be in storage or on its way to being in storage. But, really, wasn’t I being just a bit ridiculous? After all, just because someone has 101 storage solutions doesn’t mean she is going to be a neat freak.And yet I couldn’t help but fear the worst about lizabeth Hilliard’s home.