The two-storey flat near Hackney Downs that Alison calls home shares a similarly measured aesthetic with her handbag and accessories brand Ally Capellino. ‘In a way, it isn’t really decorated at all,’ she says. ‘The walls are mainly just white, and it’s the space, light and high ceilings that make it work.’

Spicing things up is what the designer calls ‘organised clutter’: decorated eggs painted long ago with her children, plus postcards lined up like bottles in a row. She’s a fan of art and finds herself increasingly drawn to colour, and she also has a knack for repurposing abandoned or second-hand items. ‘I made the coffee table in the sitting room from a cable wheel that I found in the bushes in Mile End Park,’ she adds.

Walking into the flat that Rosa shares with her husband, photographer Rich Stapleton, is like leafing through the pages of Cereal: think natural tones and carefully considered displays of art and design objects. ‘It’s the sense of having a uniform and having a colour palette that just feels easy and works for us because, more than anything, we wanted this space to feel comfortable,’ says Rosa.

Housed in a Grade I-listed Georgian mansion block in Bath, the muted tones of the flat complement the sandy shade of the city. Rosa compares her affinity with beige to a fashion designer’s predilection for black. ‘Through my work, I have so much colour in my life and just because it’s not in my sofa doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,’ she adds. ‘I love colours and so does Rich but at home this is just what we like.’ 

‘This is the first place that’s really felt like home, the first place I’ve felt I could really express myself through the interiors,’ says hairstylist Cyndia of her flat on a quiet mews in southeast London. ‘I didn’t take anything with me from my last flat, zero ­– I literally abandoned that part of my life.’

Rather than decorating the space in a specific way, Cyndia gradually furnished it with a combination of vintage and modernist finds. Against a simple gallery-like backdrop of concrete floors and white walls is everything from a blue suede bed to a French rattan chair and a 20th-century wardrobe. ‘That mash-up just works here, because the space can carry it.’

The founder of lifestyle brand Hoste likes to work with the existing style of a house rather than scrap it and start from scratch. ‘The last owner had been here for decades and hadn’t really touched anything, so lots of the original features remained,’ says Laura of the Victorian home in Forest Gate that she shares with her husband, photographer Jon Gorrigan, and their daughter, Sidney.

Her one architectural addition was to put on an orangery-inspired conservatory that overlooks the garden. Other than that, she slowly pieced together the interior with a mix of cheap finds, second-hand bits and investment items. ‘I like picking up pieces as I travel because they’re like tokens and trinkets of the memories,’ she says. ‘And that takes time – years sometimes – but that’s the evolution of a house.’

When Simon and Sophia first set foot in their self-renovated Edwardian house in south London, they could see the potential. ‘It had original William Morris wallpaper in the hallway, original cornicing, fireplaces and doors – it was beautiful in that sense, says Sophia. ‘but it also hadn’t been touched since the 1970s.’ 

After stripping out anything that wasn’t original, they set about turning it into a comfortable and hardwearing home for them and their kids. They settled on two palettes – oranges, yellows and greens downstairs and blues, pinks and purples upstairs – based on the spectrum. ‘I think in both of us there’s this unconventional streak that didn’t want the norm of painting the house in neutral colours,’ adds Simon.

Everything was the wrong way round in Emma and Ross’s three-storey house in Stoke Newington’s conservation area when they bought it – a dream for these two founders of Emil Eve architects. After designing a scheme for the house, down to the smallest detail, they added a two-storey extension and an L-shaped kitchen/garden arrangement.

‘It’s a bit of a cliché to say you want to bring the outside in but for a lot of people living in Victorian houses in London, you can see why they say it,’ says Ross. Plants nudge right up to the kitchen, which is livened up with deep-blue cabinets and a matching built-in bookshelf. ‘It’s great for the kids as they can be playing in the garden while we’re cooking and we feel connected as a family,’ adds Emma.

Phoebe defines modern living as ‘free-flowing’, a description that could also be applied to the Harringay home that she shares with her husband, Phil Stuart, founder of immersive game studio Preloaded, and their three children. ‘The biggest spaces in our house are the hallways and stairs,’ she says. ‘It contributes to a sense of lightness and openness.’

That same sense is felt throughout the house, with its white walls, wooden floors and ample windows. Having cupboards in the hallway keeps the kitchen neat and tidy. ‘Underfloor heating is a revelation for family life,’ adds Phoebe. ‘The boys come home in their football kits and just lie on it, and my five-year-old practices breaststroke up and down the kitchen on his tummy! It’s wonderful.’

David and Michael’s bright-white mid-century home is splashed with colour. There’s the odd zingy piece of furniture, as well as art by well-known artists such as Christopher Le Brun, Michael Craig Martin and Rebecca Salter. ‘I don’t buy for investment, just what I like, but we have some nice pieces,’ says David.

He and Michael kept the basic framework of the house, which was designed by the British architect Michael Manser in the mid-1970s, and worked with Guard Tillman Pollock Architects to renovate it. They opened up the living area to make it one big space again and swapped the garage for a studio. ‘Although the design and style are what I enjoy, for people who aren’t used to it, it can be quite dazzling, and I think it’s quite good to have that corrective because you appreciate it all the more,’ adds David.

With its high ceilings, open brickwork and white walls, Sandy’s converted engine house serves as a suitably straightforward backdrop to her collection of globally sourced furnishings. ‘The interiors are the result of obsessively amassing clutter for 25 years, everywhere from California to Lisbon,’ she says. ‘But now it has some space to breathe, and that’s lovely because you really see the pieces.’

Those pieces – like the updated early-1900s building – are both old and new. ‘I have a darning sampler from the 1700s but my sofas are 1980s Ikea,’ adds Sandy, who also has a long list of objects made by friends and family: ‘Bike seats painted like mounted animal heads by my friend Phil; a leather oak leaf from Katherine; a quilted cushion and a pot by my neighbours Judy and Hannah Bould.’ The list goes on.

What Chris and Susannah love about their house – a light-filled structure of wood, brick and glass tucked away in a spinney in Suffolk – is its volume and sense of space. ‘There are different living areas in the house, which we use throughout the year to suit our mood, whether it’s to enjoy the garden views or to cosy up by the wood burner in the winter months,’ says Susannah.

The lofty open space is ideal for large social gatherings, the tiled floor of the vast interior leading out onto a large paved terrace. ‘It can be a very busy house at times but it’s a real pleasure to be able to share it with friends and family, something that we enjoy more and more,’ says Chris.