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Alright, this wasn’t a true apartment renovation– more like an apartment rejuvenation. My client A and I started working together nearly two years ago. When I first came in, she was very apologetic about the state of things in her spacious 2-bedroom apartment in Scarsdale, NY.
“Well, that’s why I’m here!” I said. “And no need to apologize. I don’t judge. Some people never do anything!”
I could see immediately, despite the fact, that the place needed someone to do a real number on it, there was a tremendous amount of potential. I love these types of jobs! And A was absolutely terrific to work with!
The entire apartment seemed dark and sad, therefore, the job was to breathe some new life into it. A told me that she already had someone lined up who was going to spend several weeks, scraping, sanding, priming and painting. Of course, A would have to move out for a time, which she did.
I don’t think I have before photos, but the only things that stayed were the sectional, coffee table, area rugs and a few art pieces here and there. The kitchen has standard white cabinets with a gray and black linoleum checkerboard floor.
The Oriental rugs have deep red, blues and a touches of gold and beige. The other rug is more pale and has more beige, but they look great together!
The apartment faces east. [all of these photos are the eastern exposure]
On my last post, we explored north facing rooms. East facing rooms are similar in that by the afternoon, the sun is most indirect and therefore, they tend to act a lot like north facing rooms.
I drew the plans and then we started choosing the furniture and colors. I already knew that I wanted to do a pale gold that veers into a warm beige at times. This is a color I’ve used many times and it’s always a great choice. It is Benjamin Moore 2153-50 Dessert Tan.
The art belonged to the client, however, we did four of these wonderful cloud paintings from Run Run Studio.
Fabulous Gustavian or French-style cabinet from Zentique
eeegads! Sorry about the wires and messy fringe! I could spend an hour or two photo-shopping them out. Maybe later. :]
With the light gold, I wanted a deepish blue-gray for the kitchen eating area. Sometimes, darker colors are a tough sell, but A put her trust in me. I held the color up and we both agreed that we liked it a lot. I felt that the blue-gray would look terrific adjacent to the pale gold; it would complement the blue in the rugs bridge the gap between the gray floor and other elements, and cozy up the space. Have to say that I kinda love it! We chose Benjamin Moore HC-159 Phillipsburg Blue— a wonderful medium-deep blue-gray with warm undertones. The art is a pretty durned nice looking repro Cezanne from Art.com I love the way it pops against the deep blue-gray walls. The cool pendant is from Circa Lighting.
One challenge we faced is a common issue. What do you do, if you have two different rooms adjacent to each other, but you can see the windows at the same time? If the wall is the same color, I think that you can often do the same fabric. Sometimes it might be nice to vary the treatment such as drapes in one room and Roman Shades in the other. However, we have two different colors and drapes are not an option because of the radiators. In this case, I decided that a great solution was to do fabrics with coordinating prints. I really like how that turned out.
Sorry, for the repetition of accessories. I did bring a few things, but none of them looked as good as the blue and white Chinoiserie cachepot.
Another challenge that presented itself is that the dining area had no chandelier or the fixings to put one in. Since it is an old building, we decided not to muck with that and instead opted for the two small Gustavian-style demi-lune tables from Chelsea Textiles flanking the large window. [I have the same ones and they are wonderful!] The lack lamps with raffia shades are from Jamie Young I believe that just about every room needs a shot of black.
As a matter of fact, the chairs from Sarreid were supposed to be black, too. Well… the lead time became intolerably long, so we decided to grab the brown version of one my fave dining chairs, before they too, ran out. I might’ve reupholstered them in something, else, but A was fine with them as is. The fabulous extension table from Sarreid was in stock, but alas for some unknown reason, it is now discontinued. Bummer!
The colors breathed new life and light into the apartment. And yes, you can absolutely do blue colors in north and east facing rooms. Again, the important point to remember is that the color will look darker than you are probably expecting, so I would take that into consideration.
Oh shite! I almost forgot! Trim and ceiling color. Benjamin Moore OC-122 Cotton Balls. [also 2145-70 just to make life more complicated] ;]
I wanted to take some more shots, but we both had to leave; hopefully another time. I did use my Canon Rebel for these images.
Verrrry soon, I am going to be updating my portfolio! Please stay tuned!
Again, don’t forget to visit the Pink Pagoda blog. Lots of gorgeous room-candy over there! Jennifer hasn’t done this in a while [I don’t think, unless I missed it] and it’s a lot of fun to participate.
To the many who expressed healing wishes for my beautiful friend, Elaine. Thank you, thank you! She is an exceedingly rare and most precious gem. It means so much to me to have any support available during this trying time in our lives.
xo,
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5 Responses
The whole apartment looks fabulous- warm, cheerful, comfortable, sophisticated and timeless. Love that you used your client’s oriental rugs as they are beautiful..
Hi Dolores,
Lovely client and a coincidence. She’s moving to a building, a 3-minute walk away and I’ll probably be helping her with some window treatments and a few other small things and placement of what she has.
Thank you Jennifer. The link up was at the last minute. I wanted to but my BFF and I mean BEST is very ill. Somehow, in between all of the crazy, I took these photos and then realized that there is a fair amount of blue.
What a lovely apartment, Laurel! Thank you so much for linking up to The Bash! hope to see you again next month!
A gracious apartment indeed!