Conrad Shawcross on salvage

London, UK - "I don't tend to buy furniture. I inherited quite a few bits and pieces from my grandfather, like a wonderful old set of leather suitcases - he was a lawyer and he used them for work; we use them as a table. Other things I need I tend to find by scavenging in abandoned warehouses and derelict buildings (there are an abundance of them around here). I have an amazing 1920s anatomist table that I found in an old building in Oxford from my student days at The Ruskin.

"One thing I did buy was my roll-top bath, which I recently found on eBay. It now sits a few feet away from our bed. I painted the underside of it black to make it look more elegant. That was Sophie's idea - she's an actress [in Vanity Fair] and likes things to look dramatic. I also put two skylights in to give the room better light. One of my current projects is to build a study for Sophie. It is going to be between our bedroom and the living room and will be somewhere she can keep all her clothes and practise her lines.

"The kitchen is one of my favourite areas of the house. I have a huge Belfast sink that I found in an architectural salvage store on the Essex Road in Islington (must be Jason Davies at Architectural Forum). Also, I have a great range cooker, which is wonderful for knocking up pasta on."

The son of royal biographer William Shawcross and the writer Marina Warner, Conrad Shawcross lives in Clapton, East London with his girlfriend, the actress Sophie Hunter [Part of an interview by Tessa Williams-Akoto in The Independent]