The grand frontage conceals almost no original 1840s fabric: bombed in the Blitz and rebuilt in concrete, the interiors had been opened up and remodelled many times since. That evidence underpinned the listed building consent, letting us reorganise freely inside while leaving the street facades untouched. The three existing front doors set the plan, with one apartment per front door. We stripped out the suspended ceilings and external air-conditioning plant, recovering around half a metre of height and uncovering the ornate plaster ceilings of the four-metre ground floor. We reopened a window bricked up in the 1950s to draw daylight into a basement bedroom, and added refurbished sash windows, secondary glazing and MVHR for comfort and quiet. Opening up the basement revealed no damp-proofing anywhere, and in one room a floor sitting over nothing but paving slabs: a listed building still capable of surprising us.