In 2016, after a few years of hopping between rentals in south London, graphic designer Connie Barton and her husband Tom Barton, co-founder of Honest Burgers, decided to buy their first home. This two-bedroom Victorian cottage was the first and only house they saw, but the pair were charmed by its magical jungle-like garden, contemporary rear extension, and proximity to Brixton, where Tom had launched Honest Burgers’ first restaurant in 2011. Here, Connie reflects on how her job has inspired the decoration of the house and tells us why the garden brings so much joy to their lives.

Connie: “Before we bought this house, Tom and I had been living in rented flats in Brixton for about six years. We met in Brighton, where we were both working in restaurants to pay our way through university. After finishing my graphic design degree there in 2010, I moved to London for a job at dn&co, a brand and design consultancy. I said to Tom, “you better come and join me” and luckily he did.

“He and his friend Philip Eeles had been serving burgers from a marquee in and around Brighton, so had all this cooking kit, and he soon realised there was an opportunity at Brixton Village, which had a couple of empty units. He opened up a tiny little restaurant there and started cooking burgers and rosemary chips, which is basically how Honest Burgers all began. I did the branding for it, and we all learnt on the job really. It’s grown from there.

“We loved Brixton, but we started to really miss having green space nearby. We’re both from the countryside and I started to really resent being a 20-minute walk from the nearest park. We started looking for somewhere to buy that was a bit leafier. The flat we were renting at the time really influenced what we were looking for – it was in a converted Victorian house, but the owner had added a mezzanine level with ladder-like stairs. It was light and playful, and really opened our eyes to what it meant to mix old and new in a sympathetic way.

“This was the only house we looked at and we viewed it once in the evening before putting in an offer. It’s between Brixton, Herne Hill and Camberwell and was a lot greener than where we’d lived before, just off Ruskin Park. We both fell in love with it immediately.

“The thing that really clinched the deal for me was the gnarly mulberry tree in the garden. Even though it was dark when we visited it, I remember sliding open the doors and seeing it under a spotlight. The whole space looked like some sort of amazing fishbowl and I couldn’t believe it was in London. It really feels like a secret garden. The garden was definitely a pull for both of us, but Tom was a lot more practical about why the whole house was right for us.

“It unfolds like a tardis. From the front, it’s a little Victorian cottage, but the proportions open up as you move through it, with this incredibly modern rear extension and bi-fold wooden doors opening out onto the garden. David Money, the architect that we bought it from, had sympathetically renovated and extended it after buying it at auction a few years before in a really sorry state. He’d done it up with friends and it featured on Homes under the Hammer. He’d done the hard bit, which meant we could focus on making it our own in terms of decoration.

“What we really notice living here is the attention to light – there are lightwells throughout, illuminating the space, which make such a difference to the smaller Victorian rooms at the front of the house. Although I really like modernist houses, this felt like an amazing balance between the contemporary and traditional design.

“The house is constantly evolving and we have decorated quite slowly. We bought things like beds and sofas initially, but we chose pieces that should outlive us. Everything else came gradually over the years from car boot sales or eBay. I learnt early on that you can buy good quality pieces for a steal if you go down the vintage route.

“I really love Ilse Crawford’s philosophy that you should spend time and thought on the things that you use a lot. We spend most of our time in the extension at the back, which contains an open-plan living, dining and kitchen area. My favourite spot in the morning is on the sofa in here, looking out into the garden with the sun streaming in.

“The architect built up the garden from the excavated soil, which means that the plants are at eye level. Looking out on all the plants is like a work of art, constantly changing through the seasons. I love watching peoples’ faces when they visit, because the garden relaxes and draws them in.

“There are many plants from previous owners in the garden, including an amazing tree peony and acers. It’s like we’re custodians, but we’ve added a few bits too, like the new sedum roof and vegetable garden outside the spare bedroom window. The foxes have been using it as a springy mattress over winter, which really keeps our dog Gelert on his toes.

“I love how the garden is a proper sanctuary and watering hole – David added a pond, so you get all sorts coming into the garden. I tried to learn all the different bird songs as a lockdown project, and we’re often visited by parakeets from Ruskin Park. I always have the window or the door open even in the depths of winter just to hear the pond.

“My approach to decorating is really informed by the way I work with my clients – I ask a lot of questions, listen and try to really understand them. It’s the same with this house and if we lived somewhere else, I’m sure it would look completely different. Tom’s very much let me do what I want with the space, but the kitchen is his domain. He’s the most amazing chef – not just when it comes to burgers – and in normal times our home is filled with big tables and loads of friends.

“We’ve recently overhauled our little front living room as it had become a bit ghostly as a rarely used spare bedroom. Instead we got a big comfy sofa bed, put a log burner in the old fireplace and turned it into a snug, which we were very grateful for over winter. It has such a different atmosphere to the other living area.

“I’m a bit of a design sponge and my work and clients are a constant source of inspiration. When I worked for dn&co, my bosses had very modern taste and their vision for clean, simple living has had a huge influence on me. I’ve wanted Vitsœ shelving ever since they introduced me to it and this year we finally felt it was the right time to make the investment, especially since our homes have had to work so much harder over the past year. We’ve added it into my study, which has a wonderful view down the side of the house.

“My clients Bridie Hall and Ben Pentreath, who run Pentreath & Hall in Bloomsbury, are another big inspiration and they opened me up to colour and pattern. As a designer, I can be very meticulous, but I love how they throw colours together. They opened my eyes to designers like Finn Juhl and Josef Frank, whose wallpaper we have in the hall. I have a Finn Juhl tray and it’s one of my most treasured possessions.

“As much as I love a straight line and looking at minimalist modern homes, I’m a decorator and collector. Bringing nature into the house is a big part of what we like to do, and we both have a funny thing about collecting stones and shells. We have a collection of heart-shaped and perfectly spherical stones that we’ve gathered over almost a decade. When I finally visited Kettles Yard a couple of years ago, I realised that Jim Ede had taken it to another level. I really responded to the way in which he mixes art with found knick-knacks. It’s genius that a seed head can mean as much as a painting.

“Most of our art is gifts or prints that we’ve bought over the years. We have a thing for crashing waves and also collect maps of our favourite Scottish places. Whenever we go on holiday, we aim to find the most remote Scottish island that we can and go walking and swimming. It’s like hitting the reset button and we return feeling energised. One of our most treasured artworks, which hangs above our bed, is by a local artist on Skye, which we bought after staying at the Black Shed, where it was hanging during our honeymoon.

“We feel so lucky to have landed in such an amazing community here in south London. Lockdown, if anything, has made us love our neighbourhood even more, but we’ve just bought a cabin in Scotland, so we can get a hit of wilderness every month. We’re very happy to do the 12-hour journey to escape it all, but maybe in the longer term we’ll have to find something in the middle. For now though, we’re excited about having both extremes.”

Connie, how do you define modern living?

“It’s about being conscientious about what we bring into our homes. It’s also about light and respecting the relationship between the home, its environment, its history and the materials. For me, a modern home is filled with plants and good things that make me happy.”

Is there a home for sale on our website that has caught your eye?

“Two stood out. Andrewes House in the Barbican is pretty amazing. I love the big round windows, which remind me of Arcosanti in Phoenix. I love how it’s all about looking out. Goetre, the Toast founders’ house in Wales, is totally different, but so perfect. I love how it’s a fun pop of pink against a lush Welsh valley.”