Apartment
Studio for One
Four hundred and eighty square feet, one occupant, a budget that was not negotiable.
- Where
- Powai, Mumbai
- Carpet area
- 480 sq ft
- On site
- 9 weeks
- Finish level
- Essential
The brief
A first flat. Sleep, cook, work and occasionally seat four, without any of those ruining the others.
The hard part
A fixed budget with no contingency, which meant every decision had to be made once and made correctly.
What changed
Came in on budget. The bed is out of sight by day and the desk disappears at night, which was the whole point.
The decisions
Three moves did
most of the work
01
One wall does everything
Wardrobe, desk, bed recess and shelving in a single 4.2-metre run. One carpenter, one visit, one price.
02
Spent it on the floor and the light
The two things you cannot upgrade later without redoing the room. Everything else is honestly cheap.
03
No upper cabinets in the kitchen
Open shelves at 500mm. It costs less and stops a small room feeling like a corridor.
The rooms
Photographed a year
after handover
Specified
Every finish, named
The written specification runs to eleven pages. This is the part of it you can see from the door.
- Warm whiteWalls, one coat over primer#F1EDE6
- Birch plyThe whole storage wall, edges exposed#D2B183
- SlateKitchen counter and splashback#4A4E52
Something like this,
in your flat?
Send us the floor plan and the two things that annoy you most about the space. We will tell you honestly what it would take.