Our clients bought this North Sydney semi when downsizing from their family home and briefed us to design a fun, inner city pad that was big on personality. The challenge for this kind of property is working with tight spaces, so when drawing up the plan we focused on some tried and tested design tricks, such as built-in seating which reduces the need for bulky chairs and can double up as storage.

We chose neutral colours to help maintain a sense of spaciousness and reworked the layout to improve the connection with the outdoor area. Dark and moody can work well in small spaces too – so we embraced deep aqua tiles and beguiling marble splash back for the powder room.