The client acquired an upper-ground floor flat in a white-stuccoed Grade-II listed townhouse built in the 1860s on Queen’s Gate, opposite the Natural History Museum, in South Kensington. While the flat featured four-metre-high ceilings and period mouldings in good condition, it was damaged by decades of unsympathetic transformations. We proposed to restore an arched passage between the front and rear rooms. This archway had been walled up and the rear room’s historical ceiling concealed behind a suspended ceiling of no utility. By reopening this arch, we were able to create an open-plan living and dining room, bringing daylight to a kitchen which previously had none and gaining a metre in ceiling height. We also brought daylight and air to a new shower room by reopening a large sash window which had been inexplicably walled up. We relocated a second shower room and laundry room under the communal stair. The oak floor, white walls and uplighting bring visual unity and calm to the flat. The clerestory partitions let eastern and western daylight traverse the front and rear rooms. We regilded a part of the cornice to restore this touch of warmth and sparkle.