When Mexican designer Stephanie Barba Mendoza and her Austrian husband moved into their Victorian home in northwest London seven years ago, the writing was on the walls for a renovation, at some point. With the shell already in “pretty good shape”, new paint and carpets made it ideal for their growing family. Still, as Mendoza adds, “it was always in the cards to do an expansion: make the kitchen bigger, change the bathrooms, make some aesthetic changes.” In 2022, she and her husband Bernhard, together with their children aged eight and five, found the time and courage to make it possible. “We were finally brave [enough]!” she declares.
Their three-story home in Queen’s Park buzzes with striking hues, whimsical motifs and the family’s playful personality. “With my own house, I have no limits,” explains the designer. “I just go all out. My house is a bit like my laboratory. That’s where you can push, push, push the limits.” He also pushed the physical limits of the house itself in the form of a rear extension, which expanded the kitchen space- dining room to the garden. The team lowered half a meter at the low back of the house to create “a very large ceiling height, which feels much more generous”. They also decided to “creep up”, reimagining the children’s bathroom and a series of bedrooms during the eight-month process.
Progress came to a slight halt when a small mistake in planning permissions caused a slowdown and months without their living room furniture, which had been put away. “Because of that delay, we [broke ground] in November, digging in the middle of winter. It was a challenge, coming from cold, gray London into a muddy hallway and a drafty house,” she says. (“‘What have we done!'” she said during a conversation with Bernhard, as Mendoza recalls with a laugh. ) Significant creative collaboration between the two was also an integral part of the process: “I usually think about what I want, and maybe I have three ideas or options… Then I show them to my husband; narrow as if he were the client. Bringing it and making it part of it also helps me,” says Mendoza.
The focal point of the renovation, the kitchen, was designed to cultivate a “warm and welcoming” atmosphere, with a custom dining table in the center, a furniture placement that he says is “much more sociable, [and] with small children, much more practical”. Although the family sacrificed some outdoor space for the addition, they didn’t want to compromise on green vibes.
Mendoza opted for the botanical wallpaper in the dining room to play with the patio visible outside, while the large rope beads helped to “create some kind of architectural separation without it being a wall or a partition. [It’s] an extension of the garden”.
The result? In the summer, the space “feels like a continuous, indoor-outdoor zone,” and in the winter, lighting placed in the patio’s flower beds means the family can “enjoy them from the inside.” Speaking of green, the hue adorns the metal doors and window frames, as well as the patio floor; the designer points out: “I wanted that green theme to be carried everywhere. It has a calming effect. the patio [ground] it looks like a garden. Everything is cheating; it’s such a small space but it makes it feel bigger!” Fantastic Balineum tiles, hand-painted with Gergei Erdei’s artwork of the family’s astrological signs, placed throughout the kitchen, provide a fun finishing touch.
