His Grandma’s House Was Falling Apart. How Fresh Decorating Saved Its Magic and Charm

After James Arkoulis’s grandmother died, her seaside home sat neglected on the sunny island of Serifos, Greece, for 10 years. His family, spread across England and Greece, watched sadly as the beloved epicenter of family reunions and vacations began to deteriorate.

“What had been cute, charming and retro was suddenly a bit grim,” said Arkoulis, the co-founder of London firm Howark Design, who fondly remembers visiting the home as a child. “You’d turn the shower on and water would come shooting out through the gaps in the tiles.”

As the interior-design pro in the family, Arkoulis, 40, took the helm of the remodeling project. “We [wanted to] keep the best bits but do the practical work for the next generations,” he said.

Formulating a design approach, however, proved a tad more delicate than the electrical and plumbing overhauls. The family remembered how resistant Yiayia (Greek for grandmother) was to change. “If you’d moved something in the house, she would put it right back,” Arkoulis recalled. Keeping his grandmother’s deference to tradition in mind while planning was an exciting but daunting challenge, he said.

During the Italian occupation of Greece in World War II, a bomb hit the house, so when Arkoulis’s grandparents married in 1947, they quickly repaired and modernized their harbor-hugging home. Remnants of that midcentury rebuild show in the living room’s rigidly linear built-in bookcase and two yellow-leather-and-chrome chairs that bracket an antique Italian bureau that Arkoulis sourced from Milan, where his grandfather’s sister lived.

The seats’ sunny hue conveniently aligned with Arkoulis’s vision of “island colors”—not the cliché of blue and white found on wish-you-were-here postcards from the Greek islands but the saturated hues slicked on railings, signs and the facades of old buildings around the laid-back isle. A new zesty green plate rack in the kitchen brightens and balances the formidable traditional wooden table and chairs below, which Arkoulis believes may have belonged to his great-grandparents. He painted the kitchen cabinets and double doors that connect the bedroom and living room a cheery robin’s egg blue. Century-old muddy-brown encaustic tiles underfoot serve as a perfect foil to those more-vivid colors, said Arkoulis.

Other new additions, such as the Mediterranean-style tile of the kitchen backsplash, could pass as original to the house. On the stove hood, Arkoulis hung a trio of small plates from Anthropologie whose traditional brush strokes and patterns belie their modernity. “I like how you can’t tell what’s new versus antique,” he said.

Elsewhere Arkoulis repurposed his ancestors’ decades-spanning homewares, elevating some to the position of spotlight decor. Yiayia’s deviled-egg plate sits displayed on the new rack. A rug beater, from the era before vacuum cleaners, enjoys pride of place on a living room gallery wall. “When you’ve known a house your whole life, it’s an intangible part of the people you loved,” said Arkoulis.

Not every stick of furniture bows to history, however. The living room cocktail table, simple enough to blend gracefully, hails from IKEA. “I think the way we’ve woven in light, more contemporary elements like the coffee table makes the house feel fresh and welcoming and helps balance the traditional elements,” said Arkoulis.

The designer’s young nephews now visit from England and sleep in the same twin bedroom he and his sister once used, but with a little face-lift. Arkoulis purchased wrought-iron brackets on the island and Indian block print fabric to drape behind the beds like headboards. His grandparents’ antique timber-frame sofa, now topped with plump cushions, provides a welcome spot to plop down after a day of sailing or playing on the shore.

“Now the house is always full of people,” said Arkoulis. “Which is what we hoped—to bring the house back to life again.”