In the throes of the cost-of-living crisis, with energy bills expected to remain higher than pre-pandemic levels and interest rates continuing to rise, many Londoners have turned to a home-related hustle to pay the bills.
Some homeowners are renting out a spare bedroom or putting their house on Airbnb when they go away.
Creative couple Zoltan and Yana Bourne have gone one better. They can make £600 to £900 a day by hiring out their dramatically decorated living room in their house on Harrowgate Road in Hackney for film and advertising shoots — most recently with rapper Digga D — and interviews.
“One day’s shoot is comparable to renting out a room in Hackney for a month or on Airbnb for a week,” says Zoltan, a fintech entrepreneur.
The couple created their set following a renovation which flipped the footprint of the house, converting a garage into a kitchen (a garage conversion is estimated to add about £48,000 to the value of a home) and the old kitchen into the new main bedroom.
Even though the square footage was not increased, their restructuring of the three-bedroom 1980s terraced home, and the transformation of the white rooms into colourful spaces, has added around 50 per cent to the value of the property (according to a local Savills agent). It cost £915,000 in July 2021, and is now worth around £1,372,500.
Losing out to buyers paying over the odds
Zoltan, 44, and Yana, 40, met at the alternative Burning Man festival in Nevada in 2019.
Zoltan had lived in east London for 15 years and Yana, a dentist, had just finished studying in Moscow. “She arrived to visit for a few days in my shared rental flat in Stoke Newington in March 2020 with just a small bag. We went into lockdown and that was it, she stayed,” says Zoltan.
They were cooped up with another couple and desperate to buy their own place. “We felt very stuck,” says Yana. However, when the market reopened in May 2020 they were not prepared for the stampede of buyers looking for homes with outside space. Demand grew further when an emergency stamp-duty holiday was announced two months later.
“Initially the process was easy — we found a lot of houses that we liked. But every time another buyer would swoop in and offer £100,000 over the asking price in cash before we had a chance to do a second viewing,” Yana says. “It was crazy and impossible to navigate.”
These false starts were mirrored in their love life as well. Their wedding was postponed three times due to Covid. “When the registry offices reopened there was a rush for couples wanting to marry,” says Zoltan. Finally, they tied the knot at Hackney Town Hall in April 2021.
Back to the digital drawing board
The Bournes decided to change their approach. They sketched their ideal structure with strict criteria — without considering the possibility of hiring out their space at this point.
“There was no time for a second viewing, we had to walk in and know immediately that a property matched our needs,” says Yana. This meant they could offer straight away.
Their tick list included: a garden and nearby park for their two cats, an ability to make the home open-plan having spent more than a year feeling claustrophobic in the shared flat, high ceilings, a fireplace, at least three bedrooms and a dedicated work-from-home office.
“We knew what we were looking for,” says Zoltan. “Then, when we walked into the house on Harrowgate Road it was awful. I turned the tap on and the whole house rattled. ‘Few people would want to buy this,’ we thought. But we saw the potential and it fitted our desired structure,” says Zoltan.
They offered five per cent over the asking price to have the three-storey home, just off Victoria Park, taken off the market. The property had been occupied by a family who had relocated to Brighton. There was one double bedroom, two box rooms and a small toilet separate from the bathroom. Zoltan describes it as “unloved”, with an almost totally white colour scheme throughout — the previous owners had young children, so no expense had been squandered on decoration. “We were ready for a big renovation to reflect our personalities,” says Yana.
Creating a house less ordinary
Zoltan used design software to create their architectural drawings using the software programmes Figma and Tinkercad.
They wanted to convert the garage into a large kitchen but feared their proposals would fail to get through the planning system. “None of our neighbours had done it and we were worried that the council would think taking away the garage would mean more cars parked on the street,” says Zoltan. “But we managed to prove that no one used their garages for parking, they were all used for storage. It was a total waste of space and everyone was parked on the road anyway,” he adds.
“We made so many requests such as to have doorways removed, arches added between rooms and other unique design changes, such as a storage room behind a hidden door masquerading as a wall. We were sure our application would get rejected,” Yana says.
