You are in your early 20s and unemployment for your age group is higher than ever. There is a recession on and money is tight. A good time to start a business?

As far as Kerr Drummond, 25, was concerned, the answer to that question back in May 2008 was ‘yes.’ That was the month he started Core Design — a business that exploits his flair for creating luxury bathrooms.

After leaving St Edward’s School, Oxford, he took up what he expected to be a temporary job with Oxford bathroom designer and installer Ripples — and then stayed there four-and-a-half years, before taking the plunge and going into business on his own.

Now, working from home in Oxford and picking up about 95 per cent of business through word-of-mouth, he reckons he has on average about two jobs on the go a month, and that a typical job is worth about £10,000.

He said: “The first year was the scariest. But I got business from people who had known me when I was working for Ripples. Then things trailed off a little in the second year, before picking up again.”

The paradox here is that the credit crunch, and worries about the property market, may even be a benefit.

He said: “Many Oxfordshire people with money in the bank now want to improve their homes — by installing a new bathroom for instance — rather than deciding to sell up and move on, as they might well have done a few years ago.”

He added that the bathroom business lends itself to someone like him since it is possible, if you have the contacts, the expertise, and the flair for design, to set up in trade with few overheads.

He said; “I have no showroom and no employees — even though at the moment there are about six installers working on designs of mine.”

When I met him he had already visited two potential customers. So that was three appointments, including mine, before 11am. Such, I suppose is the pressure of working for oneself.

He said: “I now live in a rented house on Osney Island with my girlfriend. I appreciate how lucky I am to make this thing work, and to still be in business in my third year, since she is often on work experience placements, rather than obtaining real work.”

He added that his official office is at his parents’ home in Standlake but that he is travelling around so much he is seldom there.

Core Design’s core business, so to speak, is bathroom design, but Mr Drummond said designing one room usually leads to designing others too — kitchens for example.

He was always good at art at school and now produces fine drawings of the designs he has in mind for customers.

And he prefers to produce such drawings by hand, rather than Computer Aided Design.

He said: “I think it shows customers that you have put a lot of thought into it, and I think that really is the case, in fact.

“Also, when drawing bathrooms there are a lot of curved lines needed, which are not so suitable for CAD.”

He must be doing something right because he keeps being nominated for professional awards.

In 2007, even before he went into business, he was highly commended in the Design Awards’ bathroom Designer of the Year. The next year he was a finalist in the KBBReview Industry Awards as Young Designer for Bathrooms. Then, in 2009, he was finally nominated as the Young Designer of the year in the KBBReview.

He said much of his best work work was in north Oxford, including a bathroom recently finished in Belbroughton Road.

His biggest job to date was for a client in Lincolnshire, for whom he is now completeing his fifth bathroom.

He said: “One of the the skills I offer is an in-depth knowledge of the products available. And these days many bathroom products are made in Europe — so many modern bathrooms have an international feel to them.”

He added: “Sometimes people have stayed in top hotels, here or abroad, sometimes designed by top designers and they want to reproduce something as elegant in their own homes.

“Everyone, though, is interested in having easy-to-clean surfaces. And, of course, hotel bathrooms are designed like that.”

Now Britons, apparently, like other Europeans, are interested in having wet-rooms installed. These are shower rooms where the shower head is simply set in the ceiling of a room without a cubicle or shower tray, and the floor is designed to allow the water to drain away.

Traditional or modern design products now come in lighter and better materials that nevertheless retain heat in much the same way as the best of old fashioned, Victorian cast iron.

But Mr Drummond said there is a trend at the moment back to reclaimed materials.

He said: “I am lucky to be working in Oxford because there are some seriously rich people about, some of whom have made their money in the City in London — but by no means all.”

Many home owners now have more, not less, ready cash in the bank than before the crunch because they are paying lower mortgage interest rates.

And if the feel-good factor engendered by watching the price of their greatest asset, namely their home, climbing inexhorably upward, is now slightly tarnished, they can still cheer themselves up by getting warm and comfortable in a luxurious bathroom.

o Contact: Core Design, 01865 301767, 07730 565567. Web: www.coredesign.org.uk