Interior design ideas: scrubs up nicely - in pictures

Petra Tyler’s home triggers “one of those Marmite, love-it-or-hate-it moments”, she says. “Some people are a bit baffled as to why it’s filled with furniture that looks like it could have been inherited from my granny.” Photograph: Wayne Vincent

These are not just any old pieces, but 1950s and 60s teak designs, picked up for a song in charity shops and on eBay, and lovingly restored by Tyler. They include a G Plan side table – a £5 charity shop bargain – and a tired sewing box table that she has brought back to life, replacing its tattered lining with vintage wallpaper. “I buy very little from the high street,” Tyler says. “I’d much rather have something individual.” Photograph: Wayne Vincent

Tyler, who was born and brought up in Berlin, says a thrifty approach to decorating was instilled in her from childhood. “We didn’t have much, and I think my make-do-and-mend attitude stems from there. Berlin was, and still is, one of those places where anything goes; people don’t stick to rules, they like quirkiness.” Pictured: postcards from Berlin’s Bauhaus ­museum pegged to string for display. Photograph: Wayne Vincent

Her family home of two years, a riverside Edwardian property near Hampton Court, is a case in point. When Tyler, her husband Richard, and their nine-year-old daughter Mia, moved in, it required minimal building work, but had a number of features that were less than perfect – the sort of project she relishes. Working with the existing layout – on the ground floor is a front sitting room, L-shaped kitchen and dining room, and a conservatory – she has made small tweaks that create a big difference. Photograph: Wayne Vincent

She plastered the conservatory so she could paper the walls with Cole & Son’s Woods design. “It helps make the room part of the house, rather than an afterthought,” she says. In the adjoining kitchen, she has kept the Ikea pine units and transformed them with graphite-coloured paint. The walls here and in the snug are soft grey. Photograph: Wayne Vincent

Mid-century pieces are dotted throughout the space, enlivened with pops of colour: a bright red vase or table lamp, or a poster. There is a notable absence of mess: “You can’t appreciate good design if there is too much clutter around.” Photograph: Wayne Vincent

The garden is where she has done the most work, commissioning a custom-built cedar structure that serves as her home office. Decorated in Cole & Son’s Palm Leaves paper, it is a bright space that Tyler finds both stimulating and calming: she can watch the swans on the river, and her rabbit hopping around the newly landscaped lawn. Photograph: Wayne Vincent for the Guardian

The couple added a raised timber terrace – the outdoor sofa was another eBay find – and replaced the fence with nautical-style guardrails and stanchions, including a gate for access to the water. The river Ember is a tributary of the Thames, and on a fine day the family often canoe up to Hampton Palace, or down the idyllic stretches towards Surrey. Photograph: Wayne Vincent

On the upstairs floor, a box room has become a streamlined, monochromatic guest bedroom, and the largest room, above, was given to Mia – a pragmatic choice, because its large run of cupboards helps keep toys confined to one space. “I deliberately chose a desk that is quite battered, so she could paint on it. The first week she had it, she spilled nail varnish remover on it, but with a bit of olive oil it came up a treat.” Photograph: Wayne Vincent

For years Tyler, who came to the UK in 1997 on a language scholarship and never left, decorated houses as a hobby, eventually leaving her marketing job to retrain as an interior designer. She approaches her projects with a light hand. “It’s easy to renovate a property if you have a vast budget; it requires a lot more creativity if you don’t.” Photograph: Wayne Vincent