Mad About the House Planner: Your Home, Your Story

I've always been in rented houses before and had no idea where to start with the house stuff! Now I'm still not sure exactly where to start, but at least I know to leave the hall for last! This planner (and Kate's 2 previous books!) has been an absolute godsend, even just for little things like differences in paint types and where is best to use them, how to plan lighting (something I never even considered!), and how to best take measurements to allow for people to move around furniture too.It is focussed on decorating so not the place to go for detailed DIY tips, although there's definitely space to add how to rewire a plug or demolish a wall if that's what you want!This planner has loads of tips, notes space, blank pages for colour swatches and sketches, squared paper for floor plans, space for budget planning, paint references, important addresses, honestly I can't think of anything it's missing.It's a full size book, so not a pocket notepad you can easily jot notes in on the go, but it's not so big that I won't be taking it to IKEA when it reopens!

I loved the previous two Mad About The House books but this one is basically a notebook at a premium price tag! Perhaps I'm not the right audience as I'm an experienced renovator, but I was hoping for more useful nuggets of information and less empty pages! The cover and design is lovely - but you can get some graph paper and a notebook for less than £5!

I'm a huge fan of Kate's so had high hopes for this. Sadly it falls short on every front. I bought it to act a my journal for my new house (I had a journal that became like a bible for my last home which I purchased from the US and can't find another copy of it). I also hoped that as well as being a journal it would have lots of tips from Kate. But it's woefully lacking in tips and the structure it provides for you to plan your new home is wholly inadequate. I would have been better off buying one of Kate's other books and a Moleskine or equivalent notebook. Really not good enough for the purpose.

What a beautiful book, We are just about to complete on our first home and this will be so handy, I’ve already read a few snippets and loving what I’m getting so far!I love all the space for writing, organising and planning and essentially keeping everything in one place for when I do the house up! A planners dream!

Got through this book in under 30min... It's 10% content, 90% blank pages. Yes it's marketed as a planner, but this ratio is wrong at this price tag. The tips don't go into enough depth, it has the detail/substance of a free online article from a home magazine... potentially less. Disappointing.