Many people view rental properties as temporary spaces, place holders before buying their forever home, where they cannot fully express their personality. Elicyon’s Founder and Director, Charu Gandhi, has found through personal experience that you don’t have to wait for ownership to create a beautiful home. In fact, the flexibility and the nature of renting can actually allow for more spontaneity and creativity, as you can experiment and hone your tastes, discovering what you do and don’t like. It is always worth investing both emotionally and aesthetically in your space.

Reimagining and Repurposing

One mistake that people often make is assuming that they need to buy everything new when they move. However, if you have pieces that you loved in your previous home that held stories and memories, there’s no reason why you should part with them. Instead, it’s about reimagining items for the new space and design ethos, thinking about how you can use them appropriately. There is ample opportunity to reinvent items through techniques such as upholstery, new paint or hardware, making them a long-term investment.

Alton House has been shaped not by new acquisitions, but by what Charu calls her long loved objects, whether those be already owned pieces, reclaimed pieces, vintage finds or elements from past projects that were once surplus or slightly out of place. For example, when Charu relocated from her Chelsea home of 20 years to her current property, Alton House in East Putney, she had numerous pieces of furniture that she wanted to take with her. Case in point was a dining room table: as it wouldn’t work in the new space, she transformed it into the desk of her study. Another useful tip to consider is where you place your furniture, Charu has placed her desk in the centre of the room away from the walls, to make it feel more spacious and to give interest to the eye. Facing the desk, a sofa from Charu’s previous living room has been given new life, reupholstered in leftover fabrics. The original base, now over ten years old, was kept intact, while the seat cushions were upholstered in caramel-yellow mohair and the back cushions in soft bouclé.

RE-UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE

Elsewhere, pieces have been adapted to similar effect. In the dining room, a vintage table was refinished in a deep indigo lacquer, adding depth and a sense of permanence. Just beyond, in the sun room, a favourite sofa belonging to Charu’s husband was reupholstered in patterned burgundy and indigo bouclé, subtly echoing the dining table’s palette and establishing a quiet continuity between the two spaces.

Reimagining and repurposing can extend beyond surface finishes. The marble consoles nestled within the dining room’s fireplace alcoves began life as the base of a single table. Now split into two and topped with off-cut marble salvaged from a marble yard, they reflect a thoughtful approach to reuse, one that values both material and memory. In Alton House, each adjustment reflects a mindset of reinvention, giving familiar pieces new meaning and life through context, composition and careful consideration.

REINVENTING and REPURPOSING

Creative Adaptations

It is important to be realistic about whether your most beloved pieces will suit the new space, and due to size or proportion constraints, some may need to evolve. In Charu’s case, a vintage sofa bought at auction came with too many cushions and felt overstuffed for its new setting. She saw value in the core shape and decided to strip it back to its frame, adjusted its depth and reupholstered select cushions in a rich, fringed fabric, breathing new life into an otherwise unwieldy piece. The result now anchors the living room with both elegance and intent. It’s a reminder that considered design often comes not from starting fresh, but from reworking what you already own into something more aligned with how you live today.

LIVING ROOM

Walls and Floors That Transform a Home

Many who live in rental properties forget that it is often possible to repaint walls, a simple touch that will instantly transform a room. Charu repainted her white sitting room walls in a warm yellow shade from Argile ‘Jaune Indien’, to make the space more inviting and cosy. She really wanted her study to have a strong personality, so she painted the walls in a shade called ‘Indian Terracotta’, which has a lot of versatility and made the room feel warmer. In all of Alton House’s rooms, Charu was intentional about keeping the walls visually clean in colour, allowing artwork, textiles and objects to bring contrast and character. Another tip from her own home is to paint skirting boards, dado rails and other points of contrast in a different colour to give a sense of depth and to elevate the feeling of the room, she kept the dado rail and architrave of her sitting room white for this reason.

Often, the floor is not as straightforward to change, but if you don’t like it then a wonderful way to change how it feels and to ground the room is via a rug. At Alton House, the existing timber flooring of the sitting room wasn’t to Charu’s taste, so she instead commissioned a large bespoke rug to cover the floor and soften it. Designed in collaboration with Holland Cassidy, the rug brings together four distinct weaving techniques, celebrating the artistry and craft of traditional weaving. Its soft geometry and chamfered corners lend rhythm, while the strong burgundy graphic element anchors the furniture arrangement and elevates the room’s material process.

Embellishing the Existing

In a rental property, you might also find that you need to work with existing inherited pieces, especially fitted furniture, or soft furnishings that can’t be removed. For example, in Charu’s daughter’s room, the family were left with a pair of blue check curtains. In order to make them feel like a coherent part of the room, Charu picked out several colours from the curtains and found artworks and other items to dress the room to create a conversation between old and new.

