Ten clever and charming ideas for small homes

Telegraph

02-03-2025

Classic English style is comfortable, timeless and informal. But it can also be seen as rather grand – most appropriate for rambling rectories and manor houses. But thinking back over the hundreds of interiors visited and described in a 40-year career as an interiors writer, I realised that the more modest ones, belonging to people without big budgets, held the most appeal. We can all create glorious interiors without the luxury of grand proportions. As the following examples demonstrate, limited floor space doesn't have to limit ambition.
Custom-made kitchen
This farm worker's cottage in Somerset posed some challenges for its owner, Ali Kelsey, not least the awkward shape of the kitchen. A local joiner made the kitchen cupboards, painted in Farrow & Ball's Pigeon, to fit the space. The joiner also glued the floorboards, painted in Farrow & Ball's Blue Gray, over the old concrete flooring. The blinds are in Mortefontaine fabric by Pierre Frey.
The perfect breakfast nook
In the same cottage, Kelsey knocked down the wall between the kitchen and breakfast room, and enlarged the previously small window so that the space is now flooded with light. Built-in bench seating maximises the number of people the table can accommodate. The bench cushions and the blinds are in Bowood by Colefax and Fowler, made from a pair of curtains Kelsey bought on eBay.
Making an extension work
When decorator Caroline Holdaway and photographer Fatimah Namdar first saw this 300-year-old Cotswold cottage, they spotted the 1990s extension at the back and thought, 'No'.
'But we didn't find anything else, so we came to view again,' says Holdaway, 'and as soon as I stepped through the door into the front room, I changed my mind.'
Holdaway laid new flooring throughout in reclaimed pitch pine rescued from an old factory, which she found at a reclamation yard. These boards create a flow between rooms – here, the front room and the dining room in the extension beyond – that helps to unify the old with the new.
Colour-drenching a bedroom
In the home of decorator Russell Loughlan, a small Georgian house in Deal, Kent, the main bedroom feels bigger than its square footage thanks to its ceiling, which rises into the pitch of the roof. The room is painted in three different shades of saturated summer-sky blue: walls in Oval Room Blue, the panelled ceiling in Light Blue and the woodwork, fireplace and shutters in Sloe Blue, all by Farrow & Ball. The starting point for the scheme was the BasShu quilt from Will and Yates.
Small space, big personality
This flat in Brighton was in 'a horrific state' when its owner, Simon Martin, bought it, with 'Artex on the ceilings and no fireplace'. He found a chimney-piece on eBay from a house nearby, replastered the walls and ceiling, and painted the room in a rich imperial yellow, a strong colour that works as a background for his collections (Martin is the director of the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester). The armchair and footstool are covered in Zig Zag by Enid Marx. The artworks, which are united by their black frames, include an engraving (in the centre) by Richard Bawden and two linocuts by Christopher Brown.
Flower power
Decorator Carlos Garcia designed the interior of this flat in south London for a client who wanted colour and pattern and for it to feel like an interior that had evolved over time. The kitchen is lined with William Morris Blackthorn Autumn wallpaper, but there's a lot going on behind the eye candy. Hung inside the door of the boiler cupboard door is a neat little spice rack. Gingham curtains take up less space than cabinet doors, and hide the dishwasher and washing machine.
Elevated under-stairs storage
In the hallway off the kitchen above, Garcia opened up the space under the stairs, which lead to the flat above, to make a shelf with curtained shelving beneath, which acts as a larder cupboard. It is papered in Citron Squiggle wallpaper by Colefax and Fowler, to complement the walls, painted in Olympian Green by Edward Bulmer.
Bijou bathroom
The bathroom in the same flat shows that even a small space can be successfully filled with colour and pattern. Carlos Garcia found the reclaimed floor tiles at English Salvage, the period-style basin at Burlington Bathrooms, and the bath at Victorian Plumbing. The walls are papered in Sadras Verd de Pomme by Nicole Fabre Design; its colour is echoed in the tongue-and-groove panelling that wraps around the walls and the bath, while the tiles add a further splash of complementary colour.
Coastal colours
This coastal cottage overlooking the Solent is decorated in a suitably beachy palette: the walls and curtains in this dining area have been sun-bleached to the softest shades of pink and blue. Fitted bench seating around the table maximises seating capacity, and helps to zone the dining area, which is part of the living room.
Shipshape
In the same cottage, the neat little kitchen has an Everhot stove – essential for drying out the owners' sailing gear. A palette of blues again nods to its coastal location, and the under-counter curtain adjacent to the dishwasher allows for every inch of storage to be accessible, yet concealed.
Perfect English Small and Beautiful by Ros Byam Shaw, published by Ryland Peters & Small (£40); photographs by Antony Crolla © Ryland Peters & Small