bStudio Brings Open, Airy Layout to East Village Family Apartment

Introduced at a kid’s party to the inimitable style of interior designer Breanna Carlson, a family of four enlisted the services of her firm, bStudio Architectural Design, for their own East Village apartment. The family’s digs had previously been a studio and a two-bedroom unit, clumsily joined into a single residence. A revised layout was in order, one that would include that contemporary necessity, an open kitchen-dining-living room; two more bedrooms; and a TV room that could double as guest accommodations.
 

After stripping the living area walls down to the studs, Carlson added custom MDF built-ins to house the family’s collected art and objects. Their crisp white finish contrasts with the wood beams Carlson discovered in the ceiling and opted to leave exposed for a warm and characterful farmhouse look. There is no television in this open-plan space. The couple and their two girls love quiet reading, so the offending noisemaker occupies the adjoining multipurpose guest room. Pocket doors with transparent glass insets allow daylight to flow in from the living area while providing acoustic isolation.
 

Although clever details abound, a favorite is the existing steel fire door that, stripped of all paint, makes a prime display surface for the girls’ art—a more intriguing alternative to that old standby, the refrigerator.

Project Team: Brynn MacDonald; Juana Haddad.

This story originally appeared in Interior Design’s Best of Residential book.