First impressions of a home etch deepest and longest, and the first point of contact that friends, colleagues or potential purchasers have is the exterior, not with the fitted kitchen, hand-painted wallpaper or soft furnishings inside. This is a book offering advice to those who want to make the most of the outside of their house or apartment. The photographs are of exteriors ranging from the classic to the idiosyncratic, the period to the ultra-modern, and cover a wide variety of taste and scale. From simple devices such as doors, bells, letterboxes, nameplates, numbers and windowboxes, which can transform a house in a weekend, to overall treatments of colour and texture and ideas for large-scale features like shutters, porches, conservatories and balconies, the book creates a design menu of hundreds of ideas. The author's work on design and cookery has been featured in "Cosmopolitan", "The World of Interiors", "Country Living" and other magazines, and her published books include "Paint Magic".