How to make a dark, dank London home new again? Copious amounts of color

The whole process took the couple two years to execute. They spent about $1.32 million: $1.03 million to purchase the home in 2020 and about $290,000 to restore it. Their efforts have transformed the dark, dank house into a quirky, contemporary, open-plan mashup of rich colors, bold wallpaper and authentic period detailing.

Their journey started in 2019, when the couple decided to sell their two-bedroom apartment in Camberwell, a neighborhood some 3 miles southwest of central London. They wanted to move farther out in order to buy a bigger property. They found what they thought was an ideal house in Beckenham, a neighborhood 10 miles southeast of central London.

There was, however, going to be a short gap between completing the sale of their home and buying the new house. Fortunately, Mrs. Floyd-Wass’s grandmother’s house in Buckinghamshire, a county northwest of London, was vacant and they were able to move there for what they thought would be a brief time. But negotiations on the new house dragged on. Eventually the pair decided to cut their losses.

By February 2020 they had found another home—four bedrooms, one bathroom, 1,781 square feet— just a few minutes’ walk from the house they initially tried to buy. They liked the size of the Thirties house, its high ceilings and its original features, such as the Bakelite door handles and the tiled fireplaces in some of the bedrooms.

But the property was in desperate need of attention. “It looked like it had not been touched since the 1970s," said Mr. Floyd, 40, a family attorney. “It still had the original electrics and fuse box, there was no heating in the kitchen, the windows were single glazed, and there were yellow stains on the carpets around all the fireplaces from years of smoke."

Also, the wood-panel hallway was dark, added Mrs. Floyd-Wass, and the layout—a series of small separate ground-floor rooms—wasn’t suited to a modern lifestyle.

The extent of the work, and the delays caused by the pandemic, meant the couple ended up staying in their temporary Buckinghamshire home far longer than planned. “We thought it would be for a maximum of six months," said Mrs. Floyd-Wass, 39, a trial attorney. “We ended up staying there for 2½ years."

No sooner had they begun to peel wallpaper and pull up old carpets in the house than Britain entered its first period of Covid lockdown. The two weren’t able to visit their property again until May 2020. The renovation project didn’t begin in earnest until January 2021.

In the interim, they hired Helen Yeadon, a director at YellowDoor Architecture, to help draw up plans for the house. She, too, was unable to visit the property initially, so they sent her photographs, videos and measurements so she could work on the design remotely.

The couple knew that with an older home they had to expect the unexpected. In their case, when the timber floor in the living room at the front of the house was pulled up, they found the joists beneath it were irreparably damaged by water. The house is on a slope and had fallen victim to years of runoff water making its way onto the property. The solution was a new concrete slab poured below the living room to stabilize the house.

The work involved expanding the kitchen and combining it with the dining room, increasing the total floor space to about 2,000 square feet and creating a large, open-plan space with french doors leading to the backyard.

They chose black metal-frame doors and windows for the kitchen rather than fashionable bifold windows. “It is such a big space, and I think really big windows would have given it a bit of a car showroom vibe," said Mrs. Floyd-Wass.

To try to keep costs down, the couple, assisted by Mrs. Floyd-Wass’s parents, did the painting themselves over 12 weekends in the summer and fall of 2021, filling the interior with a variety of colors, rich textures and finishing touches. “We are not minimalists, not French gray and taupe type of people," said Mrs. Floyd-Wass.

In the kitchen, they painted the Shaker-style cabinets a deep green and added brass hardware, a herringbone timber floor and an expansive off-white composite-stone work top to the island.

The dining area has a Midcentury Modern vibe, with mustard-yellow walls. It features a vintage dining table and a radiogram—a combined radio and turntable—both of which once belonged to Mrs. Floyd-Wass’s grandparents. There is also a retro starburst light fixture. A stone fireplace that replaced the old brick version was a $180 bargain found on eBay. To link the two spaces, the kitchen’s exposed steel beams were painted the same yellow.

In the hallway, the dark paneling is now a soft sage green, and the living room is navy blue with mustard velvet sofas, ideal for cozy evenings in front of the fire. Upstairs, one bedroom is being used as a study, with vibrant wallpaper decorated with birds and flowers and an original but decommissioned 1930s electric heater the couple wanted to preserve for its kitsch charm. The primary bedroom is a calm blue with white décor. Two spare bedrooms are still under renovation.

The bathroom is where the couple’s brave use of color comes into its own. Structurally, a new dormer window was installed to bring more light into the room. A free-standing tub and walk-in shower were installed, and the original pale yellow tiles replaced with deep-green Edwardian-style tiles. The wallpaper has a cactus design, accessorized by living plants. The tall, pitched ceiling is a dusty pink.

By the end of October, the work was done and the couple were able to move in—the same week that they were married. They have since added a new family member, a 5-year-old retired racing greyhound named Betty.

The two have only one small regret about their first project: Wanting to preserve some original features, they kept the home’s old brass letterbox on the front door. “We discovered at Christmas that it is too small for modern Christmas cards," said Mrs. Floyd-Wass. “The postman had to keep knocking at the door to deliver them."