You might know Chiara Perano better under her working name: Ciao Chiara. The London-based illustrator’s uplifting prints come with a cheery dose of Italian nostalgia, and some of her exclusive pieces are stocked at Liberty. This documentation of her home is something of a swan song for Chiara, who is leaving the capital soon for St Leonards-on-Sea.

In the lounge the coffee table is from a market, the chair is IKEA and the cushion on it is one of Ciara’s own designs. The sofa from French Connection

Home Stories: Are you sad to be leaving here?
Chiara: I’m probably going to cry when we go! We have lots of magical memories in this house; we moved into it as an unmarried couple five years ago and we’re leaving it as a family so it’s very much been the growth of us over the past few years - plus spending the past year here without really going anywhere.

Chiara found the perfectly-sized vintage tallboy unit on Gumtree

What did you love about this house?
Chiara: We were already living nearby in Leyton and my mum always said to buy the worst house on the bed street you can afford - and this is basically what that was! It has a beautiful cherry tree in the garden and I could see that it had potential in the structure if we re-jigged it and reconfigured it. It didn’t have any style, it was very bland, boxy and all the character had been removed from it.

The hallway is painted in a colour-match of Farrow & Ball Railings and features some of Chiara’s artworks alongside prints by David Hockney, Rose Wiley and Laura Gee

What have you done to it?
Chiara: So much! We’ve added and restored some traditional features, like floorboards, sash windows and cast iron radiators. But my decorating style isn’t super-traditional, it’s got a bit of a modern edge. Planning permission for a bigger kitchen extension was refused as it would take too much light from our neighbours, so we did a smaller one that still allowed us to have a kitchen-diner. We opened up downstairs, moved the bathroom to upstairs and added a loft extension, which is my studio.

Looking into the kitchen from the playroom

Did you know instinctively how you’d decorate it?
Chiara: I didn’t need to debate over the colours for ages - I wanted it to be calming and neutral and to bring in character with the furnishings. A neutral base it gives you much more opportunity to update through accessories and furnishings.

Are you a moodboarder?
Chiara: Yes and I go a bit overboard with it! As I’m an illustrator, I take moodboarding one step further - I actually draw all the rooms out from different angles to see the flow of a room and the light and where we’re going to position things [example above]. My friends ask me to do it for them too! It’s actually so useful - I do it on my iPad with my Apple pen.

The bedroom is painted in Bitter Chocolate by Atelier Ellis

Your bedroom bucks the trend for all the neutrality…!
Chiara: Yes that’s the boldest colour we’ve gone for - it’s Bitter Chocolate by Atelier Ellis and I’d seen a gorgeous house somewhere where they had linen bedding and dark walls and it looked so cosy and comforting. We got a new bed and mattress and bedding... which was definitely a splurge. Some is from Piglet in Bed, some from Merci in Paris (which is one of my favourite concept stores) and Bed Folk. I mean, we spend so much time in bed, I’m all about the comfort.

A collection of ceramics painted by Chiara

Your home is covered in your work, how did you start out?
Chiara: I studied illustration at university and while I was freelancing I saw a gap in the market for bespoke stationery and invitations, so I set up a business doing that and it really took off. But when I was on maternity leave in 2018, I felt like I’d come to the end of the line with it and wanted to be truer to what I’d actually studied. I started developing my personal style and creating artworks - I love ceramics and started with hand painted vases and tiles. I’m half-Italian and I spent a lot of my childhood with my family near the Amalfi coast, and that’s naturally influenced my style. My palette is quite tonal and my aesthetic is slightly nostalgic and romantic.

Is there anything about your Italian heritage that’s influenced your home life?
Chiara: I was brought up in a very family-centric and food-orientated way. Pre-Covid we were a very social household, we loved having parties and having people round. My dad has restaurants, which I’ve worked in all my life and I helped him design them too.

The kitchen features a penninsula and built-in banquette seating to maximise the space

Tell us all about your gorgeous kitchen…
Chiara: The units are from Wren - they’re almost black, and we have top units in white. To balance out the starkness we went for a mix of marble and wooden worktops and I added open shelving with tonnes of plants and messy of trinkets. The marble was a from a local company and it’s such a good light-reflector. We like natural materials so in the kitchen we put in reclaimed parquet to give it warmth.

The wall in the seating area is painted in Farrow & Ball ‘Setting Plaster’

The seating area looks like a fun place to hang out...
Chiara: Yes, I love sitting there and enjoying a meal overlooking the garden - it’s become our favourite space. We had the seating built just before lockdown and it’s been brilliant - despite not being able to have anyone over to enjoy it with! The wall I actually decorated on a whim one afternoon - I had a pot of Farrow & Ball Setting Plaster leftover and played around with creating a limewash effect. It worked out pretty well but then I got nervous and added an extra layer so it’s really subtle - but it’s made it feel really warm.

Where do you shop for homewares?
Chiara: At a real variety of places - there’s no shortage of little homeware stores in east London like on Columbia Road and Goodhood store. We’ve bought a few things from Push Pull Vintage locally and I’ll always look on Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace. Wherever we travel to I’ll look out for bits at local stores, and I discovered a great place in the Cotswolds called Domestic Science. I’ve also bought things from a small maker I love called Workshop.Ltd. I love Arket’s homeware and the odd piece from the amazing little brands on Instagram - a friend has launched Scout Goods, and I’ve got my eye on a beautiful cushion from Ingredients London.

The bathroom walls are painted Oxford Stone by Farrow & Ball

Did you manage to cut corners anywhere when doing this renovation?
Chiara: Because I knew we wouldn’t be here really long-term, a lot of the paints are colour matches of designer paints. I actually painted the bath black as a new one wasn’t in our budget. In the garden we had the planters made very cheaply by a local carpenter. And the front door I got for free! It was my dad’s, he was going to chuck it into a skip but I told him I’d have it. I painted in Fleecy Dreams by Valspar and I couldn’t find any black hardware that I liked, so in the end I got a tin of Hammerite and sprayed it! It’s held up really well.

What lessons have you learned from this renovation to take with you to your next project?
Chiara: I think we’ll be much more organised and have better communication with our tradesmen next time! Because we’re going to a house that we’ll probably stay at a lot longer, we’re not going to rush things - we want to live there first and get a feel for the place, the light and where we’ll spend our time before making the big decisions. Although I’ve obviously started drawing things already…!