Persephone Nicholas is a Sydney-based journalist with a love of design and interiors. She says renovating her first apartment was an inspiration: “I bought a damp old flat during London’s property boom in the 1980s. It was all I could afford. One of the reasons for the damp was a lack of ventilation under the floor joists. So I had a working bee with a few friends including an engineer. He helped us remove all the rotten joists, excavate and then replace them. It taught me the value of friendship and teamwork: anything is possible if you have the motivation – and the mates – to help you.”