It's always fascinating to catch a glimpse of another world. Hearing Martyn Lawrence Bullard speak about his life and work last week transported the rapt audience to a world where covering a client's bathroom ceiling in white gold is entirely possible.

When that client is Elton John, it seems a lot of things are possible. Painting a sitting room the colour of his kelly-green Hermes bag – tick. Covering a bed in python skin smuggled into the US on a friend's private jet – tick. Buying George Clooney's chair from Oceans Eleven and covering it in custom-dyed lime green alligator skin – tick. Even Martyn has limits though; he declined to cover the interior of another client's garage in gold leaf, feeling this was a little over the top.

Having travelled to LA to try his luck at acting, a series of events including the overdose of a friend's wedding planner led to him sitting next to Cheryl Tiegs at said friend's wedding, which he had decorated at the last minute using a staple gun and cheap fabric.  Having met him, it's very easy to imagine his high-octane charm and sheer force of personality winning the chance to decorate her Bel Air home, and from there his career snowballed.

The celebrity gossip (Cheryl Tiegs always serves chicken roasted in a bag for dinner, Sharon & Ozzy Osbourne don't have carpets because of all their dogs, Kid Rock has a stripper pole in his living room, Tamara Mellon has over 8,000 pairs of shoes!) was the icing on the cake of a very entertaining visual tour through several of his recent projects, including the homes of Ellen Pompeo, Cher and Tamara Mellon as well as his own home in the Hollywood Hills.  You can hear him describe his work and see many of the images in his book Live, Love & Decorate in this video from his publishers Rizzoli.

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Martyn is currently working on restoring a castle in Umbria for a Russian oligarch.  That will be luxurious classical antiques and fabrics juxtaposed with ultra modern art commissioned from English artists such as Damien Hirst and the Chapman brothers. Good news though - he's currently filming the second series of Million Dollar Decorators for Bravo, and may be back in Australia in September with Kathryn M. Ireland to promote it.

Dear readers, I stood in a seriously pushy crowd of women for a long time to buy a copy of the sumptuous Live, Love & Decorate and have it signed by Martyn, all for you. You can see Martyn, me and the signed book below in front of some of his fabrics and candles, which are stocked by the lovely  Tigger Hall in Melbourne.

To win the signed copy of Live, Love & Decorate, click on the Facebook 'Like' button at the bottom of this post and also leave a comment here on the blog telling me which is your favourite Martyn Lawrence Bullard room, and why. Entries close on Sunday 12^th February, after which I'll choose the best comment and send the book to the winner. 



I'll report separately on an interesting panel discussion with Martyn and renowned Australian decorators Thomas Hamel, Greg Natale and Marco Meneguzzi.

Now thudding back to reality...
Victoria