A writer's colorful house has a story to tell

I cringe when people say it's colorful," says award-winning author Huma Qureshi. She's perched on the edge of a blue sofa in the front room of her four-bedroom house in north London, where she lives with her partner, Richard Birch, and their children. "It's not! It is considered. It's intentional." The floor tiles are a faded terrazzo yellow and the walls are pink, with pale green architraves framing the doorway to the kitchen-dining room. In this home, neutrals serve as interior colors. accent. There's not much white, gray or beige in sight, but she's right, it's not colorful, it's bright. Behind her, a collection of seven patterned wall plaques is hanging next to the cover of her memoir from 2021. "My friend Parul Arora did the cover of the book and she made me feel like," she says. from his travels and hung up on our family home. It was the sale of that house that led us to this house."

Huma's mother was downsizing their family home in the Midlands and was moving to North London to be closer to her children. It was during lockdown in 2020 and she couldn't see the houses so they did it for her. “I saw a house that looked tired and half-jokingly showed it to Richard, who is used to me sending him pictures of properties we could never live in. He said that sounded interesting," Huma says. They went to see him, and she distinctly remembers that they were both struck by the light and the large windows on both sides, and the spacious rooms. “At some point in the afternoon, the sun enters the house from the back and the front, filling in the center so that it shines. There were slices of sun coming through and it looked like a summer house.While on holiday in Denmark we fell in love with these traditional black painted summer houses and when we saw this place we immediately knew that we would paint it black on the outside as well. is also why she opted for faded terrazzo floor tiles "It's like they've been washed away by the sun over time and have been there for years."

Before hitting the 1960s road,the couple had considered buying a new property - it would have been simpler and less time-consuming. Huma was working on a novel and they had to take care of three young boys. But when they went to see new developments, Huma realized she didn't like the standard fixtures and fittings, neutral finishes and decorations; she kept asking if it would be possible to install alternatives. They quickly realized that it was not for them. "So we decided to go for this house and we're the only ones who did." It had the space they wanted and when she showed pictures of the house to her brother, he said it reminded him of where they grew up. "It didn't cross my mind at the time, but I realize now that there were similarities in the original layout," she says. Huma and Richard have always had a thing for 1960s properties, she admits: "One of the first gifts he got...