How one young Londoner turned a single room the size of two parking spaces into a fully functioning home, by Ruth Bloomfield
In a city with a chronic shortage of homes — and one where costs far outweigh average incomes — something has to give. Noah Dixon, 26, decided to compromise on space rather than sacrifice a central location. His home in Islington measures 269 sq ft. That is about the size of two car parking spaces, almost 50 per cent smaller than the size of the average UK one-bedroom home which measures 495 sq ft according to the Royal Institute of British Architects. It is even smaller than a typical studio in notoriously space-starved Manhattan, which come in at between 350 and 450 sq ft.
But, thanks to a clever redesign, every inch of his once-grotty bedsit works hard. The flat has a well-equipped kitchen, a bedroom and a separate living area, a small but perfectly formed bathroom, and a quantity of storage that would put most modern new-build flats to shame.
It could, in short, act as a model for how to cleverly design the kind of small spaces which many Londoners will need to inhabit in the future if they wish to remain in the city.
“It has completely revolutionised the space, and the way I live,” says Dixon.
This project is very much a family affair. When Dixon’s uncle died he was left some money and his mother decided it should be put towards buying a modest London flat as an investment. In circa 2013 she bought a one-room studio flat in a street of lovely townhouses close to Upper Street.
For years the flat was rented out until Dixon, having grown up, left home and moved to London to work as an events organiser.
In 2022 he moved in and spent 18 months there — more than long enough to understand its shortcomings.
“It was just one big space, and a lot of the fittings were prehistoric,” he says. “I like to cook and it was frustrating that there was no oven and hot plates in the kitchen took about 15 minutes to heat up, so cooking a simple meal would take 40 minutes. The bathroom was very outdated and the shower was pretty poor. It did the job for one person but it wasn’t somewhere you would enjoy living.”
Dixon’s girlfriend, Abby Reilly, 24, a performing arts teacher, was equally unimpressed. “It was very cold in the winter because there was no central heating, boiling hot in the summer, and just a bit depressing,” she says.
In 2024 Dixon moved out to rent with a friend, and his mother, who by this point had bought out his share of the flat to give him a start on saving up a deposit slush-fund, decided she needed to make some changes.
Rather than make a few cosmetic tweaks she decided to completely redesign the compact space, with the help of Diego Dalpra, director of CIAO architects. His approach was to section up the space, designing a mid-level birchwood ply divider to split the main room into a living space and bedroom.
This divider is multipurpose — on the living room side it has space for a fold-out table, which doubles as a desk when Dixon works from home, a media unit for the TV and storage. On the bedroom side it is a capacious wardrobe. And because it doesn’t reach to the ceiling the garden views from the lovely original sash windows aren’t obstructed.
FRENCH+TYEThe kitchen has been built on the other side of the flat, and can also be separated off by a Japanese-style sliding panel made with transparent reeded glass to form a central spine through the property.
It has just two hotplates, but there is also an oven, to Dixon’s great delight, and plenty of high level storage.
FRENCH+TYEThe height of the ceiling has allowed Dalpra to create a “game changing” extensive mezzanine storage area above the kitchen, accessed by a fitted ladder.
“Every square inch matters — everything has to be planned to a T”
Two window seats add extra space when friends come round, and have yet more storage built in beneath them. There is even a slimline storage unit at the entrance, carefully measured to make sure that the front door still has clearance.
“Every square inch matters, everything has to be planned to a T,” says Dixon.
Work on the project began in spring 2025, and despite its diminutive size the project over-ran and was not completed until last November. This delay was largely due to the small scale of the site where every centimetre counted. For example, the original bathroom wall had to be demolished and moved “literally about two feet”, says Dixon, because the bathroom fittings couldn’t be squeezed into the original space.
Similarly, plans for a desk space under one of the windows had to be shelved after the builders discovered that a concrete beam ran beneath the windows, meaning there wouldn’t be enough leg room beneath it.
FRENCH+TYETo save space, underfloor heating was fitted in the green and white kitchen and throughout the flat, and a tiny utility room has been squeezed into the doorway between the kitchen and the bathroom.
To give the bathroom a luxe feel despite its size, Dalpra chose stylish cream-coloured terrazzo tiles for the walls and floor, and built up into the mezzanine to give the walk-in shower a higher ceiling.
To make the apartment feel cohesive and light the colour palette is simple: warm white walls, timber floors, and the birch plywood which was also used to build all the cupboards and window seats.
FRENCH+TYEBuilding costs are notoriously high right now and the project cost some £100,000 to execute — although to put this into context, studio flats in Islington are currently on sale for between £265,000 and £360,000 depending on condition and location.
Dixon likes his new microflat so much that he intends to stay put for the next couple of years — and maybe more. In the longer term it is now more rentable or his parents, who live in Cardiff, may decide to use the flat as a London bolthole, and rent it out on Airbnb to cover costs.
“The change is unbelievable,” says Dixon. “Before it wasn’t exactly a hosting flat, now I’m happy to have people around.”