Moss Hall Grove, North Finchley, N12

Mornings here tend to start on the sofa, coffee in hand, with the French doors framing a green view of the courtyard. It is the kind of flat you settle into slowly and then find you rarely want to leave.

Set on the ground floor of a period end-of-terrace on Moss Hall Grove, this one-bedroom flat has kept the things that matter: high ceilings, generous proportions, and the original character its owners, antique dealers by trade, have taken care to preserve. A leaded light in the hallway now catches the low winter sun and spills colour through to the entrance, giving you a sense of the living room and garden before you reach them.

The living room is where most of life happens. In summer, it opens onto a south-facing courtyard that serves as a second room, with sun overhead from around eleven until four and dappled shade into the evening. It is a small, private space. Despite the neighbouring windows above, it has always felt enclosed and calm, helped by the mature trees surrounding it. Meals move outside when the weather allows, or to the dining table when it doesn't.

Winter is when the flat quietly comes into its own. The low sun tracks across the living room through the afternoon, throwing shadows from the surrounding trees and warming the sofa enough to sit in. The bedroom faces north, so it stays cool through summer, but two radiators and the sheltered feel make it genuinely cosy once the temperature drops. A proper desk sits in the bay window, where working from home gets done, with good morning light and a quiet street outside.

The kitchen comes into its own on a winter evening, pantry in style and made for cooking something slow together. The shower room is a small triumph, designed with the owners' builders using reclaimed and antique pieces, and it reads more like a compact Mediterranean hotel bathroom than anything you would expect at this size.

The practical things are in good order. Gas central heating runs throughout, water pressure has never been an issue, and broadband, currently EE and previously BT, has been reliable for anyone working from home. There is off-street parking for one car on the driveway, with the space to add an EV charger should a future owner want one.

The location is the reason the owners came and the reason they stayed. They have been in the area for fifteen years, and the appeal is easy to understand. West Finchley station is a short walk for the Northern line, with the A1, M1, A406 and M25 close by for weekend trips and family visits. Ballards Lane covers the everyday, Waitrose included, with coffee they actually go to at Organix or Bon Matin down towards Finchley Central. Dinner tends to be at The Bohemia in North Finchley or The Bald Faced Stag in East Finchley. Best of all is what sits on the doorstep: the walk along the stream through the woods at Dollis Brook, out past the allotments or up into Darlands Nature Reserve. Leafy, quiet, and easy to forget you are in London at all.

What the owners will miss is simple. The high ceilings, the greenery, the quiet, and above all, the light, the way it moves through the flat and the trees across the year. This is a home for someone who wants those same things within easy reach of the tube.