The Elm Street Residence

The owners had lived here for nine years and had never once used the front room. It held a sofa nobody sat on, two lamps that were never switched on, and a rug that fought with the floor beneath it.

The brief

Make the apartment feel larger. No extension, no structural work, and a strict limit on anything new coming through the door.

We spent the first visit counting what was already there. Forty-one objects in a room that could comfortably hold nine.

What changed

The rug went. The second lamp went. The sofa moved ninety degrees to face the window instead of the wall, and the room gained a purpose it had been missing for nearly a decade. Nothing was bought for six weeks.