Few people can say they have been as productive during the pandemic as interior designer Francesca Gaskin. Over the past year, she has singlehandedly transformed an outdated Victorian terraced house in Bristol into a light and spacious home, combining her expertise in design and fabrication with a playful use of colour and material.

Francesca has also recently launched Jetsam Made, an interior design company that specialises in taking a sustainable and responsible approach, and her house can be seen as a manifesto for these ideas. From the kitchen – constructed around a powder-coated steel frame that is hard-wearing and can be reconfigured as the home grows and changes – to the carefully sourced materials, everything has been guided by a consciousness of its impact on the environment.

Here, Francesca talks us through renovating a house by herself, the inspiration she drew from the places and objects that are important to her, and the importance of sustainability in design today.

Francesca: “I was born in London and I’ve always been a diehard Londoner. But as a creative who has been renting for all their adult life, I found that I was getting priced out of the city. When I heard that some friends were moving to Bristol, I was spurred on to do the same. 

“Within a year I was able to buy a house. I knew I wanted to live in St Werburgh’s, the more alternative area of Bristol. It’s only a 10-minute walk from the centre of the city but there’s a really lovely community as well as allotments and a farm. You get to know your neighbours, which makes quite a change from London.

“I also knew I wanted a project. I had been working in a joinery workshop as a designer before the pandemic and had plans to open my own workshop. As I hadn’t yet designed furniture for myself, I thought the house could become a showroom for my designs.

“So, I looked for the worst house in St Werburgh’s. I ended up buying a typical Victorian terrace from an elderly gentleman. He had lived there for about 40 years and it was very dated – there were net curtains and lots of pine – and he must have been smoking about 20 cigarettes a day because the walls had turned yellow.

“I lived here for six months before I did anything, getting to know the space, understanding the light. Then the lockdown happened and I suddenly had all this time on my hands. So I stripped the house back completely. I really was starting with a blank canvas.

“Structurally, I didn’t do much apart from putting in French doors and a big picture window at the back. It’s changed the kitchen dramatically, having that back wall almost all glass. There’s so much more light, it feels like it’s been extended. 

“I have a collection of furniture and objects that I brought with me to the house, and for most rooms, the style has been informed by a particular item. The kitchen is based on a photograph I took at Burning Man festival, which I’ve been going to for 10 years.

“I matched the colour of the floorboards to the colour of the white playa dust that I brought back from the desert. The kitchen units are made from steel and are the same pinky-orange as a shipping container in the photograph. I left the walls as bare plaster to represents the mountains that surround the playa, but the corners of the room and the cornicing I painted blue to evoke the sky. 

“Then the picture window, where I built a banquette, is green and yellow and there are lots of cactuses. That was inspired by driving through the desert to Burning Man: the cactuses you see there, the green horizon, the yellow road markings. 

“I made the banquette from vintage glass bricks and there are LEDs inside so it can light up. With the mirrorball on the ceiling, it creates quite a festival atmosphere at night. 

“I lived in the house the whole time I was doing it up, as did my housemate and their girlfriend who had come over from Berlin. It was quite a challenge replumbing the bathroom while everyone was there, but they were very patient.

“I either made all the furniture myself, like the banquette and the dining table, or acquired it over the years – nothing is new. The bed is from my parents, the dresser was my grandmother’s and I inherited all the art in the house. There are also some lovely mid-century oak chairs that I bought off eBay. They had been painted white so I stripped them back to the wood, which took me about the same amount of time as it did to do up the house. 

“I think a good interior should make you happy. I find that the space I’m in is really important to me – I noticed before, when I was renting, that if I was living somewhere that wasn’t visually stimulating it really affected my mood.

“Here, for example, the kitchen gets the sun in the morning – it comes through my neighbour’s tree and the cactuses to cast shadows on the plastered wall. It almost becomes this living artwork and it’s different every day. It’s a particularly special place to be.

“I’ve always designed from home – if I find myself thinking about something I’ll just get my laptop out or start drawing – but if I wasn’t in a nice environment, it would stifle what I was doing. Now that I have this space that reflects my personality, I’m so much more comfortable. I can really sit down and focus on my work.

“I think that to live in a modern way, you do need to be somewhere that reflects your personality, rather than following a passing trend. More than ever, when you are designing a house you need to consider its impact on the environment. And the only way to ensure the longevity of the space and the objects you bring into it is to invest in timeless design, and products that have been manufactured in a sustainable way.

“I tried to incorporate a lot of those ideas by designing interiors that are made to last, and it is particularly satisfying to have done everything here myself. People really should try it – it’s a lot more enjoyable than getting someone else to do it, or to have bought something from a catalogue. Plus, it was probably a fraction of the price. 

“I’m currently studying horticulture so my next big project is the garden. At some point I’d love to get a piece of land somewhere in the countryside to grow flowers and vegetables, and maybe build a workshop, but I don’t see myself moving anywhere else. I enjoy living here too much.”

How do you define modern living?

“For me, modern living is functional, timeless and a reflection of personality rather than a trend ‘of the moment’. It’s hardwearing, comfortable and social. Modern living needs to be environmentally conscious; when designing a home it should consider its impact on the environment and the longevity of the space and its contents, choosing well-built furniture, investing in timeless design and looking at products that are environmentally friendly or have been manufactured with as sustainable lifecycle in mind.”

Is there a house for sale on our website that has caught your eye?

“I love all the mid-century ones, so Ferrum House. I also really like most of the mid-century London flats on the site. I feel like they are a rare gem amongst so many new builds. I like mid-century design for the craftsmanship in the detail, the use of interesting materials, the geometry and how light and views are always considered. They just don’t design things like they used to.”