A Small, Dark, and “Antiquated” Barcelona Flat Is Now Modern and Bright

published Sep 4, 2024

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Home Type

Location

Style

Bedrooms

Square feet

720

Sq ft

720

Merçè’s grandmother lived in this 721-square-foot apartment — located in the center of Barcelona — her whole life, before leaving the small, two-bedroom space to Merçè two years ago. While in a great location, the apartment was pretty antiquated and “not-so-well-designed,” not to mention that Merçè wanted to add her own style to the space.

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In 2022 she hired Montse Morales, the CEO of Directora Creativa, an interior design studio, to transform this small home, and a big challenge was going to be tackling the difficult layout the apartment came with.

Credit: Lula Poggi

“As interior designers, we are limited as to how many walls you can knock down, without damaging the whole building. In this case, we wanted to switch the kitchen and bathroom from the current state, but we were limited by load bearing walls, so we had to create different parts to the bathroom in order to make it accessible and unique,” Montse explains.

Credit: Lula Poggi

Another challenge to this small apartment was the lack of natural light in the space. To add in more light, Montse incorporated glass partitions so that “during the day as much natural light as possible could permeate to the end of the hall. This way, each area of the house has natural lighting and we could create a much bigger kitchen, making it the heart of the apartment and the most used space in her home,” Montse continues.

“Every house we deliver we give it a name that we think best describes not only the style, but also the details and functionality each house has. In this specific apartment, we chose ‘charming corners,’ as every single square foot has its own personality and has different features that make it special,” Montse explains.

Credit: Lula Poggi

The stools are from Zara Home, the decorative brass bars are from Bolibar, the brass shelf brackets are Corston, and the kitchen handles are also from Zara Home.

The kitchen also got a unique update, so that it could be more of an open-plan space. “We created different corners so that it could have more charm (as for the name chosen),” Montse writes. “One of them is meant for the sink, and being able to wash vegetables calmly, as well as being able to have a breakfast area between the living room and the kitchen and even being able to have tall glass display furniture piece to continue capturing as much light as possible along with the color of the cabinets.”