Some hotel refurbishments involve choosing paint colours, fabrics and furniture.
Ours involved spending rather a lot of time in Bloomsbury's bookshops.
As we've been refreshing our Signature Suites, one thing quickly became obvious. For rooms named after Virginia Woolf and Dorothy L. Sayers the bookshelves were looking surprisingly... empty.
That simply wouldn't do.
So, armed with a shopping list (which rapidly became more of a wish list), I set off to explore some of our favourite local bookshops.
My first stop was Skoob Books, tucked away in the Brunswick Centre. A glorious maze of second-hand books, it's the sort of place where you pop in for one title and emerge an hour later carrying an armful of unexpected treasures. If you love browsing, it's impossible not to lose track of time.
Just around the corner, Brunswick Books offers beautifully bound classics alongside a thoughtfully curated selection of contemporary fiction, independent publishers and wonderfully esoteric books about London. It's the kind of shop where every shelf seems to contain a new recommendation.
No literary walk through Bloomsbury would be complete without Gay's The Word, the UK's oldest LGBTQ+ bookshop. A true institution, it has championed LGBTQ+ writing and community for nearly half a century and remains one of London's most welcoming independent bookshops.
Then there's Waterstones Gower Street, Europe's largest bookshop. Spread across several floors, it's a dangerous place to visit if you have limited luggage space. Between the new releases, classics and specialist sections, it's remarkably easy to convince yourself that just one more book won't hurt.
The next chapter of my shopping expedition takes me towards Great Russell Street, where the legendary London Review Bookshop, the wonderfully mysterious The Atlantis Bookshop, and the antiquarian treasures of Jarndyce and Maggs Bros. are all waiting to be explored.
The suites themselves are beginning to come together beautifully, with new fabrics, carefully chosen furnishings and books that reflect the remarkable women whose names they bear. Virginia Woolf and Dorothy L. Sayers, two of Britain's finest writers, inspire our Signature Suites, while pioneering barrister Helena Normanton and distinguished medieval historian Eileen Power lend their names to our Superior Suites.
We hope that when guests settle into an armchair with one of these books, they'll discover something that makes Bloomsbury so special. After all, this has always been a neighbourhood where great ideas begin with turning a page.
If you find yourself staying with us this autumn, we'd encourage you to leave a little extra room in your suitcase. Bloomsbury has a habit of sending people home with more books than they intended.