HOW OLAYINKA MORDI IS REIMAGINING THE SPACES WE LIVE IN

If you know Olayinka Mordi, you probably know that she notices things. The colour that is slightly off. The corner that could be better. The detail everyone else has overlooked.

And somehow, that same instinct shows up when the thing in front of her is not a room, but a person. You see it in the counselling sessions she has with women, in the way she listens and helps them think through the things that matter.

But these days, you can see that eye most clearly in the spaces she creates.

Through Querida Living, Olayinka works across interior design, construction and project management. Through Qpaints, she has gone deeper into colour, finishes and the materials that bring a space together.

To understand where that eye came from, you have to go back a little.

Olayinka grew up watching her mother create beautiful spaces. Years later, after her wedding, she had a home of her own and began experimenting with it.

She played with colour, moved things around, tried different arrangements and discovered how much she enjoyed it.

She wasn’t planning a business. She was simply making her home her own.

Then people started noticing.

Friends and family began asking about her work and eventually asking her to help with their own spaces.

In 2017, she founded Querida Living Projects.

But Querida was never simply about decorating rooms.

The company works across interior design, construction and project management, bringing together the creative and technical sides of a project. From the first idea to the finished space, Querida is involved in making that vision real.

And that distinction matters.

There is a big difference between making a room look beautiful and delivering a project from concept to completion.

There are layouts to develop, materials to select, budgets to work within, contractors to coordinate and countless decisions to make before anyone gets to admire the final result.

Querida sits in that entire process. It is where Olayinka’s eye for beauty meets execution.

And after years of doing that work, she began to see the industry from an even deeper vantage point.

Then came Qpaints.

If Querida works on the space, Qpaints gets closer to one of the materials that helps create it.

That is what makes this move so interesting.

Olayinka wasn’t entering paint manufacturing as someone looking at the industry from the outside. She had already spent years working with colour, finishes, surfaces and clients through Querida.

She knew what happened when a colour transformed a room. She knew how much the quality of a finish could affect the final result. She knew the questions clients asked and what designers and contractors needed.

And she knew that paint was not simply a finishing touch. It was part of the experience.

So she went closer to the product.

Qpaints now serves the residential and commercial market, with a focus on quality, durability, colour and finishes, while placing emphasis on quality control and customer feedback.

That makes it more than an extension of her love for beautiful interiors.

It is a business built from knowledge of the industry.

Olayinka didn’t simply create another company. She moved further into a world she already understood, going from designing environments to participating in what helps create them.

And that is where you begin to see the scale of what she is building.

But Olayinka is not building these things on taste alone.

There are systems. There is a team. There is execution.

And alongside her, her husband plays a role in the business, overseeing operations and helping turn the creative vision into something that can actually run.

That matters.

Because beautiful ideas are one thing. Building something that works is another.

And perhaps this is where the woman behind the businesses becomes even more interesting.

She is a pastor and author, and she has spent years counselling and speaking to women about marriage, motherhood, identity, purpose and personal growth.

In-Christ Wives created Christ-centred conversations around navigating life and the roles of wife and mother, including conversations around wholeness, self-esteem and purpose.

The setting changes, but there is a quality of attention that seems to follow her.

She listens. She asks questions. She thinks about what people need.

And perhaps that is part of what makes her work feel so personal.

The influence of her mother makes more sense when you look at the woman she became.

Olayinka grew up watching her mother create beautiful spaces. Her own home after her wedding became the place where she could experiment with that eye for herself. Querida gave it a business. Years of work gave it depth. Qpaints gave it another expression.

And her work as a pastor, author and counsellor gave her another kind of understanding, one that comes from years of listening to people and walking alongside them.

So perhaps the story is not really about how a Computer Science graduate ended up in interiors.

That is only one detail.

The more interesting story is what happened when she found something she loved, took it seriously, and kept going deeper.

A home became an experiment.

The experiment became Querida.

Querida became years of experience inside the built environment.

That experience opened the door to Qpaints.

And alongside the businesses, there has been a woman continuing to create space for other people to think, grow and become.

None of it was necessarily planned as one big story.

But somehow, it has become one.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about Olayinka Mordi.

She didn’t just inherit an eye for beauty.

She learned what to do with it.