Colourful Harmony

Covid restrictions posed a challenge for the renovation of this Surrey home, but creativity won out in a cross-continental alliance between homeowners and designer

- DOMINIQUE CORLETT

When Iiro and Julia Seppänen decided to move, along with their son and daughter, into the late-Victorian house in Surrey that had belonged to Julia’s parents, they already knew it would make a fantastic family home. They also knew that the spacious rooms would provide a wonderful backdrop to the furniture, artwork, vintage collections and quirky one-off finds that they had accumulated over the decades.

The family were living in South Africa (where they'd spent the last eight-and-a-half years) when, a few months into 2020, they were faced with a challenge. How were they going to get the house - which hadn’t been updated for 20 years and had been sitting empty for the last three - redecorated and ready to move into, while stuck 8,000 miles away in Cape Town under an unforeseeable Covid-induced travel ban?