Think of Britain and an image like this may spring into your mind:

As we continue with our virtual time-traveling tour of the UK–following the path set by the BBC Two show The Great Interior Design Challenge, Season 2–our next stop is the 17th century, where we visit the living rooms of three cottages where the proletariat once lived in rather crowded conditions.

We are visiting this highlighted section of England today:

The cottages look like this on the outside:

Charming, no?

Although originally meant to house many families, four hundred years after they were originally constructed, the cottages have been expanded within  to single family homes.

Despite having larger interiors nowadays, however, the insides are often quite dark and usually centered around a massive fireplace.

Updating with a special eye towards brightening the interiors of living rooms in three similar cottages is the challenge facing the three amateur designers on this episode of my favorite new tv show.

You can find it on Youtube.  It’s a pretty good episode. https://youtu.be/02oB-2KWslE

And, you can read about the Cotswold here, if you are the nerdy type like me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotswolds