To rent · Santa Engracia · Chamberí
A first floor with balconies
Wooden shutters, brass and a pink painting. A classic Chamberí first floor, dressed with restraint.
Some apartments are refurbished against their building and some are refurbished with it. This one is of the second kind. It kept what was worth keeping, the wooden shutters on the balconies, the ceiling height, the generous scale of the rooms, and laid a new layer on top: herringbone oak floors, walls in a very pale cream and a branching brass chandelier above the dining table.
The living room is a single long space with two balconies onto Santa Engracia. A three-seater sofa in natural linen, cushions in mustard and sage green, a glass-and-walnut coffee table and a wool rug with a Berber pattern. And on the far wall, a large painting in pinks and corals that gives the room its warmth.
The bedroom is conceived like a hotel suite, but with the calm of a home. A buttoned upholstered headboard, leaf-patterned wallpaper in a stone tone and two gilded brass pendants on either side of the bed. Opposite, an open walk-in wardrobe in dark wood, with rails, drawers and lit shelves: a rare luxury in a one-bedroom apartment, and probably what makes it so comfortable for a long stay.
The kitchen is a continuous run of pale oak with a white worktop, integrated oven and hob and the same herringbone floor as the rest of the home; on the wall, an abstract painting in the same pinks as the living room, so that the kitchen does not feel like a room apart. The bathroom, in white marble from floor to ceiling, has a walk-in tiled shower with a glass screen and a backlit mirror that is the only source of light at night.
Santa Engracia runs through Chamberí from Alonso Martínez to Cuatro Caminos, and this is the good stretch: early 20th-century buildings, long-established shops, Iglesia metro station round the corner and Plaza de Olavide, with its café terraces, a five-minute walk away. A residential neighbourhood that is also right in the centre.
A street-facing first floor, with light from the balconies all morning and just the right amount of neighbourhood street life.