Costs
Sale price in 2007: £475,000
Sale price in 2021 (paid by the Bournes): £915,000
Estimated value now: £1,372,500
Daily fee for location rental: £600-£900
Weekly Airbnb room cost in Hackney: £600-£900
However, a cyber attack had thrown Hackney council into chaos. “They were either super nice or totally bogged down,” says Zoltan. Their complex plan was waved through within a month. The couple worked with an architectural contact of Yana’s in Bali to finesse the designs, but they project-managed the construction work themselves.
They started with the old garage, trying to get the noisy work done first to appease the neighbours. All the services (plumbing, water and electricity) were moved to the ground floor and they ripped up the red plastic floor to install underfloor heating pipes while stripping back the walls.
The old kitchen on the first floor became the master bedroom. They also moved walls to create a bigger bathroom and tore out the enclosed staircase. It was replaced with an open wooden staircase that runs seamlessly into a mezzanine balcony overlooking the living room on the ground floor.
The double-height arched glazed doors in the living room open on to the decked garden. The stairs continue up to the new master bedroom and the remaining bedrooms above.
Inspiration from around the world
Although structurally different, it is the palette and style which leave the place unrecognisable. “I knew from the beginning I did not want any white rooms,” says Yana. “We were going for warmth and spaciousness,” she adds.
They were heavily influenced by their travels. The bright red banister, joinery and door frames were a nod to the red torii gates that open to Shinto shrines in Japan. The colour symbolises vitality and protection against evil.
The blue paint used reflects the waters of the Maldives. “It took a long time to get the colours to come together,” Yana says. They chose Inchyra Blue (Farrow & Ball) for the living room and the bedrooms, and Preference Red (Farrow & Ball) and Boxington 84 (Little Greene) in the hallway. These colours have been paired with one-off vintage items such as a large chandelier and a Victorian sofa. “Once these items were in place we started to play,” says Yana.
She shopped on vinterior.co and went to House of Hackney for the fabric used on their bed’s headboard and on cushions. A contemporary surface called Fenix, from worktop-express.co.uk, was used for the worktops in the kitchen — it’s soft, looks matte rather than reflective, is anti-fingerprint and even recovers from micro-scratches.
“We reused this material elsewhere. The manufacturer cut a custom shape for us with rounded edges which we turned into a dining table using TipToe table legs (tiptoe.fr/en),” she says.
Other personal touches include the mosaic they commissioned that is set into the floor by the front door — an edgy version of a door mat — which reads “Only lovers left alive”.
Making the home work hard
Zoltan works from home, so can manage their shoot business himself. It’s lucrative and they work their lives around it easily. “We don’t go downstairs in the daytime, but it is ours again in the evenings and at the weekend,” says Zoltan. A film shoot could be five to eight days, but generally shoots only last a day.
“Sometimes nothing is touched and the companies like the living room as it is. Other times they move everything around, bring in their own props and even replace the wall lights — but they put everything back,” he says. “On one occasion, a company shooting an investment product advert turned the living room into a gym. When they had finished, the company they borrowed the equipment from couldn’t collect it so we had a gym to use for a day!”
Al Jazeera came in to shoot a documentary about Algeria and were attracted by the colour palette. The Bournes have also hosted homeware shoots for Emma J Shipley and interviews with musicians for SoundCloud.
“Our white cat, Dr Mumi Zapikanka, loves to prowl through the living room mid-shoot. It’s a home first and a set second,” says Zoltan. “It’s flexible. We can back out at any time.” And it helps to pay the mortgage.
When talking about her home, Yana, who also designs jewellery and makes crowns and headbands (Instagram: @yana_bourne_jewellery), says: “Make it unique. Forget white walls. Use colour to create a theme that inspires you and makes you feel full of joy.”
When it comes to hiring a room out, she says: “Less is more. Most film and advertising crews want to customise the space. Having a clutter-free and minimal space gives directors much more creative freedom.”
The house, which now has four bedrooms, is available to hire on Shootfactory (shootfactory.co.uk) and via Instagram: @harrowgate_house
