A Rental They Could Undo

A three-year lease, a landlord with written restrictions on drilling into two of the four walls, and a couple who had already given up on the idea that a rented flat could feel like their own. The constraint was real and there was no negotiating it. The question was how much could be achieved without a single permanent fixing.

Almost all of it, as it turned out. Freestanding modular units rather than built-ins, a tension-mounted rail system for the wardrobe run, removable wallpaper on the one wall that needed to do something, and rugs to define zones the layout does not. When the lease ends they will take it with them, and the flat will go back to the landlord exactly as it was handed over.