My Decorating Assignment

My friend Katherine, an artist here in New York, enjoys reading my blog and liked the pictures of our apartment that I posted online so she and her husband Jim, an NYU professor and author, asked me to help them out with their apartment. They have traveled widely so they have a lot of interesting furniture and objects, and she has her wonderful artwork in the apartment but they needed direction in arranging it and making it cohesive. "We moved into this apartment with furniture from three different houses and we didn't know how to put it together," Katherine said. I gladly said yes to the task. And happily, they are pleased with the result. "Now when Jim and I walk in, we look at everything and smile," she recently told me.
The apartment is in a modern building and faces downtown. A great feature is this wonderful view out of the living room.

We started in the living room.
Left side wall before:

Left side wall after:

The living room walls had been a light terracotta color and I picked out a new ochre color to provide a more neutral background for the art and not to distract from the view. As I said the couple has a lot of wonderful possessions, and for me the process throughout the apartment was pulling things together that share something in common and would relate to one another, "talk to" one another. Here, everything came off the wall and I arranged Katherine's bright, colorful art work in pastels and acrylic.
Window wall before:

Window wall after:

Furniture was moved, and aqua color pillows and blanket removed. The ochre walls provide a serene setting.
Every seat needs a table to set down a book or a drink and a light for reading, said Slim Keith, the great style icon. The right side of the couch had a little side table, and for the left side I found this tree-shaped table, which goes well with the Chinese chairs, at Room and Board.

Katherine got these pillows at Bed, Bath and Beyond. She likes their textures, and the colors work with the rug underfoot.

Left wall before:

Left wall after:

This dramatic table from Santa Fe has a gold leaf metal base and a walnut plank top. Over it I hung a golden tulip by Katherine and the framed Brazilian parrot headdress from the Amazon. The iridescent glaze on the large ceramic raku vase and its swirling pattern mimics the feathers, and the dark blue blown glass vase works with the feathers too. The three objects are very different, but they share similiar qualities.

Dining room area before:

Dining room area after:

The dining room chairs are black leather so I gathered black and gold objects together which gives the area a more formal feeling. I found the glossy black light fixture at West Elm.
Over the credenza I hung a black and gold Asian wall hanging which was previously in the living room and found hand-turned wood objects throughout the apartment.

Bedroom before:

Bedroom after:

The couple's bedroom was painted a terracotta color, which I toned down with a coffee cream paint color. We rearranged furniture here to fit better in the room. White cotton curtains were found at Pottery Barn and a silver curtain rod. Every chair needs a light for reading, and the floor lamp, below, came from West Elm.

Over the armoire I hung Katherine's pastel landscape which fit into the rectangular space, and in front of it I lined up wooden toys from Jim's childhood.

Front hall before:

Front hall after:

The metal table that was previously in the living room went easily into the front hall. Over it I matched up a big beautiful white peony pastel by Katherine which had been in the bedroom, and on the table I arranged some silver accessories to go with the silver frame. Also at the front door, a rug was removed so as to not distract the eye when you enter into the apartment from the living room and the view beyond.
Kitchen:

The kitchen was painted a pale orange which was inspired by the folk art and pottery hanging on the walls. Now the paint colors in the apartment – ochre, coffee cream, pale orange – flow together as you walk through the rooms. I did some additional work in the office and two bathrooms.
It was a fun project, and the pleasure of it is that after the assignment is done, the client can continue to enjoy it. And these were great clients because they did everything I suggested without question. "It just makes us happy," Katherine said to me. "It feels so put together. Your eye pulled everything together and helped us to move from disparate to something that made sense and reflected who we are. You've made us happy to be here."