‘A rental needn't BE A BLAND BOX'

‘A rental needn’t BE A BLAND BOX'

COME ON IN!

ABOUT ME I am Salsabil El-Awais, 29, an interior designer (@seinteriors). I live here with my husband Abdullah, a personal trainer, and our son Adam, four.

MY HOME A rented two-bedroom Victorian apartment in Edinburgh. We moved here in April 2018.

WHEN I MOVED IN It needed re-carpeting, which the landlord did straight away. A new kitchen is planned soon too, which is exciting.

AND NOW We have decorated throughout ourselves and invested in some good-quality furniture and artwork. We love living in this area and want to stay here for the foreseeable future.

STYLE TIP Try to declutter regularly to display the things you love to their best advantage.

Salsabil has cleverly infused her rental Edinburgh flat with subtle colour, using wall art and a growing collection of houseplants

I was born in Palestine and my family moved to Scotland, as refugees, when I was two years old,’ says Salsabil.

‘When I left school, I choseto study interior design in Syria, at a university near Damascus. I lived there for three years, just before the war broke out. It was a truly amazing place. I came home when I graduated, Abdullah and I got married, and I worked for Homebase for a number of years as an in-house interior design consultant, which I really enjoyed. When our son, Adam, was born, I set up my own business, so that I could work from home, as well as be with him.

Getting started