Carol Bennett has used windowed balconies and mirrors to maximise the feeling of space and light at her flat in South Kensington

• Carol Bennett's do's and don'ts
• Establish your budget and allow a contingency for extras
• Draw up an itemised and costed schedule of works
• Insist on a timetable and regular updates on progress
• Insist on weekly meetings during which you are informed of any variation to the price or the work
• Co-ordinate, check and chase your contractor
• If told that the roofer is arriving at 8am the following day, call him the day before to remind him
• Don't always choose the cheapest contractor. The final bill could be littered with extras
• Don't proceed with a contractor until you have a wntten agreement
• Don't shy away from asking for further breakdowns and explanations of costs. The more detail, the fewer mistakes

• Recommended reading:
• Period Details, Judith and Martin Miller, Mitchell Beazley, £17.99
• The House & Garden Book of Essential Addresses, Art Books, £15.99
• Classic Meets Contemporary, Fleur Rossdale, Collins and Brown, £29.95
• New York Interiors; Tuscany Interiors; Paris Interiors, Taschen Direct, £24.99 each

Because Carol Bennett specialises in making small places look bigger she lias plenty of advice for the average home-owner. "When you come to sell, if you have spent money on kitchens and bathrooms, you always get your money back." says Bennett, 40 who runs her own company, Designed Interiors.

"These days people are looking for underfloor healing and natural flooring in kitchens and power showers in the bathroom." she says.

Bennett is in a good position to offer advice. Since 1995 she has practised what she preaches by decorating and trading up the property ladder every 18 months. She transformed a three-bedroom, one-bathroom railway cottage in Batterea, southwest London, into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house.

In the two years it look to complete, she helped to increase it's value from £185,000 to £325,000. She is now comfortably installed in a one-bedroom galleried flat with a roof terrace in Gloucester Road, South Kensington.

It is working with the rough and tumble of the building trade that gives Bennett her down-to-earth approach.

At any one time she may be running ten sites, and has learnt many hard lessons from dealing with cowboys.

"Your budget is number one and you always have to have a contingency for extras - however extensive your initial survey. You never know what you will find when you pull up some floorboards." she says.

"Equally important in Bennett's book is the schedule of works. "This should be incredibly detailed becasue most builders hate paper. The work should be itemised and the cost beside it." A sample schedule shows the figure of £600 alongside "strip out existing sanitaryware: baths, taps, showers, removing all existing floor and wall coverings/tiles and redundant pipework".

The builder cannot then come back to you and say that it will cost £2,000, she says.

"As far as you are concerned, this has been signed and agreed by both sides." Her next tip involves the timetable. "Give the builders a timetable that is three weeks earlier than you actually want it. Then check that every week the relevant trades are booked in. 'The most common reason for work over-running is because of the "downline" - the plumber cannot work before the electrician has been." she says.

Bennett's clients tend to have rather larger budgets than the average householder (she has just finished helping to design the Harrington Club - a £5 million project for Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood and his wife Jo).

However, her advice on the nitty-gritty of installing bathrooms and kitchens applies to everyone. "For the joy of padding around on warm stone floors, underfloor healing can cost as little as £200 in a small bathroom."

To make small bathrooms look bigger she recommends using large tiles - such as green Verdi limestone.

Heated towel rails, too, are essential to help saleability: "They now come in funky spiral shapes - chrome and curved."

If the budget runs a bii further. Ben nclt recommends sinking basins (around £60) into a stone vanity top and using the same stone border - say rose Verona marble - as a frame in which a mirror can be installed (£150).

For kitchens, Bennett's best tip is to get a designer to look at your kitchen to work out the efficiency of the layout before you start. Most of the big companies - Just Kitchens and Magnet, for example - will give you a free design service even if you do not end up using them.

Her recommended look for this year is clean lines using glass and stainless-steel handles and back plates. "The odd stainless steel tile can cost as little as £4 each." To create a contemporary kitchen with lighting and the look completely integrated, Bennett estimates that you need to spend £10,000 to £15.000.

With no plans to spend more than £10 or £15 on my own Victorian des res. I ask Bennett over to cast her professional eye before leaving. "Mmm. I could help you to spend a lot of money on this place." she says, looking into the attic bedroom cupboard.

"Meanwhile, if you could turn this walk-in airing cupboard into a power shower by moving the boiler downstairs, you would instantly create another bathroom above your existing one." What a brilliant idea, I thought. Now, what was that number one tip? Ah, yes. Budget.

Emma Mahoney