A designer's flat in Battersea packed with clever small space ideas
Like many interior designers moving into a new home, Christian Bense had grand plans when he and his partner Matt Martin bought this two bedroom flat in a Victorian mansion block in Battersea in 2023. Walls would soon be toppling, the kitchen was going to be liberated from the three metre-square space it occupied and the second bedroom was to become a generous bathroom. ‘I didn’t even really look at the layout and question whether it worked for us,’ explains Christian, who admits that it was the location – a one minute walk from Battersea Park, which proved the ideal stomping ground for their spaniel – that really drew them to the flat. You can imagine his shock, then, when leasehold restrictions put a stop to every idea Christian had dreamt up. ‘We’d been living there for five months, booked the builders and it was only when we went to get the certificate for alterations that we discovered we couldn’t do any of it,’ explains Christian. They had a choice: either sell up or try to make it work for them.
In what can only be seen as the mark of a good interior designer, Christian thankfully chose the latter. ‘Every project needs a limitation, and for this one it was the fact we couldn’t do anything we had originally planned,’ recalls Christian, who launched his own studio in 2020 after five years at Turner Pocock. ‘This was the first time I looked at the existing layout and thought “how can we make this work for us?”’ The couple had previously been living in a larger flat in Elephant & Castle, but decided to sell up when they realised they were only using about half of it. ‘Here we wanted somewhere where we could use every square inch of the space on a daily basis,’ explains Christian. With the builders start date earmarked, the plan swiftly pivoted from full renovation to doing the exact opposite. ‘It pushed us to work with what was already there and go light on the works,' explains Christian. ‘It went from a 6 month renovation project to a two month one.’ The layout, plumbing and electrics remained largely untouched, while existing doors and radiators were all retained. One part of the original plan that remained was to turn an off-centred void in the dining room into a fireplace, which had made out of some leftover marble, giving them one in each room.
With the idea of a whole hog renovation removed, Christian could appreciate the flat for what it was. The hallway that you entered may have been modest and dark, but many of the rooms that spread off it – a sitting room, separate dining room and main bedroom – are generous and required very few tweaks. The bathroom and second bedroom are a little on the cramped side, although the latter proved to be the ideal study. ‘My plan was to make this room a bathroom, so by not doing the main renovation we actually gained a room,’ explains Christian. The main pressure point was the tiny kitchen, which at 1.5 x 2.2 metres required ‘a millimetre by millimetre autopsy in order to make it work.’ Christian rose to the challenge of squeezing in a full height fridge, dishwasher, bins, boiler cupboard and plenty of storage by taking cupboards right up to the ceiling. ‘It was just a high street kitchen from Wren that we dressed up with DeVol handles,’ explains Christian. The decision to stick with standard size off-the-peg olive green units was a clever cost saver, allowing Christian to spend a little more on a bespoke marble-topped boiler cupboard that makes the most of the room’s small footprint.
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When it came to the palette, Christian’s mantra, like for many of his projects for clients, was ‘light not white. As such, walls throughout are largely painted in Paint & Paper Library's ‘Slate 2’, with woodwork in the brand's ‘Slate 4’ and black doors in ‘Pitch Black’ from Farrow & Ball. 'We were inspired by the paintwork in the corridors at Somerset House and knew that keeping it neutral would allow us to bring texture, colour and pattern in through objects, art and furniture,’ explains the designer. The fact that they could not do the full overhaul actually set the decorative tone for the entire flat. ‘We didn’t want to start filling this space with new things as it could have made our simple, humble renovation look like a mistake,’ says Christian who estimates that 80% of the flat is made up of rehomed pieces – everything from vintage sofas and a headboard reupholstered in leftover fabric to curtains repurposed from the room he created for Wow House at Design Centre Chelsea Harbour in 2023. ‘The fact we couldn’t move walls led us to create a bric-a-brac laden space,’ he explains. The hall – a space with no natural light – is a good case in point. Their original plan was to add a semi-glazed crittal wall in here, but without that they embraced the space for what it was adding an antique chest of drawers, huge mirror and a pair of carved stone dogs. ‘There was no way we could make it light and breezy, so we needed it to feel layered and full.’
Relying on existing pieces also enabled Christian to cleverly skirt round the fact that he was working to short lead times. ‘I assumed we’d have six months to source things, but the reduced scale of works gave us two months and we didn’t want to start living in a flat that was empty,’ he explains. This ruled out most made-to-order pieces and pushed Christian to see the flat as an eclectic mix rather than a space built around a few statement pieces. ‘We just looked at what was available and met our narrative,’ he adds. ‘It was quite liberating as for once I wasn’t particularly particular. It was more, we need a sideboard so what is the best one available that we can get our hands on.’
