Alaska and Mario Vaquerizo's "Pink House": a 140 m² Madrid flat with pink walls, a leopard-print carpet and a bathroom dedicated to Elvis

Spanish singer Alaska and her husband Mario Vaquerizo have a 140-square-metre flat in central Madrid that they themselves call a "party flat" or a "tea and cocktail parlour". They bought it in 2013, renovated it completely, and today it is known as "the Pink House". It isn't meant for resting but for socialising: this is where friends are welcomed and collections are displayed.

Minimalism? Not at this address

The style is a mix of kitsch, baroque and pop art, and the principle is excess - "well-calculated accumulation", as they describe it. Contemporary minimalism has no place here. Pink is the main colour of the walls in the entrance hall, living room and dining room, and there are theatrical touches everywhere - a trace of the love of the stage the two of them share.

A world of fantasy and toys

The technique is called "colour drenching": walls, mouldings, doors and shelves are all painted bubble-gum pink, without a single surface left in another colour. Beneath them, wall to wall, lies a leopard-print carpet - a contrast that gives the flat a rock'n'roll, after-dark character. The shelves are crammed with dolls, and gilded frames add surreal and satirical touches. The effect, as described, is like a private museum.

A gothic-glam bedroom

In the main bedroom, pink gives way to purple and lavender, colours associated with religious ceremony. Rosaries hang on the wall, the headboard is wooden, rococo-style, made to measure and upholstered in purple leopard print, and the scene is rounded off by a bulging bedside table and a lamp with glass beads.

A rock star's backstage

The flat has two bathrooms. One is entirely red, with a dramatic backstage atmosphere. The other is dedicated to Elvis Presley: wallpaper on which Elvis in his gold lamé suit repeats against a sky-blue background with clouds, framed by turquoise joinery. The bulbs around the mirror and the metal sink recall a retro theatre or TV dressing room, and the whole look summons up 1950s American roadside diners and Las Vegas motels.

This isn't a flat for everyone, and that's the point. But one rule from the Pink House works in an ordinary flat in a housing block too: when you let one colour run over the walls, mouldings and doors, the space becomes a whole instead of a collage. As for the leopard carpet, everyone can decide for themselves.