Over five years, Natallia Tanko and her family were able to craft a vibrant, artful and authentic living space tailored to their needs. I toured her beautiful south-east London home to discover the benefits of slow renovation.
Natallia Tanko is an architectural consultant with a passion for helping people distill what home can mean for them. Combining her experience of community-led residential architecture and a hands-on DIY home renovation, she now shares her philosophy with others through value-led home coaching and design.
Central to her approach is a belief that design is not just about aesthetics, but about learning, connecting and creating spaces with intention, while addressing social and economic challenges.
Natallia shares her home with her husband Matt Reay and their two sons aged 7 and 9. This year, their home won the Cost Effective Prize for New London Architecture’s Don’t Move, Improve! annual competition.
The remodelling of their 1970s ground floor flat has been a labour of love which started during lockdown. One DIY project led to another and before they knew it, they were building their own kitchen extension. It was a feat of family collaboration as the couple did all the work themselves over many weekends, with the help of Matt’s parents Peter and Cheryl.
The result is a living example of Natallia’s thoughtful and considered approach to designing beautiful and practical homes. She says, “creating a home that supports evolving needs doesn’t need to rely on big budgets or conventional methods. It’s about leaning into patience, adaptability and direct involvement. A home shaped this way shifts our mindset towards creativity, sustainability and long-term thinking.”
Multi-use spaces
Their first DIY challenge was the front room, which was previously a living room. They didn’t want the space to be solely for sleeping, but to use it throughout the day for sitting, reading, playing, working and yoga.
The couple hand built all the bedroom cabinetry themselves. The bespoke storage system wraps around the room and stows away every kind of cumbersome object, be it clothes, camping equipment, building tools or Matt’s drums and handmade instruments.
When they decided to insulate a wall, they found the wardrobe doors were in the way. The solution was to partially insulate the wall and create a perfect niche for a mirror. Natallia says, “when you design for a client, you have a deadline, but if you do it for yourself slowly, things come out of the process. You problem solve and think hard about how to make something work. It pushes you to the limit of your creativity and sometimes you end up with the best design elements in the home.”
Cork floors were chosen to bring natural materials and warm neutrals into the space, accented with Bauhaus-inspired pops of primary colour. “None of the spaces are driven by a style as such, but we are drawn to Modernism because it gives you more freedom to play. It would be harder to be brave like this in a Victorian house for example,” she adds.
A corridor of experiences
Another key area to address was the very long narrow corridor. “We thought, what is this long tunnel? It was so dark,” says Natallia. “We brought some more lights in, and now we use it as a gallery for our art and family photos. We also broke up the space with painted strips of colour and mirrors here and there to create playfulness. It makes it more of an experience as you’re walking through.”
Small space design solutions optimise every inch, while also becoming design features in their own right. Matt’s study (and third bedroom) once housed the original kitchen. They initially built a sculptural wooden flip down chair in the hallway so that you could sit and chat to whoever was cooking. It now makes the perfect seat for putting on shoes before leaving the house.
The kids room reconfigured
Putting up a bunk bed in the kids bedroom would have blocked the window, so they moved the position of the doorway and built one against the wall. They kept the existing transom window as a feature and clad the alcove in cork, creating a cocooning space for playing and sleeping.
Crafting a warm and creative living space
Undeterred by complex building methods, Matt and Natallia were keen to learn the traditional brick and block technique for creating the new kitchen extension. They also decided to keep the ceiling open with exposed timber joists to create height.
“I always wanted to have open structures because I prefer to be honest in design. If the walls are built of blocks, you see them. We also kept some original brickwork. Exposing raw materials reduces reliance on plasterboard and minimises construction waste. By making use of the previous opening to the garden we could also avoid the use of steel, resulting in significant cost savings and a more sustainable outcome.”
In the living room, a large-scale abstract painting by local artist Natacha Bisarre brings in vibrant colour. The painting also hangs on a sliding rail, so that the TV is neatly concealed in a recess behind when not in use.
One of the flat’s cleverest features is the drying cupboard for the washing machine. It has an airer directly above as well as internal radiators and extractor fan. This keeps laundry neatly out of sight and prevents washing from cluttering other spaces.
The idea to use terracotta engineering bricks as a decorative feature between the joists came to Natallia while building a manhole wall on the side path. She liked the striped pattern on them so much, she found another use for them.
Before and after
Value-led homes
There’s a lot to be said for the slow renovation ethos. For anyone rethinking their home, it offers a more intentional, rewarding path.
Natallia says, “It’s sometimes hard to make decisions about the home that are fully supporting one’s own needs and lifestyle. People compare themselves with others or see their home as a route to profit without fully understanding what comes with that. They may not see the potential in their existing space or how much responsibility a major renovation brings.”
She adds, “For us, the piecemeal slow renovation approach gave us the mental space to shift and evolve design decisions along the way. It allowed us to consider the financial, logistical and emotional costs, as well as fully understand how we’ll realistically use and maintain the space. This not only took the stress out of the process, the process became just as meaningful as the outcome.”
Natalia Tanko Home Consulting & Design
@natalliatanko
Photography by Natacha Bisarre
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