When Louise Glynn bought her tiny flat in Bermondsey it was supposed to be her single-girl crash pad, and she was looking for a compact, characterful, central London base.
Admittedly the property was only about 450 sq ft, but it was handy for work and it offered a blank canvas which Glynn was excited to start working on. That was in March 2020.
The following month not only was the UK getting its first taste of lockdown life, but Glynn discovered she was pregnant. Instead of being a pied-à-terre, the micro-flat was going to have to function as a family home.
“In hindsight, I would have gone for something a little bit bigger if I had known, but I was not actually that worried,” says Glynn, an interior designer and partner at Studio 29 Architects. “I knew I could change the flat to maximise the sense of space and the storage and I really wanted to live somewhere central because commuting is so horrendous. I also have this feeling that if you are going to live in London you should really live in London.”
When Glynn, 44, bought the flat it was, in her words, “a big white box”. Having paid £420,000 for the property, Glynn went on to spend two months and another £40,000 on remodelling the property, leaving no corner untouched and making every square inch count.
She agrees that you have to be a certain sort of person to live in a very small home. “I am not a hoarder,” she says. “And it helped that my previous flat was only 258 sq ft, I basically doubled my space, so this place didn’t seem small to me.”
Glynn’s son Samuel is now three years old and she is aware that their tiny home won’t be suitable forever — the taller he gets, the more she realises that they are going to need a bigger home. Glynn has set a loose deadline of moving on by the time that Samuel starts primary school, and is resigned to moving out to the ’burbs — well, Zone 2 — in order to afford an equally compact house.
Despite her investment in the property she was not able to increase its square footage, which is the only surefire way of adding value to a property. Local house prices have been very deflated over the past four years, and Glynn doubts she will get much more than she paid for the property.
“I do think that what I have done will make it more attractive to buyers,” she says.
A space Odyssey: how Glynn made the most of her mini flat
Colour palette
Glynn chose the property because she loved its industrial style — the Thirties Art Deco building was formerly a fur factory and the main room has floor-to-ceiling original metal windows.
She was less impressed with its dull décor of white walls and grey-painted metal work on the upper mezzanine bedroom level.
To give the space some character, she went for raw plaster on the walls, because she liked its warm, pinkish tones and its texture. Bare plaster is also very low maintenance — it doesn’t need regular repainting. It is also surprisingly child-friendly. “If someone puts a greasy hand on the wall, the mark just sinks in,” says Glynn.
To increase the warm and cosy vibe, Glynn had the metalwork repainted a warm chocolate brown and used the same tone on the bathroom ceiling.
“I had to get some rich tones into the story,” she says. And all the cabinetry inside the flat has birch plywood doors. By sticking to this limited palette, the whole space feels more cohesive and larger.
Private property
A big issue with the flat was just how open it was — its galleried mezzanine bedroom overlooks the main living room, and the spectacular living room window directly overlooks a car park.
To give herself some private space Glynn designed folding doors to enclose the mezzanine. She also added a space-saving sliding door to the bedroom. This means that when Samuel goes to bed he has a dark, quiet space.
In the main living room Glynn had a metal grid hung just below the double-height ceiling. This has three purposes: it hides some of the room’s structural beams, Glynn was able to hang lighting off it and she also decided to hang a collection of simple, inexpensive white paper lanterns (all from Ikea) overhead.
“They also help screen the bedroom from the outside,” says Glynn. “They bring a bit of excitement into the space and in the summer with the windows open it is quite relaxing watching them drift and move.”
Glynn has even made use of the ledge outside the flat to enhance the sense of peace. It is now filled with pots of flowers framing the view from the inside.
Storage, storage, storage
When Glynn took it on, the flat didn’t have a single piece of storage barring an understairs cupboard. She set about changing that, spending a large chunk of her renovation budget on cabinetry.
A long, low cupboard runs under the huge window, hiding the radiator and providing storage while doubling as a seating bench.
To squeeze a bit more storage into the living room, Glynn asked her carpenter to build a platform linking the front door to the bottom of the stairs — this conceals a drawer which holds her and Samuel’s shoes.
In the compact kitchen Glynn thought small with an undercounter fridge freezer, a built-in cooker and microwave, a combined washer-dryer, and just two rings on her induction hob. The circular sink takes up less space than a rectangular one might. “It really has just the right amount of space for me,” says Glynn. “I don’t like people in the kitchen when I’m cooking because I need to concentrate.”
Upstairs there is a wall length wardrobe in the bedroom, and Glynn also designed floor-to-ceiling cupboards for the hallway. These allow her to get up before Samuel, creep out, shut the door, and get ready for the day without disturbing him. The storage theme extends to the bathroom where a line of cabinets doubles as a wall mirror, and the hand basin has a deep sliding door underneath it.
Finishing touches
Glynn’s headboard is made of raffia and she has saved a few inches by hanging it from the wall behind the bed.
In the bathroom the splashback, built of simple sprayed MDF, has been placed slightly away from the wall so storage baskets can be hooked over it.
Downstairs, the TV is wall-mounted, there is a sofa bed for guests, and a small bank of wall-mounted drawers have been hung below a mirror so Glynn has somewhere to do her make-up.
