The brief was modest: a one-bedroom flat that felt cramped by ten in the morning and gloomy by four. We moved no walls. We moved everything else.
Follow the window, not the floor plan
The sofa had claimed the brightest corner for years and repaid it by being sat on twice a week. We gave that corner to the desk and the reading chair — the places where light is actually spent — and let the sofa live comfortably in the shade.
The lesson travels well: before you buy a single thing, spend one Saturday watching where the sun goes. Then put your life in its path.