Overview
Three small parlours, one big life
A handsome 1899 brownstone carved into three fussy parlours — each too small for the family’s actual evenings. The fireplace worked, the plasterwork sang, and nobody ever sat in any of it.
Our feasibility study confirmed the dividing walls were partition, not structure. We removed two, restored the third’s arch as a threshold, and gave the long room three zones: fireside reading, table games, and a window seat for the teenager who ‘doesn’t do family time’.
Approach
Keep the bones, lose the boxes
Every original moulding stayed; everything 1970s left. A reclaimed oak floor runs wall to wall so the eye reads one room, and a single rug per zone keeps furniture from drifting.
The tan leather sofa was the clients’ one non-negotiable — fifteen years old and better than new. We built the palette around it: cognac, oak, cream plaster and blackened steel.
Details
- Two partition walls removed; original arch restored
- Reclaimed oak floor unifying three former rooms
- Working fireplace relined; three-zone evening lighting
“The teenager now does family time. On the window seat. Daily.”
— The clients, Bedford-Stuyvesant
