You won't see a single white wall or ceiling in Ana Estrougo's home. In fact, the only places she chose white are on the door hinges and the bathroom sinks and vanities. "I wanted it to feel like a fun, vibrant home," says Estrougo, founder of The Octopus Club, a secondhand marketplace for baby clothes and children's toys.
Motherhood has changed the entrepreneur, whose previous home - a Jam Factory flat a stone's throw from Tower Bridge - was a sea of grey, black and white. Then, five years ago, her son Max came along. When she moved to the edge of leafy Richmond with her husband Andy, she says: "I went the opposite way. I wanted our home to inspire creativity and happiness for him."
The playful feel starts outside, with the yellow-painted exterior plaster providing a cheerful welcome. Inside, a warm shade of plaster pink covers almost every surface, punctuated by a bright yellow for the new stairs and doors.
It's a nod to the previous owner, who dressed in yellow and even drove a yellow car. "It's a way to celebrate her and feels like a continuation of her journey," Estrougo says.
There are many more thoughtful touches to the Art Deco semi. In 2023, the property underwent a 10-month major renovation managed by Estrougo. In keeping with its mission to live more sustainably, this involved reusing where possible, supporting small makers and researching supply chains.
Estrougo, who is Brazilian, has spent the last four years buying exclusively secondhand clothes for herself and has built a like-minded Instagram community of 24,000 people with The Octopus Club. "How we choose to use our money is so powerful, it's so important to understand that everything we buy is a vote we're making," she says.
While she stresses that her home isn't a perfect case study, she's eager to share the progress and lessons she's learned with other remodelers.
A home for the future
Estrougo spent two years looking at about 40 properties in the area. After identifying this street of 1930s houses as a good value and missing out on several sales, she wrote to the sellers. "I was honest that we were going to do it up, but I explained how much we loved the atmosphere," she says. It was a smart move that put her ahead of the competition.
Replacing the lead pipes and electrical was non-negotiable and Estrougo engaged architectural studio NimTim to design the loft conversion and kitchen extension. In an effort to make the house solid and warm, insulation was installed throughout.
A small fortune went into triple glazing with slim frames from Danish supplier VELFAC. To maintain the integrity of the house, Estrougo went to Crittall and had the curved bay windows at the front reproduced with double glazing. Hoping that the draught excluder will help reduce energy bills in the long term, another benefit is how the interior is flooded with natural light. The house is also heat pump-ready.
These additions are not sexy or glamorous, but as Estrougo reasons: "We want to live here for a long time, and by doing this, it is a house for the future."
Reuse, recycle and... crumble
Estrougo used to be a graphic designer and has an unwavering attention to detail. This explains why it took her four months to find the perfect kitchen worktop. Granted, the beautiful green Brazilian granite she chose certainly comes with a few air miles, but once the mold was cut, she used up every last bit.
The builder cut offcuts into tops for the bathroom countertops and for recessed shelving in the hallway, which helps provide visual continuity throughout the house. All the small scraps were thrown into the yard, along with as much rubble as could be used to level the sloping lawn. "I called it crumble," she laughs.
For the downstairs toilet, Estrougo used leftover tiles from the upstairs bathrooms and a tin of her mother-in-law's opened paint. Elsewhere, the removal of the original fireplaces left behind a large supply of London bricks, which Estrougo laid in a stepped formation around the kitchen's sliding doors.
It's a quirky detail that echoes the way the front door is framed. Her advice is to share your vision with your builder: "We had a brilliant build team and of course loads of stuff came out, but I said at the start I only wanted to throw out the bare minimum."
Do your homework
First, a disclaimer: Estrougo's kitchen cabinets are from Ikea. Because the costs were spiraling (see the aforementioned windows), she needed units that fit within her budget. "They would have to last a long time, and the METOD system has a 25-year warranty," she justifies.
But she made up for it by opting for colourful fronts from HØLTE, which only uses FSC or PEFC accredited timber in the UK. "They are the only kitchen design studio that calculates the carbon-e impact, which allows them to spot opportunities for innovation and reduce emissions," Estrougo explains.
They also provided a personal service, guiding her through a last-minute doubt about her pink and green color combination. "Sometimes I really doubted myself, because I'm not an interior designer. But I had my mood boards and I took a leap of faith," she says of the decor in general.
The cabinet pulls are from Swarf, a contemporary hardware brand that produces in small quantities in the UK. And the water-based paint is from Little Greene, chosen because it has virtually zero VOC (the nasty gases that paint emits).
Smart shopping
All of Estrougo's loose furniture is secondhand - except for the dining table, which was a find she'd previously displayed (her former wooden Ercol dining table had its legs sawn off and is now a large coffee table). She scours Crystal Palace Antiques for mid-century pieces and bought a giant Camerich sofa from a neighbor at the Jam Factory for next to nothing.
The aforementioned bathroom furniture is again from Ikea, but then heightened with towel holders and green granite. "Things don't have to be expensive to be beautiful, you just have to find ways to make them your own," she advises.
To save money, she asked for trade discounts, sometimes getting 20 percent off. With the benefit of hindsight, she wishes she had shopped at outlets more often: "There are outlets for everything, including tiles, and it's all a fraction of the price." Her best find was an iron bath: "It lasts longer than plastic and keeps the water hotter for longer."
She also splurged on a few unique light fixtures, like the pendant light in the stairwell, from design studio Hand and Eye. "When we buy from companies we believe in, we give them the strength to keep going," she says. It's been almost a year since the work was completed, and the house is brimming with personality.
"This house took me on a journey, because I knew I wanted color, but I didn't want it to feel dated," she says. Estrougo has even started wearing a little yellow: "It's helped transform the way I dress - I'm so much more adventurous with using color in my life after taking the plunge and doing the house this way."