A woman has decorated her entire house in a 1940s style for just 3,000 pounds ($3,800)—and says she loves it despite trolls telling her it’s “disgusting.”
Josephina Finch, 36, a make-up artist from Canterbury, Kent, England, has loved that era of décor since watching the TV show “The Royle Family” as a child and has taken inspiration from the home of her grandmother, Patricia Minshull, 87.
Ms. Finch has spent the last two years transforming her two-bedroom home with her partner, Chrissy Harrison, 35, a carpenter and builder who loves their velvet sofas, floral and doily curtains, and mahogany furniture.
Ms. Finch finds everything second-hand—searching charity shops, car boot sales, and Facebook marketplace and utilizes eBay to find floral wallpaper, trinkets, and old furniture.
The mom-of-three estimates she has only spent 2,000 to 3,000 pounds ($2,500 to $3,800) on the house and says it is her “happy place” despite getting mixed responses from strangers.
“My nan started it off—it’s quite old-fashioned,“ she said. ”It’s nostalgia for me. My happy place.
“I started watching The Royle Family on TV, and I was obsessed with that style. It’s homely and old-fashioned. I love 1940s style. I’ve created magic in every room.”
Ms. Finch loved her grandmother’s house growing up and took comfort in that style of décor. She decided she wanted her home to look like The Royle Family house and spent the next 10 years decorating her previous home in that style.
She moved next door in February 2022 and has spent the last two years creating a vintage paradise for her forever home.
“I never liked anything from Ikea or Next,” she said. “I never buy anything new. Everything has a bit of a story.”
Ms. Finch found her 1955 three-piece sofa for 500 pounds ($640) in North London and a wardrobe for her son’s room for just 30 pounds ($30) on Facebook Marketplace. The couple made their own kitchen from sanded-down scaffold boards—and carved hearts into it themselves.
She says her partner loves the 1940s style too, but her 17-year-old twin girls and 11-year-old son are not so sure.
“The twins hate it,” she said. “They say it’s ‘old lady stuff.’ But they wouldn’t want me to change it—it’s home.”
Ms. Finch has a floral staircase and curtains taken from her grandma’s old home. She loves finding little trinkets to fill up the house such as old 50-pence photos of Victorian families, cigarette tins, and footpowder from the war.
“Everything in the house is in keeping with what I like,” she said. “You spend all your time here. Why not make your hub your favorite place?”
Ms. Finch works as a make-up artist from a cabin in her garden and says her clients always have a nice response when they see the inside of her house. “They say it’s like Narnia,” she said.
But she adds she gets a mixture of responses from strangers online.
“I get a lot of hate,” she said. “They say it’s disgusting. People say, ‘Why have you decorated your house like a 90-year-old?’
“I don’t care—I love it. I wouldn’t want it to look like an Ikea catalog.”
