Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen: My Life in Media

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, 43, is a television presenter and interior designer. He first appeared on Changing Rooms in 1996, where his flamboyance and dandyish dress helped to make the BBC show a hit. He has since forged a career in television and newspapers. Yesterday, he began presenting The Sunday Spa on Classic FM. He lives in Gloucestershire with his wife Jackie and their two daughters, Cecile and Hermione. The family's move from London to the country was the subject of To The Manor Bowen, on Living TV, and the couple run their interior design company, LB&A, together.

What inspired you to embark on a career in the media?

An acquaintance of Jackie's wanted to make a Ready Steady Cook-style show for interiors. The show became Changing Rooms and its success was a crazy surprise for me. I went into television full-time after two years, mostly because my design clients disliked the paparazzi attention. Jackie and I aimed for a broader market with wallpapers and books, and in the last five years I've started doing interiors again professionally.

When you were 15, what were your favourite radio and television programmes?

I can remember the radio always being on. The television was black and white and on for an hour at lunchtime for the children's programmes. Now I prefer the radio to the television, which can be intrusive.

Describe your job.

I suppose I've got a broad portfolio. It's about communicating cultural ideas. Since Changing Rooms and Holiday, those ideas have become more cultural, leading to my becoming a Classic FM DJ. We launched LB&A in 2003 which is going well. We've just launched a restaurant in Cheltenham and we're doing several commercial projects local to us.

How do you think you influence the media?

I occupy an odd position because I will be designer of, for example, a wallpaper collection, but then will also be the consumer of that product when I'm designing on television. Charity involvement is one very specific influence that you can have. For example, our council organised a march about the Post Office closures which we got involved in, and suddenly there were not only local media turning up but the nationals, and the local event highlighted what is actually a nationwide issue. I thought: "Now that really is celebrity in action".

What's the first media you turn to in the morning?

Unless one of my daughters has sneaked down to switch on CBBC in the morning, I tend not to hit media until I get into the office, when it's nearly always Classic FM or something on the iPod. Sometimes I'll find Jackie has the breakfast news on, with GMTV's Fiona Phillips smiling benignly at her. But I like to keep it reasonably quiet in the morning. I will normally save the whole newspaper experience for the weekend.

Do you consult any media sources during the day?

The internet is used exhaustively in the office, but I'm not very good at it so I write requests for what I need to have researched. In my mind, emails are sort of parchment manuscripts – curlicues and a big wax seal at the bottom of them! I'm quite a Luddite, though I've found that my mobile gives me news. I don't know how I managed to do that. The other day I was looking at some news, and then suddenly it was breasts! It was thesun.co.uk or something, but I got rid of it before anyone noticed.

What is the best thing about your job?

There still is that moment with designing when I stand in a finished room with lots of people, after being so used to seeing it full of scaffolding and workmen, look at it and feel great. That was always one of the most engaging things about Changing Rooms – that for better or worse, sitting there after 48 hours of intense slog, it always looked transformed.

What's the proudest achievement of your working life?

Being part of people's Sunday morning on Classic FM is going to be tremendous. It's the point before Sunday goes off the boil a bit. What I want to do with The Sunday Spa is really create the feeling of a complete treat.

What's your most embarrassing moment?

After 10 years of Changing Rooms, which was potentially the most embarrassing television imaginable, I've found that I can generally bounce back from some humiliating experiences.

What do you tune into at home?

We normally have Classic FM on in the kitchen. I have been rather transfixed by Ashes to Ashes.

What is your Sunday paper and do you have a favourite magazine?

Whatever the local paper shop has got left, bearing in mind we're in the middle of the Cotswolds. It's sometimes just the Gloucestershire Echo. I have to read the majority of the interiors magazines.

>Name the one career ambition you want to realise.

My current ambition is to direct and art direct classical music videos.

If you didn't work in the media what would you do?

Be the interior designer I was before I was dragged off into media land.

Who in the media do you most admire and why?

Soap actors. It must be so difficult for them to walk into a room without being judged by their character.

The CV

1996: Appears in first episode of Changing Rooms on the BBC. It enjoys a nine-year run.

1999: Begins a design column for the Saturday and Sunday Express newspapers and presents Fantasy Rooms and Home Front on BBC2.

2002: Joins the BBC team covering the Chelsea Flower Show.

2003: Sets up LB&A Interior Design Associates with wife Jackie.

2005: Becomes the main presenter of Holiday.

2006: Hosts the first televised coverage of the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition.

2007: Makes To The Manor Bowen.

2008: Joins Classic FM with The Sunday Spa, Sundays at 9am.

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