A West London family home given a new lease of life by Polly Ashman

'Apart from the outside walls, there's nothing in this house that's original,' says interior designer Polly Ashman of her Victorian terrace in Acton. What is now a bright and comfortable family home for Polly, her husband and their two young boys, was not too long ago an inhospitable shell. Built by the previous owners' grandfather, the house had remained largely unchanged since, and Polly had to work on the house before buying it to even get a mortgage approved.

Polly approached the house with the same can-do attitude that led her to start her own design studio. Though she has never formally studied interior design, Polly had previous experience renovating and selling houses alongside her husband. ‘It’s been really helpful having this background. I know all of the ‘boring’ things, like how to read a structural plan and which walls can be moved,’ she explains.

Her aesthetic, however, is far less by the book. 'I never learned the rules so I don’t have any to follow', she says, but she does look to the likes of Nicola Harding, Tiffany Duggan and Anna Haines for inspiration. Though her style is very much rooted in the traditional English sensibility, for which she credits her upbringing in the countryside, there’s a contemporary edge to her spaces. She carefully mixes antiques with contemporary art, resulting in rooms that feel as if they have evolved over time.

Before she could begin work on the interiors, Polly had to completely 'annihilate' the contents of the house, going 'through it with a sledgehammer.’ She maintains that this was no bad thing, ‘it meant we could start with a blank canvas. That’s easier than working around existing features’. Where the bottom floor was previously a series of separate rooms, it is now largely open plan, with clearly delineated rooms: there's a formal sitting area, a TV snug and a large, extended kitchen at the back.

The sitting room at the front of the house is ‘the grown up space,’ kept neutral on the walls, but 'layered with different fabrics, textures and a mixture of antique and new furniture'. A particularly proud moment for Polly was when she found a sofa for £30 on the-saleroom.com, though she’s often reminded by her husband that by the time it had been reupholstered in ‘Tribal’ by Lewis & Wood, it wasn't such a huge saving.

Working alongside Wilstons of Avebury, a small, family-run kitchen designer chosen for their ‘impeccable attention to detail’, Polly created a playful and energising kitchen. Crittal doors that open on the garden were added in, alongside pops of vivid colour that sing against a calm base of white and dark green. Perhaps most attention-grabbing of all are the bright pink dining chairs. ‘They’re plastic! And very practical,' Polly comments.