THIS one-bedroomed, modern house in the Glasgow suburb of Newton Mearns is very different from the home I grew up in: a 10-bedroomed Georgian manse with a massive garden and lots of Victorian furniture.

My Aunty Mary lived in a new-build with fake teak doors, stainless steel door handles and picture walls and I remember that it was always "other".

Before moving here, I lived with my family (I have two children) in a little 1938 semi in Clarkston, and that's when I became interested in 1960s Danish design. There was no space for all our Victorian and Edwardian furniture so when we moved in there, we had to completely re-think the aesthetic.

At that point, Mad Men had just started, and while watching the series, the penny dropped that this stuff was beautiful and incredibly well-made and you could find it in charity shops or certainly buy it, often, for a fraction of the price that new furniture would cost.

I love the thrill of the chase and hunting things down on eBay and in second-hand shops so I've got some real bargains over the last few years. The good thing about eBay is that it's just down to having nerves of steel and not going over your price or over-paying for stuff, knowing when to walk away from things that you want if you're not paying the right amount of money for it.

I moved here after my wife and I divorced - it's nice and close to the children. I had never been to Newton Mearns before and if you'd said I was going to end up living here I wouldn't have believed you, but it is lovely and I really like it. It is quiet as the grave and I'm right next to a big park where I can walk my dog, Archie, a Bichon Frise. There are some wee shops and it's easy to get into town. It's perfect.

I bought the house at the end of August and I've been able to put my own stamp on it already. There were several available and I picked the one that was in move-in condition and then, of course, completely gutted it.

The house is small but perfectly formed. There are nice patio doors in from the garden, an open-plan living room kitchen area and a set of stairs up to a mezzanine with a bedroom.

I'm very influenced by Italian design so the kitchen is very simple and plain with high-gloss white with bright yellow brick tiles. The colours in the main living area are quite muted colours: browns, oranges and ochres, reminiscent of 1960s and 1970s style, which I love.

In my previous house I had Burlap (hessian) wallpaper and I was hoping to import some from the States but it would have been insanely expensive because the feature wall is double height. I went for something similar; a nice Harlequin wallpaper on the feature wall and white on the rest because it is a small space and needs to be light.

Otherwise, it's all about the furniture. The great thing about a lot of Danish designed furniture is that is compact, and designed for people moving into modern new-build properties with smaller rooms and from that point of view the stuff that I've got fits perfectly.

The big 1960s Ladderax shelving system holds my books and my TV. It also has a cupboard which lifts down and turns into a desk so I can work from there. Though I usually work in my office in town, it's a pleasure to work here occasionally, away from constant phone calls and emails get phone calls . With a staff of 10 it's pretty noisy.

I think about work all my waking day. This room is full of books, which I am constantly reading and referring to.

I like to read manuscripts here, there is more peace and quiet and I can look out the patio doors to the garden and get a bit of light.

The garden is my next project. I've just bought some books in a charity shop on growing stuff in pots.

Lighting is always critical. I've got a very nice five-element 1970s hanging glass pendant light but I don't use it that often because it is so bright. Instead, I've got two retro side lights and I use the under cabinet lighting in the kitchen to keep the lighting low.

I watch the TV and DVDs and because it's open plan I cook in here as well. It's my main living space.

Coffee table

The first series of Mad Men introduced me to 1960s Danish design and I've been collecting it ever since. This is, as far as I can tell, the only piece of British furniture design to be included in the show, a G Plan Long John coffee table from the Fresco range from Buckinghamshire company E Gomme. It appeared in Don Draper's office in Season Three.

Kongo Ice Bucket from Dansk Designs

I'm not a big drinker but I love champagne, principally because it tastes great and doesn't give me a hangover.

This is the granddaddy of all champagne buckets and is much sought after. It was designed by a brilliant Danish designer, Jens Quistgaard, who was prolific throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Quistgaard was clearly influenced by African art and craft. I'm a big fan of African writing and, having published Tendai Huchu's The Hairdresser Of Harare to some success, and we're on the look-out for more.

Armchair

I bought a 1960s daybed by the Danish designers Peter Hvidt and Olga Mølgaard for Danish company France and Son three years ago. It's a design classic, beautifully made and I'd been looking for the matching armchair ever since. They're impossibly rare and I spotted one on eBay last year. I was outbid in the last second of the auction but then the same chair mysteriously reappeared a few months later. This time I won, paying a fraction of what it's worth. Both the daybed and armchair are covered in orange tweed by Bute Fabrics.

Signed first edition of Lamb by Bernard MacLaverty

I've collected a lot of books over the years (I have about 4,000 now), many of which are signed by the author. My most recent acquisition was this signed first edition of Bernard MacLaverty's Lamb, published in 1980, which I found in a charity shop in Clarkston. It's the Glasgow-based Northern Irish writer's first novel and was made into a film with Liam Neeson, which I saw at the cinema in the mid-1980s, introducing me to Bernard's work. I've been a huge fan ever since.

Dish

I bought this great Mari Simmulson dish in a vintage shop in trendy Haga, Gothenburg, a couple of years ago.

Made by the from the Upsala-Ekeby Pottery, Sweden, it was stupidly expensive but I fell in love with it, not least because the dog reminds me of my best pal, my Bichon Frisé, Archie.

Mercy Seat

Wayne Price's debut novel Mercy Seat is Freight Books' first title of 2015. Published on February 23, it is a dark, brooding tale of a hapless young man in a complex love triangle. We "discovered" Wayne when he provided a brilliant story to the first ever edition of Gutter magazine. His first story collection Furnace, one of the first books we produced, was shortlisted for Saltire First Book of the Year.

Adrian Searle is director at Freight Design, co-founder of Gutter literary magazine and publisher at Freight Books, whose spring 2015 list can be seen at www.freightbooks.co.uk