Country House: March 2007

JULIET KINSMAN

As editor of the Mr & Mrs Smith hotel guides, Juliet Kinsman regularly visits stylish stays in the name of work.  It's a tough job sampling Egyptian cotton sheets and Michelin-starred menus, but someone's got to do it.  She's currently on the lookout for her dream cottage in the New Forest, ripe to be fixed up for a boutique hotel-lover with an unforgiving eye for detail.  Her fantasy hideaway would be an imaginative blend of old-fashioned elegance and modern-day comforts: a farmhouse kitchen with an Aga, a cosy boudoir with an ensuite equipped for every home-spa hankering, Timorous Beasties wallpapers, cushions from Maisonette in Kensal Rise, lighting from Liberty – well, you can take the girl out of west London...