Goodbye, you white sofas, you delicate floor lamps, you arthritic antiques - you'll soon be gone! A living environment with children must first and foremost be practical and secondly bearable.

A balcony would be great! That's what every second apartment advertisement says as a hopeful final chord. Everyone wants one. But unlike a bathtub, the best balcony is always the one you don't have yet.

I've been writing about perfect houses and interiors for fifteen years, reading blogs about perfect houses and interiors in my spare time and buying heavy books in non-household quantities that are either about perfect houses or perfect interiors.