That said, there were a few anchor pieces that kicked off each room. For the dining room, it was 1970s Tulip chairs surrounding a leather-topped mahogany Victorian table. ‘That combination of opposites sums me up as a designer,’ explains Christian who likens the decorating process to a pie where you get the balance between contemporary and traditional just right. ‘The bones of the apartment were never going to be shiny and contemporary, so it was about bringing this into the space in other ways,’ he reasons. These anchor pieces then allowed Christian to ‘spiral out’ and find what he describes as the secondary pieces – the mid century sideboard sourced via Pamono and a glitzy chandelier that was leftover from Decorex. ‘This was a bit of a floater for a while, but it felt too formal for the sitting room and just right for here,’ he says. In the sitting room, the anchor piece came from a traditionally-inspired cabinet that Christian had made bespoke for Wow House, which features floral paintings by decorative artist Tess Newall and now hides his television. ‘Although this is a new piece, it doesn’t jar with the old bones of the flat,’ he explains. Next came a little vintage sofa from Retrouvius and a practical sofa bed from Sofa.com – one of the few new pieces – that Christian had restuffed by his upholsterer.
Art was integral to the space too, filling the walls in most rooms and even extending above the picture rail in the sitting room. ‘We’d collected a lot over the years and it had filled the corridor space of our old flat, so when we came here it was a question of do we hang them on rotation or do we just lean into it and fill every wall,’ Christian explains. They opted for the latter, which not only allowed them to find a spot for all of their beloved pieces, but also provided a good distraction to off-centred fireplaces and wonky walls. ‘We couldn’t solve these quirks, but layering up with art helped us lean into them,’ says Christian. The art is a deeply personal representation of Christian and Matt – there’s a piece that Christian bought with his first pay-check in South Africa 14 years ago, a sketch by his grandfather that hangs above the picture rail (‘I feel a bit bad that he’s all the way up there,’ quips Christian) and an intriguing abstract by Matt Chivers above the little sofa in the sitting room that the couple bought from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition the year they bought the flat. ‘It’s a real mix of quite valuable pieces and stuff that is worth absolutely nothing,’ says Christian, gesturing to the way in the sitting room that a couple of metallic pieces from Habitat sit alongside pieces that he and Matt have created and a David Shrigley print. ‘I really believe that art should be an accessory to a room and that you should never pick something based on it fitting in with a scheme,’ explains Christian. ‘If I love a piece of art, I will buy it.’
Rather like his work for clients, Christian’s aim here was to create a space that felt lived in and authentic – ‘curated, rather than cookie cutter,’ is how he describes his approach. And in a few months, he has done just that here, creating an interior that feels like it has been there for much longer than just six months. Ultimately, the challenge of having to rethink the plan for a big renovation has set the entire decorative tone and made way for an inventive, layered and rich space. ‘It’s like nothing else we’ve got on our books and I’d say my style is generally a bit crisper and cleaner than this flat,’ explains Christian. ‘But the decoration is right for the flat and right for us.’ And really, that’s what good design is all about.
Christian Bense is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. Visit The List by House & Garden here.
Mark Anthony Fox1/11The entrance hall to the flat is painted in Paint & Paper Library's ‘Slate II’, while the door is ‘Pitch Black’ from Farrow & Ball. A mirror by Rough Old Glass reflects the floral pendant from Vinterior.
Mark Anthony Fox2/11The sitting room is also painted in ‘Slate II’, and features a little vintage sofa that Christian sourced from Retrouvius.
Mark Anthony Fox3/11A Rug Vista rug sits on the sitting room floor, with an armchair from 1stDibs, upholstered in a Northcroft fabric. The cabinet is bespoke by KUDOS and was originally designed for Christian's Wow House room at the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour in 2023.
Mark Anthony Fox4/11The door to the living room is also painted in ‘Pitch Black’, while the bespoke cabinet features decorative painting by artist Tess Newall.
Mark Anthony Fox5/11Christian found this sofa on the other side of the sitting room at Retrouvius, adding a large artwork by Mat Chivers above it, which the couple found at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition the year they bought the flat. The red lamp is from Vinterior. Originally they only took artwork up to the picture rail, but quickly decided to place pieces above it too in order to find spots for their huge collection of prints.
Mark Anthony Fox6/11The use of ‘Slate II’ continues into the dining room. Mid century tulip chairs sit in pleasing contrast to the leather-topped mahogany Victorian dining table.
Mark Anthony Fox7/11Looking from the dining room into the kitchen, which was bought from Wren and zhooshed up with handles from DeVol.
Mark Anthony Fox8/11In the study, Christian opted for ‘Sand IV’ from Paint & Paper Library and found the Soho Home desk on Facebook Marketplace. He has paired it with a red leather desk chair found at Kempton Market.
Mark Anthony Fox9/11The master bedroom is painted in ‘Bone’ by Farrow & Ball, against which is the headboard, made by Robert Langford and covered in Harwood Fabrics' ‘Serpent’ in ‘Royal’. Christian found the bedside tables at Marylebone Antiques.
Mark Anthony Fox10/11The curtain fabric is from 36 Bourne Street and is called ‘Burnley Overdyed Ticking’.
Mark Anthony Fox11/11The same white crackle glazed wall tiles from the kitchen are used in the bathroom, where the bathroom mirror is from Graham Harrison, the shelf is Rowen & Wren and the wall lights are Jamb.
