Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow to create a 33 room 'superhouse'

Madonna has done it and Jamie Oliver too. Now Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband Chris Martin have become the latest celebrities to spread out into the house next door. After snapping up the property adjoining their London home, the couple are to create a £7million superhouse with 33 rooms, the Daily Mail are reporting this weekend.

Work began last week with builders putting up scaffolding and removing windows. Martin, 32, bought the couple's current home for £2.5million from Kate Winslet in 2004. The neighbouring property was sold to him by a barrister two years ago, for £3.1million. Pictures submitted with a planning application show the couple's garden with a slide for daughter Apple, five, and son Moses, three.

Plans show they intend to knock through the connecting walls to create eight rooms on the lower ground floor, six on the upper ground, five on the first floor and eight on the second floor. A two-storey extension at the side of the existing house includes a gym, changing room, three bedrooms and a bathroom.

The couple moved out of the house in May to spend time in America. They own several other homes, including one in the Hamptons, near New York, but see the London property as their base because they want the children to have a British education.

"No one objected as they are not going to change the outside appearance of the property and the extension is on their land and a few other houses in the street have similar add-ons. Mind you, I wouldn't want to have to pay the council tax on the new house - but I don't suppose that will concern this particular couple."

Knocking through: Scaffolding surrounds the house next door while work on the two-storey extension has also begun

Miss Paltrow, 36, married Martin in 2003 and they are said to be worth a combined £ 45million. The Devon-born son of an accountant and music teacher, Martin has seen his band Coldplay become one of the world's most successful groups. In May the Daily Mail revealed that Jamie Oliver had bought the house adjoining his family home in London to create a £7.5million 19-room mansion. Last year Madonna also paid £6million to acquire the next-door property. However, the plan hit a stumbling block after she failed to obtain planning permission to knock through the connecting walls.

Full discussion on this article is at the Coldplay forum here onwards [thanks mimixxx]

Meanwhile, in another Daily Mail online article, Gwyneth is getting some stick for her online activities. The Mail reports: Note to Gwyneth Patrow: please stop tweeting, blogging and generally depressing us with your smugly perfect body/life/diet/home. As if her 'amazing new body' that's the result of a gruelling and incredibly dull-sounding detox - 2tbsp of olive oil a night and nothing but miso soup by day - wasn't enough to make us sick, Gwyneth is now connecting directly with her fans via the internet. The blonde bore (can anyone on a strict macrobiotic diet and married to the lead singer of Coldplay, the world's most miserable band, possibly be interesting?) now posts lifestyle advice, fashion tips, recipes, where to shop and anything else she can think of on her own glamorous website, goop.com, which promises to 'nourish the inner aspect'.

There are also the thoughts of Paltrow's guru friends, including a Zen master and an Episcopalian priest. And she's now completed the Gwyneth Paltrow experience with a new range of vests and leggings, in collaboration with French brand ZOETees's. Her debut collection, which launches next week, is made from recycled cotton, cashmere blends and wool mesh and cost up to £595. But being Gwyneth, of course, the proceeds will go to her favourite charity Kids Company. Which ought to be heart-warming, but somehow it just makes her even more irritating.

New pictures of Coldplay at MCH Arena, Herning, Denmark (16th August 2009):