Visit this apartment in the daytime and, with its calming neutrals and lush greenery, you’d swear it was designed for tranquil days. But call at cocktail hour and the same space feels deeply decadent, its 1970s bar and vast, butter-coloured sofa perfect for fun evenings. It is also a great advert for how to make a plain, rented flat feel like a home, without major renovations.
A first viewing left interior designers Tatjana von Stein and Gayle Noonan distinctly underwhelmed. “It was a tired, unloved white box when we found it,” Von Stein says of the flat, which occupies the top two floors of a five-storey early 20th-century block in north London. Two bedrooms, a bathroom and the kitchen are on the lower level, while the spacious open-plan living-dining room is above.
