An Englishman's home is his castle but who will be king of the castles? That's the question being posed on I Own Britain's Best Home, a new programme on Channel 5 from Talkback Thames, the makers of Grand Designs and Property Ladder. Naturally, the series is to feature not one, but two home from the Hertfordshire area, one at Brookmans Park near Hatfield owned by interior designer Sina Capaldo and the other, the Northwood home of artist Yvonne Spektor.

Both Sina and Yvonne will be competing for the title I Own Britain's Best Home. Each programme features three homes and at the end of each show the public will get a chance to vote for the home that they think is the best. The winners from the heats will go through to the final where one property will be awarded best home and the owners will be awarded £25,000. The presenters will be encouraging the audience to consider the following criteria: interior design, environmentally sensitive exterior design, ergonomic design, ecological effort, and overall domestic personality.

For the programme, each of the owners had to let the cameras into their homes for 24 hours. Although great designs, exclusive houses and luxury living all went into the mix, the most important criteria for the show was how much the contestants loved their homes. Each one of them had put their own individual stamp on the place and that is what I Own Britain's Best Home is all about.

For 42-year-old interior designer Sina Capaldo, her home is like a "portfolio of work" as well as a comfortable space she can enjoy.

Sina says: "I work from home office and in my line of business you're always changing things so it's good to have such a wide canvas to work on. That's the beauty of the house. I can change furniture around to get a different feel."

Sina tells me the house needed a lot of work done to it when they bought it ten years ago.

"It wasn't in a good way. It looked completely tired and in need of an update. The people before us had lived there for 22 years and the interiors were very heavy with lots of gold, pinks and browns. It was too ornate. We knocked a lot of it out and extended out towards the front.

"My husband's from Italy and he's an architect so I kept coming up with the ideas and he took care of the technical details. He's been great to work with. In Italy they do a lot of building from scratch but there's not much call for that here; it's more renovation. For us to work together has been good and we knew what we wanted to do from the beginning."

The house now has five bedrooms and there are more than 20 rooms in total, including outbuildings. The grounds include a maze, a castle, Thai influenced summerhouses and Italianate gardens. Inside the colour scheme is white with splashes of colour and rooms have an individual style with Eastern and western influences.

"It all sounds a bit of a mishmash," admits Sina. "But I think your home reflects your personality and you should put into it what you like. Our house is very lived in. I've a 14-year-old son and a sausage dog and there are people coming in and out all the time.

"The garden took longer to do than the house. It took us a good eight years but it's a slow thing. it's not like putting an armchair somewhere. You have to wait for it to grow."

Yvonne Spektor, aged 60, moved into her art deco Northwood home 22 years ago. Like the Capaldos, the Spektors have opted for open plan living, which creates a perfect backdrop to Yvonne's artworks and their collection of eclectic artefacts.

"When the children left home we decided not to downsize because we loved the house and the area. So we hired a designer from South Africa, Ralf Krall and he came up with this amazing interior for us.

"Every wall downstairs has been changed and there are triple patio windows, but it's been symapthetically done and we've kept the art deco feeling of the house."

The downstairs of the four bedroom house is just one big space separated by columns but Yvonne explains that each area has a separate identity.

She says: "The ceilings are all different with coving and beautiful lighting which gives each area its own feeling."

Yvonne's large-scale canvasses have ample room on the walls. Her artworks hang in the kitchen, library and lounge, along with a number of other distinctive pieces of art.

"There's even a lifesize horse by Andrew Martin made of bike parts and motor cars, it's ecletic; nothing matches but everything goes and flows.

"We chucked out everything but the casino table from Chaplins and that's now the centrepiece of the entrance hall."

Yvonne tells me she recently hosted a party for 70 people.

"It was for my 60th birthday. There was a four-piece band and a bar on the patio and I didn't have to move anything. There were eight tables of ten and all we had to do was remove patio furniture to the lawn. The caterer could put everything onto the breakfast bar.

"It's a very easy house to entertain in."

Yvonne shares her home with her husband Ken and their miniature schnauzer, which she takes for walks in Ruislip woods, which the house backs onto.

I ask her what else she finds time to do when not painting.

"I play at playing golf. I lunch, I shop. I do what most people do."

See Sina's unique designs on I Own Britain's Best Home on Channel 5, Thursday, March 20 and Yvonne's stylish gaff on April 3, at 8pm.