A smart bachelor pad designed by Penny Morrison without the stereotypical furnishings

Descriptions of individual rooms in literature are often beguiling - take, for example, Dorothy L Sayers' 1923 description of super-sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey's library: 'One of the most delightful bachelor rooms in London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums… like a colourful and gilded paradise in a medieval painting.'

Surely this is one of the most entrancing descriptions of a bachelor pad in all of literature – sophisticated, comfortable, and (beyond the Chesterfield) refreshingly free of clichés about how single men should decorate their houses. Sayers doesn't go into much detail about the practicalities of the house (Wimsey's manservant Bunter takes care of that side of things), but we can be sure that everything was perfectly in order.

MAY WE SUGGEST: Penny Morrison's comfortable, colourful scheme for a rambling mansion flat

This understanding of priorities is one of the essentials of a good interior designer, coupled with the ability to suit the design and the decoration of a space to the owner's life - an essential of which Penny Morrison, who designed the house shown here, is well aware: "You think about the practicalities, how the house will comfortably run - how large the linen cupboards should be, where the machines should be positioned; what's needed in practical terms. And then you design it so that everything works, is easily accessible and relatively discreet.'

The owner also required enough entertaining space and room for living, as well as large bathrooms and enough storage; not only wardrobe storage but also 'stuff' storage, from linen to kitchen equipment to paperwork. The house in question was a typically Victorian, largely unmodernised London terrace in a pretty square. It was not unduly endowed with storage of any kind, so it was up to Penny to work out exactly what would be necessary and where - a conundrum she solved by utilising space on half-landings and in dark basement corners that might otherwise have been left overlooked and underused.

The ground-floor rooms in these Victorian town houses are never entirely satisfactory; sometimes quite dark and usually narrow, and described by Penny as often having 'a whiff of the dentist's waiting room'. In this house, though, the drawing room had already been made lighter, with glass doors leading out to a balcony overlooking the sunken garden. However, more could be done, and Penny suggested making this area into a conservatory dining room, opening on to a balcony.

The reworking was a success, but as so often happens with success, other areas were then found wanting. It became evident that the floor below - the basement kitchen and the back garden - needed reconfiguring in order to balance the newly important ground floor, particularly since modern-living preferences mean that people often want to congregate around both the kitchen and garden. So the several small rooms and cupboards that made up the basement were taken out and the area turned into an informal sitting area at one end, which progresses naturally and stylistically into a warm but uncluttered, painted wooden kitchen at the garden end. Not that there was much of a garden at that juncture; rather, more of a shallow dark well with a 1.8-metre-high retaining wall obscuring the rest of the open space. The retaining wall was removed and the earth in front of the basement door was dug away to make enough space for a table and chairs. Shallow steps lead up through two levels to an upper gravelled area complete with a stone bench and raised beds filled with clipped box balls.