From cramped coach house to family home – how clever design transformed this tiny space

Bold interior choices allowed these first-time buyers to utilise every square inch of this 19th-century building to create something special

Eleanor and Dominic Charles’s wishlist was typical of most city dwellers looking to get a foot on the property ladder: a bit of outdoor space, ideally a house rather than a flat, and somewhere with character. But they ended up being bolder than most first-timers, taking a punt on a run-down, pint-sized 19th-century coach house in Camberwell, south London.

“We’d viewed other properties, but often they’d been flipped and had uninspiring interiors we’d want to rip out, which just felt wasteful,” says Eleanor.