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Musicians Carrie and David Grant must have grown accustomed to living in close quarters with Fame Academy students at Witanhurst House, the mansion in Highgate, north London, where the television series was filmed. For the last couple of years they have become famous to the TV-watching public as singing coaches and judges on the show that selected a group of pop star wannabees to stay at Witanhurst, then cruelly ejected contestant after contestant until a winner emerged.

Now the show is over. Until the next one comes along they have returned to their roles as private singing coaches — but they still hanker after a life filled with people. Which should be easy to arrange in their five-bedroom detached 1930s house in Southgate, north London, which they bought 18 months ago almost entirely on the strength of its potential for parties.

The spacious living room is quiet on the day of our interview, although Carrie points out that this is an exception. Apparently there are almost always people staying overnight, and the 38-year-old, whose client list includes celebrities such as Melanie C, Emma Bunton and Will Young, has a passion for large buffets, which is what attracted her to the 34ft room complete with bar.
“We have these supper parties in the summer, with about 70 people coming for dinner,” she says. “It’s fantastic — they get a real mixture of West Indian and English food, and it almost always ends up with discussions about faith in God and things like that.”

Carrie and David, 47, are committed Christians. They’re not preachy but they love to draw people into their social circle. At a party two years ago their two daughters (Olivia, 8, and Talia, 2) couldn’t get into their bedrooms because of the large number of guests.

David found their new house through an advertisement in the local paper. When they went to view they were drawn to the huge living room, which overlooked the heated outdoor pool. “The carpet had holes in it and was pretty rundown,” says Carrie, “but I saw the party potential: you look out onto glistening water.

“I love to keep the pool heated, because it’s a real therapy for us. It would probably cost as much to see a psychiatrist in winter if we were to try and save money by turning the heat off. And I love watching the floodlit steam rising at night.”

The couple haven’t sold their other property, a four-bedroom home just a few hundred yards away, preferring to rent it out as an investment for their retirement. They bought it five years ago for £150,000 and it’s now valued at about £380,000.

Their latest property cost them £520,000 and needed a lot of work. The Grants have spent £70,000 on new rear windows, rewiring, damp-proofing and redecorating the lounge, kitchen and music room. They were lucky not to be gazumped when they bought it at £45,000 less than the asking price and another buyer offered £40,000 more just weeks later. Today it is valued at about £720,000.

The only thing they kept in the living room is the 1930s-style bar with mosaic tiling. They laid oak floor tiles with embedded lights, choosing plain-coloured walls with minimalist furnishing. Carrie is keen to show off an 1893 Louis Vuitton cabin trunk standing in the corner. She noticed it tucked away in an antiques shop. The label inside was concealed by brown lining paper so the shop owner had no idea what it was and she managed to pick it up for just £40. It’s probably worth closer to £2,000.

In the kitchen the previous owners had installed a false ceiling of tiles with strip lights. The room was stripped back to the walls, a black flagstone floor was installed. Metallic and oak units and black marble worktops completed the effect.

The music room has been decorated with acoustics in mind. The carpets in their previous house absorbed sound, and the students who come to their home for voice coaching have all commented on the improved ambience from the harder surfaces. Typical of Carrie’s sense of style is her pride in an old reclaimed iron radiator, the type you see painted white in 1960s schools. It cost £30 to buy but £150 to have it stripped and polished up to a startling silver sheen.

The builders couldn’t resist poking fun at the string of famous faces who arrived at the house while they were working on site. Carrie says she cringed with embarrassment to hear strains of the singing exercise “Macaroni ravioli” coming from rough male voices outside when Will Young turned up one day.
Tacked on to the left side of the property is a single-storey extension containing a full-size snooker table which the previous owners were unable to take with them to Spain.

The Grants originally had plans to extend the first floor out over this room until a surveyor told them the foundations would need to be relaid. Now the grander plan is to spend £100,000 completely transforming that side of the house.

They will knock down the existing extension and use the space in part as a utility room and part as a huge new dining room with a raised platform for the snooker table and a raised library area with reading chairs.
This section of the house will be the only part of the ground floor softened by carpets, and to this they will also add an octagonal quiet room with windows facing the back garden.

Upstairs will consist of a new bedroom with walk-in wardrobe, a bathroom and an octagonal sitting lounge. There will be a sun deck and an open-plan loft conversion. The project will only add one (huge) new bedroom but there will be two more bathrooms (four in all), which Carrie says is essential with the number of people they have to stay. “What’s the point of having a six-bedroom house if you only ever use two or three of them?” she concludes with a wink. “I hate the thought of having bedrooms that aren’t used.”