Goodbye to the gutting edge - hello to boho

"Interesting" and "Bohemian" have hardly been the catchwords of London decorator chic in the past 10 years or so. "Minimalist", perhaps, or "modern".

I've been to any number of smart Notting Hill houses, full of chrome and granite kitchens, sleek cream sofas, and varying shades of black, grey and taupe in the sitting rooms. They are impressive and intimidating in equal measure. What they certainly aren't is cosy — or individual.

Until the credit crunch hit, London — at least, up-and-coming London — had been hijacked by these values. Everything had to be new and up-to-the-minute. If you were rich and you moved house, you gutted it first, however good the taste of the previous occupant. It was sweetly ironic that the smarter your neighbourbood, the more likely you were to have your life blighted by the sound of drills from next door. (Our neighbourhood, by contrast, is so scruffy that it's never happened to us in 18 years.)

Somehow, we never bought into this philosophy. Partly, we couldn't afford it, and partly, we disdained it. Why would you want to spend so much money just to make your home like every other banker's pad? We didn't want ours to look perfect, as if it had been modelling itself for a glossy magazine. We wanted it to be friendly, cluttered, cosy and individual. So it's always been full of family hand-me-downs and stuff bought cheaply at auctions.

For years, our sitting room housed an antique sofa and two armchairs, bought at Lots Road Auction House for £150. They had a certain faded charm, and the odd stain or frayed cover added to it. When our fridge or freezer died, we rifled through Loot to get another, second-hand, for £60. Pay thousands for a chrome American number with ice-making facilities? No, thanks.

Our bathroom, meanwhile, has a fabulous but slightly beaten-up roll-top bath from a French chateau, which we discovered being used as a cattle trough in a Normandy field. We paid the farmer £45 for it and drove it back to England. I painted the bottom and we had the inside re-enamelled. But we never got round to restoring the feet, so they sit on two plastic children's balls from the local toyshop, painted white and slightly peeling.

This has meant that, for at least a decade, we have been hideously out of fashion. We've been like the people who wear flapping flares when skinny jeans are in. But now — joy! Thrift is cool. Frugal is fashionable. Recycling is chic. Like a stopped clock that tells the time right twice a day, our house's time has come.

No one guts a house any more. The builders of Bankerland are seriously under-employed. Even DIY stores, serving the rest of us, are losing money. "Make do and mend" is the new philosophy, not "out with the old". Kirstie Allsopp has shown us how to do up a house on a shoestring by salvaging stuff from skips and scouring second-hand shops.

It's tremendously appealing. It suits our budgets, it saves the planet, and it makes our homes far friendlier. I hope it lasts longer than the recession, and that people start to see through the pretensions of ostentatious decor. Even if it doesn't, at least for now I can feel a bit prouder of our house. We are, after all, in the vanguard of "scruffy chic".

www.maryannsieghart.com