Lets pretend for a minute that we’re all at ease spending £350-a-night on holiday digs and peruse Guestbook, the latest magazine from the people of One Fine Stay. That’s the ‘unhotel’ company, whose mantra ‘live like a local’ (just not a very ordinary one) describes its business of offering swish houses in London and New York as the alternative to staying in a hotel room. The company’s first magazine is edited by Wallpaper’s Alex Bagner…

…So it’s lovely looking and written to the person who doesn’t need to imagine they’re at ease with spending £350-a-night. Stay with me.

The front section includes case studies from One Fine Stay’s portfolio, shot especially for the mag with Apartamento-style realism minus its everydayness – ie there are no ugly fridges in Guestbook.

Brooklyn’s finest, owned by a Swiss handbag designer and her beautiful personal trainer husband. Be honest, would you be dissppointed  if she worked in IT and he was an office clerk?

On Princelet Street, East London. See it in full here, if only to marvel at the garden more.

And, nearby, another stonker on Fournier Street.

There are also interviews and a Live Like a Local feature, which in this issue focusses on Primrose Hill. Next issue Honour Oak, I bet you.

Get a copy of Guestbook  here.

Throwing out the towel

Something is getting me down. It’s the bathroom. It should really be the nicest room in my house. It’s quite big, for a one bedroom flat, and gets the most sun out of all the rooms. But it’s a dive. Want to see the grot? Excuse how blurry the pictures are, but believe me, it’s […]

A letter to Toast

Dear Toast Please stop taunting me with your tiny, perfect, exactly-what-I’m-looking-for-in-a-rug, ‘mats’. 75 x 150cm of herringbone weave is useful to no man. Please, just make them a lot bigger (for example 180 x 200cm). Yours sincerely Jill

Designed by birds

I’ve been looking at the website of photographer Dillon Marsh, based in South Africa. Someone had posted a link on Facebook to this series of photographs, of nests built by Sociable Weaver Birds in telegraph poles in the southern Kalahari region. His work seems concerned with the interplay of nature and the man-made world, and […]

Optical illusions

No, that’s not me or Ros – we’re more likely to frequent each others living rooms than Shoreditch House (and wear much shorter skirts). That’s actress Andrea Riseborough. But it’s not her Mulberry party dress that earned her a turn on our blog, it’s the floor and bar behind her of course. Diagonal stripes! Last […]