Moving from the dark into ‘affordable luxury,’ she took her family on a renovation journey

Everything was brown: brown walls, brown floors, brown cupboards. “It was dark, dark brown. At night, it was pitch dark,” Anam Lone recalls of the house her family bought eight years ago. The first thing she did was paint the walls a soft grey until time and budget allowed her to brighten and revitalize the home with “affordable luxury.”
“I love having a nice room … and coming home to a place that feels relaxing (with) a good balance of pretty and practical,” says Lone. Neatness, organization and storage space are priorities in her busy household.
The self-taught designer, whose day job is in finance, developed a passion for do-overs as a teenager when she’d watch home reno shows with her mother. She also picks up DIY skills and ideas for creating beautiful spaces from the internet.
Lone is a firm believer in not rushing into a “full-on demo and reno,” explaining that it takes time, trial and error to develop your own style, and to figure out how you use each space and what you want there.
Brown overload aside, her family’s 20-year-old Mississauga home was “in really good shape, very clean,” which played well with her go-slow M.O., says Lone. She shares its makeover story — along with hacks, mistakes and advice — on Instagram.
“It becomes a fun and meaningful journey the family takes on together,” she says. Their living space will continue to evolve as their needs and interests change.