2 Bedroom Flat, Venner Road, London, SE26

Set on the first floor of a handsome red-brick Victorian building on Venner Road, this beautifully put-together two-bedroom flat measures around 715 sq ft and offers two proper bedrooms, a separate kitchen and reception room, tall ceilings, stripped floorboards throughout, and some particularly nice original proportions.

There is a lot to like before you even get into the individual rooms. The palette is soft and warm, the old pine boards have been left visible, picture rails and cornicing remain in place, and the rooms have the height and big windows you hope for from a Victorian conversion. The owners have decorated it with a light touch too — books, plants, timber and artwork rather than anything overly styled — and it suits the building enormously.

The reception room measures around 14 ft 2 by 12 ft 6 and is a really pleasing room to spend time in. Two tall windows bring in plenty of daylight; an original tiled fireplace surround sits at one end, and a run of simple built-in shelving has created a rather nice home for books, records, and the turntable. There is easily enough space for a large sofa and a proper dining table without either feeling squeezed in, so you can have friends over for dinner without eating from your lap or sacrificing half the sitting room.

The kitchen is separate, which we actually think works particularly well here. At roughly 10 ft 9 by 10 ft 3 it is a decent room in its own right, with off-white Shaker cabinetry, timber worktops, open oak shelving and a built-in wine rack. It feels unfussy and appropriate to the flat rather than like somebody has dropped a glossy new kitchen into an old building. There is plenty of worktop, good storage and natural light, and the stripped boards continuing through it tie everything together nicely.

The main bedroom is excellent: around 14 ft 2 by 13 ft 4, with two tall windows, enough space around the bed for proper furniture and a huge run of fitted cupboards occupying one wall. Storage in period conversions can occasionally require some imagination; here, somebody has already done the sensible bit for you.

Bedroom two is around 10 ft 9 by 9 ft 4 and is a proper, useful second room rather than the optimistic box room sometimes hiding behind a two-bedroom description. It is currently arranged partly as a workspace and handles a desk very comfortably, making it particularly useful for anyone working from home, but there is enough room for it to work as a bedroom in its own right.

Even the hallway has some personality. Warm vertical timber panelling wraps around the stairwell, with stripped boards underfoot and a window bringing light into the centre of the flat. It gives the place a slightly mid-century note against all the Victorian detailing and is one of those small things that makes the flat feel considered rather than generic.

The bathroom has been approached in much the same way. Soft clay-pink walls sit above a lovely monochrome patterned floor, with a generous walk-in shower behind a simple frameless screen, traditional-style fittings and a chrome towel rail. Nothing complicated, just very nicely judged.

Location-wise, Venner Road is particularly useful because it sits between Sydenham and Penge, so you get several different ways into town rather than being tied to a single station. Penge East is only around 0.2 miles away and has direct Southeastern trains into Victoria in around 19 minutes; there are also two trains per hour during peak times into Blackfriars, which is a 20-minute journey. Sydenham is roughly 0.4 miles in the other direction, with direct services to London Bridge taking as little as around 14–16 minutes, plus the Windrush line through Canada Water, Whitechapel, Shoreditch and onwards towards Highbury & Islington. Penge West is also around 0.4 miles away, adding another Overground option.

That choice is a bit of a gift if two people need different parts of London. Victoria and the West End work nicely from Penge East; London Bridge and the City make sense from Sydenham; Canary Wharf is straightforward with a change onto the Jubilee line at Canada Water, and if you’ve a car you’ll be happy to hear the flat owns the front drive (along with the front garden).

For everything closer to home, Sydenham High Street is near enough to use properly rather than ceremonially. There is a good mixture of useful shops and independents, cafés, restaurants and pubs, with Ignition Brewery's taproom on Sydenham Road doing beer, quizzes, jazz nights and various events through the month. Head the other way and Penge gives you another entire high street, Maple Road and places such as Craft Metropolis, so you end up borrowing bits from both neighbourhoods rather than having to declare allegiance to one!

And Crystal Palace Park is within walking distance when you need some actual greenery, it’s only 0.6 mi and Google Maps puts that as a 14 mins walk . Beyond the acres of open space there is the lake, dinosaurs, Brown & Green and a weekly food market selling everything from bakery goods and deli produce to street food, wine and beer — exactly the sort of thing that makes a local park become part of your weekend rather than somewhere you merely know exists. For a smaller green space a bit closer, Alexandra Rec is only 0.3 mi away, or a seven minute walk.