For Cyndia Harvey, moving into her own place three years ago signalled a welcomed transformation. Sent to the charity shop were her old things and a new chapter began, one in which a sense of ownership and feeling settled has, in Harvey’s words, “changed my life”. At her flat on a quiet mews in Brockley, south east London, Harvey, a hairstylist to the likes of Frank Ocean and FKA Twigs, reflects on the psychology of home, taking time with interiors and why she’s got a thing for silence. 

Cyndia: “I’m so not a city girl. I can barely go to Oxford Street for an hour without getting an excruciating migraine from the overload of information, noise and people!

“I grew up in Jamaica until I was 11 and then moved to the UK. I’ve always lived in south east London, and I like it here because it’s much quieter than other parts of the city. I was lucky with this place to find a really quiet flat, on a quiet street, in a quiet area.

“I moved around a lot when from ages 11 to 15, and only spent maybe six months in any one place. Then, when I moved out aged 16, I lived in hostels, temporary accommodation and then a council flat, which I had for 10 years, before moving here. Moving around meant I never felt settled or that comfortable in the places I’d been living in.

“I was going through a kind of stagnant period of my life, and I just knew I had to switch places. I was stuck in a rut of going to work and coming home, and stuck in my mind, my environment. This place changed all that.

“I think moving can really shift your whole mentality, and I’m sure it’s a sort of molecular energy type thing: something moves out of you when you move out of a space. 

“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. I didn’t take anything with me from my last flat, zero ­– I literally abandoned that part of my life.

“I moved into this shell with almost nothing and lived super minimally for almost a year. I remember the first few people who came to visit were like, “What is this?”! I just had a duvet on the floor with pillows, and that was my little sofa. But it was really nice – I was so ready to shed my skin and so it was refreshing not to have any stuff. 

“Also, I really wanted to create my home here and so I didn’t want to rush it. All I knew was that I liked a bit of a 1970s vibe.

“But I didn’t set out to decorate in a specific way. I’d just go to markets – pretty much everything here is from Kempton – and pick out what I liked. I wasn’t in a rush to buy anything, and I wasn’t like, “Oh, this goes with that”. It was a bit of, “I like that thing. That’s what I’m going to get.” And somehow it all came together pretty nicely.

“I figured out my aesthetic just through looking, and if a piece jumped out at me, I’d go for it. I think what allowed me to do that is this space, it’s pretty much one big open room with concrete floors and white walls, so has a gallery feel. 

“It’s a mix of vintage and modernist: a French rattan chair, a 20th-century wardrobe and a crazy blue suede bed – very 1980s décor. That mashup just works here, because the space can carry it, but I don’t think it would necessarily work in a Victorian house!

“The only piece of new furniture is the Donald Judd-inspired island. I love to cook and have big over-the-top dinner parties, but there wasn’t enough kitchen space, so I basically reproduced one of his desks, but bigger. I love his aesthetic and I suppose my house is a bit in that vein, with a few more splashes of colour and less minimal stuff.

“I’ve developed an obsession with finding art-like pieces, and I feel like definitely the aesthetic trumps the actual function. My boyfriend is always saying, ‘This house is just not built for a couple’, because there are no comfy spots in my house. It looks really good, but the only place you can truly relax, or that more gives that sensorial comfort, is the bed. You can’t really cuddle and have a film night on the sofa.

“So I might have to think about changing it, but I don’t know if I can. Everything in here puts a smile on my face and – it sounds pretentious to say – I feel really connected to everything because it all has a story behind it. When you buy vintage you’re buying all the stories from the person who sold it to you, even though some of them seem so outrageous I’m not even sure if they’re true! 

“My boyfriend is a hairstylist too and if I see as much as a hairpin here, I lose it! I’m lucky enough to have a studio in the same building here, but the separation from work and home is such an important thing to me, and when I’m home I want it to feel like that, with no reminders of work.

“I work in a pretty people-orientated industry, which takes a lot of energy out of you. That’s why I like coming back to quiet south east London and my quiet space. The street is already peaceful and then my place is behind big metal gates on a mews, and when you come through it’s just silence.

“I can hear the birds and not much else. So, after a long day, when I’ve given so much of myself, coming home just feels immediately relaxing, super safe, and serenity just washes over me.

“I don’t know, it’s like there’s something about those moments of silence… I think great things can happen in the gaps. If you’re talking, it’s often in those little gaps where shifts of perception can happen and that’s what silence is to me; it’s calming. 

“This flat has impacted my life in such a positive way. I mean, it was a bit like therapy being able to have a sense of ownership, and it’s just brought this feeling of being grounded and rooted. I reckon I still have a good few years here, maybe with a change of sofa, but that’s about it.”