Demolition has started. We’re committed. It’s a little unnerving to see our home in ruins, but it’s also exciting to really begin the process of making the place our own.
Before I start sharing progress photos, though, I thought I’d show you some “before” pictures of the space and tell you a bit about the thinking behind our renovations.
Our new loft is part of a recent conversion of a turn-of-the-century industrial building that was once the Lifesavers candy factory, but has had many uses since, including warehouses, offices, art galleries and a leather bar. We liked the historic character of the building, but we loved the light and roominess of this particular apartment, which has the relatively rare advantage of having large windows on three sides. The place also didn’t require heavy-duty construction. Everything except the walls, floors and other structural elements is brand new: we’ll be the first family to live there. (The furniture you see in the photos is staging.) Probably the best thing about the apartment, though, was its location close to the West Chelsea neighborhood and neighbors that we had come to love.
Beautiful as the apartment was, though, there were a few aspects of the recent conversion that didn’t work for us, either aesthetically or functionally. Before we begin to decorate, we’re going to make some changes to the interior architecture.
The Kitchenette
This was the most important issue for me. The developer had chosen very nice appliances, but had crammed them into a corner, creating an unnecessarily cramped kitchen in a large apartment. The use of a peninsula rather than an island also makes congestion (and cranky cooks) inevitable in such a small space.
We’re reusing the appliances, of course, but a larger, reconfigured kitchen is in the works. We’ll also add a separate bar area to further reduce congestion when we’re entertaining. (Much more on these projects later.)
Little Boxes, on the Ceiling . . .
To conceal ductwork, plumbing, wires and structural elements, the developer had constructed boxy drywall soffits against the ceilings of nearly every room. To our eyes, this made the nearly 11-foot ceilings seem lower, fought with the historical character of the building and created some very distracting visual clutter. The more we looked up, the more it bothered us.
To solve this problem, we’ve opted to take down nearly every one of these awkward white boxes and tidy up and expose most of what’s inside them. Of course, visible ductwork and sprinkler pipes will create some distraction of their own, but that seems a fair price to pay for cleaner, more open ceilings. I also think that, carefully done, some exposed ductwork and plumbing will look appropriate in the context of a converted factory.
The Doors
As you can see in the photos above, the standard doors we inherited feel awkwardly squat in this high-ceilinged environment. They’re also an unlovely faux walnut color. The glass and aluminum sliding doors leading to the den and a small bedroom are nice in principle, but, again, the execution is clumsy. The proportions are off, and the choice of materials seems wrong for the space –they’re substantial and well made and yet they look cheap and flimsy against the exposed brick and iron columns.
To further clean up the architecture, we’ll replace nearly all of the doors. We’ll switch out the wooden doors with taller, heavier models painted the same color as the walls, and we’ll replace the glass sliders with correctly proportioned doors made of dark steel and smoked or frosted glass.
The Floors
We love the original wavy, beat-up industrial floors that were probably made of boards salvaged from packing crates. We don’t love their color, though. With the brick, the bad spray-tan color the developer stained them makes the place almost overwhelmingly orange, particularly at night. We’ve committed to refinishing the floors, but so far we’re not sure which way to go. Very blonde floors would be nice, but there could be just too many patches, stains and blemishes hiding beneath the current finish for this to work. We could also use a very dark brown opaque stain to quiet the floors and create a crisper division between the floor, wall and ceiling planes. A third option (which intrigues me at the moment) is to paint the floors. Maybe a soft, warm gray?
These basic architectural changes represent a lot of work and expense, but we decided to address them directly rather than spending money to decorate over or around them. Over the next week or two, we’ll finalize the details of these revisions with our architect, and I’ll share our decisions with you.
After that, the real fun starts — kitchen design, paint colors, built-ins, wall and window coverings, and, of course, furniture. I can’t wait.
