Interior view of a cozy bedroom with a bed, pillows, and a bedside table, visible through an open doorway from a seating area with a navy velvet sofa and patterned pillows, adjacent to a kitchen with a small refrigerator, a tray with cups, a kettle, and a framed botanical print on the wall.

A Stylish Holiday Let in London

A one bedroom, basement flat overlooking and inspired by a lush garden turned into an Airbnb called the Botanical Apartment, that is a home away from home. The space was furnished on a modest budget with almost all items being second hand or inexpensive high street pieces.

A cozy bedroom with a bed featuring a striped pink headboard, pink bedding, and floral pillows. Two matching lamps on bedside tables provide warm lighting. The dark green wall above the bed has a large abstract painting. The lower part of the image s
A bedroom with green walls, a bed with two floral pillows, a beige headboard, and two night lamps on either side.
A view through an open door into a cozy bedroom with pink and green walls. The bed has a pink headboard, and the duvet cover has a multicolored design. Next to the bed is a small black nightstand with a woven lamp. On the right side, a kitchen area i
A cozy bedroom with green walls, a pink-painted bed with floral pillows, a small bedside table with a lamp, a white wardrobe, a wooden chair with a floral cushion, and framed artwork on the walls.
Living room with framed botanical art on the wall, a wall-mounted TV, a small side table with a pink lamp, a green ottoman, a blue couch with patterned pillows, and an open doorway leading to a bedroom with a bed and a nightstand with a lamp.
A living room wall decorated with framed botanical art prints, a small wooden side table with a colorful patterned lamp, a green upholstered armchair with a striped pillow, and a beige textured rug.
Dining area with wooden chairs and a table covered with a striped tablecloth, centerpiece with potted green plant, wall art of tropical trees, and sliding glass doors opening to a backyard with potted plants, outdoor seating, and lush greenery.

Botanical Apartment: Story-Driven Holiday Let Design, South East London | Chizitera Interiors

A one-bedroom basement flat that opens onto a garden, and at the outset a space that didn't quite know what it was. Basements can feel cold and unloved, and this one did: the colours were flat, the bedroom window is small, the bathroom has none at all. It needed a reason to exist, somewhere you'd actively want to spend time rather than simply pass through.

Every space needs a story, and this one's was waiting just outside the window. Named the Botanical Apartment, it takes its cue entirely from the garden it overlooks: a home away from home, green and alive, borrowing the calm of the planting beyond the glass. That story is the thread the whole design hangs from.

The budget was modest, so the discipline was in where the money went. Rather than spread thinly, the investment went into the pieces you touch and use most (a good sofa, a proper rug, quality fabrics), with the rest sourced from the high street, charity shops and antique dealers. A space reads as considered, not cheap, when the fundamentals are right: scale and proportion handled with care, and textiles that feel generous, like the kantha cloth on the bed that brings instant layering and warmth. The approach avoided makeovers and refinishing (the kind that can look unpolished unless expertly done), reaching instead for pieces that already carried a lovely patina and a story of their own. The one bespoke touch is the headboard, made by hand in a good fabric and sitting front and centre.

The botanical thread runs through colour more than literal motif. A moody green makes the low-lit bedroom feel cosy and enveloping in the evenings, while soft pinks lift it, echoing the garden and playing against the green. Botanical prints are hung salon-style across the wall behind the television to create a real focal point, joined by a patterned bedroom rug and an antique mirror with foliate detailing. But the scheme is careful not to tip into one note: the sofa is an unexpected blue, unrelated to the garden, and that small act of contrast keeps the room feeling layered and collected rather than literal. Bold, intentional colour and pattern, always reined in by clean lines and restraint, the signature that runs through every project, here on a tighter budget.

Because guests stay here, the details are designed around them: a workspace for anyone working through a holiday, a dining area, room for a coffee or tea station, layered bedroom lighting for winding down, and sheepskin underfoot on both sides of the bed, so the first step of the morning is a soft one. Guests have responded in kind, and the apartment has earned five stars across the board.