Seventy Open Square Metres

Scott and Diane are an English couple who spent most of the year outside Spain, but wanted to make this small flat their home. Retired and very sociable, they needed every bit of space they could get out of 70 square metres.

We started with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom and a balcony. We opened the flat up from one façade to the other and kept only one bedroom and the bathroom as private space. Everything else is a single open-plan area. To tell the zones apart we used colour: pastel orange for the "winter lounge", blue for the kitchen with black joinery, and white and grey for the living room.

Their favourite style was "IKEA style", so we went for a neutral base they could change as they liked with their own decoration. At the entrance we put up a pineapple-print vinyl, and on the balcony some trompe-l'oeil mirrors that make the flat look as if it has a third façade.

One anecdote. It's the only home I've ever done without a cooker hood. They almost always ate out, so they didn't want a hob at all. We left a duct ready in case a future owner wanted one, but they never used it.