COLOUR CONNECTION

Another existing element Charu inherited was the garden, which felt more like a joy than a challenge. In a city like London, such outdoor space is a rare gift. To echo its presence, Charu introduced botanical cushions to the sun room’s sofa, mirroring the foliage beyond the windows. Just inside the threshold, a red acer tree, first discovered at the Chelsea Flower Show years ago, brings the outside in and anchors the room in both memory and nature. The tree has lived with them through different years and different changes in their lives, becoming a quiet constant and a symbol of rootedness within an ever-evolving home.

BRINGING THE OUTSIDE IN

Mixing materials and textures

Charu created richness throughout Alton House through a thoughtful layering of materials and textures. Lucite sits alongside marble, bringing lightness next to density. Timber appears in both lacquered and natural finishes, offering a quiet contrast of sheen and grain. Textiles are treated with the same nuance, from wool and bouclé to more open weaves. Iron and brass provide moments of weight and warmth. This blend of surfaces allows each room to shift in tone throughout the day, catching light differently and inviting touch. Hard and soft elements are placed in quiet conversation, offering a rhythm that feels both structured and intuitive. In places, reflective finishes introduce clarity, while elsewhere, matte and tactile surfaces absorb the mood, grounding the space in calm. The result is a material landscape that feels considered yet effortless, full of subtle variation and quiet depth.

Objects from around the world

Throughout Alton House, Charu has curated a dialogue between cultures. Furniture and accessories have travelled with her not only through different homes, but across continents. From antique Indian artworks that reflect her heritage to found objects collected in Singapore, Cambodia, Italy and France, each piece contributes to a broader story of place, memory and identity.

One of her most cherished discoveries is the pair of dining room wall lights, crafted by the Indian maker Shailesh Rajput. Charu came across these lights on a visit to India and was immediately drawn to the quiet contrast between their industrial form and the delicacy of the hand-finished texture. Grounded yet refined, the lights offer a subtle and personal nod to her roots. Between them hangs a vintage French mirror, sourced from a trusted dealer. Its bold, geometric frame adds visual depth and rhythm to the room, drawing the eye without overwhelming the space. More than decorative, it reflects the international narrative of the home, where each piece is chosen with intention and meaning.

VINTAGE WALL FEATURES

In the sunroom, a vintage Italian marble table from the 1950s is another of Charu’s favourites, its travertine top defined by an open grain and a base with striking geometry. Charu was drawn to its slim profile, a deliberate choice to maintain a sense of flow between the indoors and the garden beyond. She wanted a piece that complemented the space without commanding it, allowing movement to remain effortless and uninterrupted.

THE SUNROOM

A Home That Speaks to You

An important finishing touch in any design project is the artwork, which more often than not you might have bought for one home before taking it to another. As a collector, it was important for Charu to bring her favourite pieces with her from Chelsea to Putney, with the process of hanging them in the new space making it feel immediately more like home, as well as more ‘lived’ in. Plan where you are going to position different pieces, and don’t forget sculptures and other artworks too. You can also add complementary flourishes through interesting textiles, like throws and cushions, for example, Charu loves animal print, so she added graphic leopard print cushions into her study for a sense of playfulness.

PLAYFUL PRINTS

Charu’s overarching rule is this: if it speaks to you and it speaks to your personality, it will naturally feel right in your home. Do not worry about adhering to a specific time period or style. If you like it, you can mix and match, and it will feel coherent. A rental home can feel more permanently yours, it’s all in how you decorate it.

Step Inside Alton House

To see Charu’s philosophy in motion and get a deeper sense of how she’s brought warmth, originality and rhythm to this family home, watch some of her top tips below. From playful vintage finds to layered materials and painterly moments of colour, every room is a reflection of a life being beautifully lived.

For a look inside Charu’s study, please see here.

Follow Elicyon on Instagram @elicyon for more insights into considered living and interiors that evolve with you.

Find out more about where Alton House has featured:

Financial Times Piece 1

Financial Times Piece 2

Homeworthy

Key suppliers:

Living Room:

Paint – Argile Colour

Rug – Holland Cassidy

Lamps – Porto Romana

Artwork – Dan Peyton

Bench - Tyson London

Florals – Henrietta Hickling Florals

Dining Room:

Décor – Willer Gallery

Candle – Fumi Gallery

Rug – Edition 169

Children’s Room:

Bespoke Plant Pot – Oakley Moore

Paint - Graphenstone

Light – Burt Frank

Sculpture - Heaps and Wood

Study:

Paint – Graphenstone: Indian Terracotta

Light – Fumi Gallery

Ceramic bowl– Willer Gallery

Desk Runner - Sirimiri linens