A postage stamp? No, this tiny flat is a Tardis.

Article by Ruth Bloomfield and photography by Juliet Murphy (21/08/2024)

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.