Some houses have personality, and Esin Üstündağ’s has plenty to say. This week on our Home Life Series, we’re heading northside to Clifton Hill to meet Hot Off The Vows photographer and videographer Esin, and step inside her unapologetically colourful home, shared with her roommates and dog, Tank.
After months of doom-scrolling rental listings and one too many beige rectangles, Esin found a home with serious point of view. Think rust-red kitchen cabinetry, a bright blue bathroom, exposed beams, timber panelling and slate floors, all layered with vintage finds, art and records.
Come inside as Esin talks creative life, collecting with instinct and why sometimes, the best houses already know exactly who they are.
Hey Esin, thank you so much for welcoming us into your home in Clifton Hill. For those who may not know you, can you please share a little about yourself and who lives here with you now?
Of course!, I’m Esin. By day (and most nights, honestly) I run Hot Off The Vows, a wedding videography and content studio. I’m also Studio Coordinator for Art of Grace, and outside of both jobs, you can catch me playing records or pushing buttons around Melbourne. I run a roving record series called Double Crates and a fundraiser disguised as a dance party called Solace Groove.
This place is shared with Valentine Rondoni, Giyoung Baek, and of course, my dog Tank.
You found the house through Fairy Floss after months of doom-scrolling rental listings and house inspections. Take us back to the moment you first saw it, what was it about this place that made you think, yep, this is the one?
After enough rental inspections you start to go a bit numb, every place blurs into the same beige rectangle. It wasn’t one thing I guess, it was the accumulation of things that clearly hadn’t been sanded back to please anyone. It felt lived-in already, in the best way - like the house had a personality before we did anything to it.
There’s a real sense that this house found you at the right time. What do you think it gave you that all those other rentals were missing, and has that feeling changed now that you’ve lived here for three years?
The other places were missing texture, they wanted you to bring your own personality because they had none of their own. This place already had a point of view, and living inside someone else’s bold decisions turned out to be strangely freeing. Three years on, it hasn’t worn off. If anything it’s deepened… it’s less “wow, cool kitchen” and more the quiet, unglamorous comfort of a place that actually knows you back.
Can you share a little about the creative world you live in. You’re a wedding content creator at Hot Off The Vows, with a real love for capturing the moments that happen between the posed shots. What drew you to that kind of storytelling, and what keeps you excited about it?
I am firmly hooked on the in-between bits - the flower girl mid-meltdown, the dad losing it during the speech, the three seconds after “you may kiss the bride” when everyone smiles from ear to ear. You can really feel the energy in the room!
That’s where the actual day is happening. What keeps me excited is that no two of those moments ever repeat, so the job never really goes stale. I love what I do - it’s the perfect mix of riding the high of meeting new people and being creative!
You’re also a DJ with Solace Groove, so music is clearly another big part of your creative life. How did that come about, and what does being behind the decks give you that your work behind the camera doesn’t?
Quick correction, I’m not a DJ for Solace Groove. I co-founded it, and my role is much more on the organising and community side: building the event, pulling the right people together, making sure the fundraising actually lands. And that’s really why it matters to me. It’s not about the music itself, it’s what the music raises. We’ve brought in nearly $20,000 over the past two years, all from bringing our community together here to support other communities doing it tough elsewhere.
My hands-on music world lives more in Double Crates & playing out around Melbourne. What all of it gives me that filming doesn’t is immediacy, with a wedding, people see it after the event. With music in a room full of people, you get the reaction in real time. Add a cause worth showing up for and it's electrifying!
The house has got a pretty strong personality of its own. From the rust-red kitchen and bright blue bathroom to the exposed beams, timber panelling and slate floors, there’s a lot of original character to work with. How have you approached decorating a home that already had such a distinct point of view?
Mostly I’ve tried not to fight it. When a house already comes in swinging with rust-red and cobalt blue, adding too much noise on top just gets chaotic. So I’ve leaned into curating rather than decorating - records, art, a few well-chosen pieces and let the bones of the place do the most of the yapping.
