棲居美學10 令人驚歎的紐約公寓裝修

Hi, Homeworthy, I'm Katie. Welcome to my project on the Upper East Side. Come on in. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. Hi, I'm Katie Lydon, and I'm an interior designer in New York. I've recently bought this beautiful apartment with my partner Ken, and I'd love to show you around. So, the apartment is in the Imperial House in New York, which is a really sort of large white brick building, and it's got this fabulous lobby, and it has a great history with sort of interesting people who've lived here, and this current apartment is a combination of two. It was combined, I think, about 30 or 40 years ago, and it's about 2,800 square feet, and the previous owners lived there, and they are now 93 years old, and between them, they had seven kids, and they created really the most lovely life. You could tell when you met them, they were youthful and happy and still in love and had created this home where everyone felt welcome, and you couldn't help but feel that energy, and it was really noticeably something special, and we immediately felt like this is a really great place. So, if I show you around some of the rooms, you can see that they were super glamorous, but it's older now, and there's a lot of things that need repairing, and while the initial feeling was, well, maybe there are things we can keep, and maybe there are things that we could reuse and sort of learn from them, but so much that needs to happen and be updated that it turns out that it's actually, sadly, less expensive to redo it and to really thoughtfully do that than to sort of work with what's there to refinish things as much as that had been sort of like a previous hope and a goal. So, yeah, that's sort of where we are. The current layout is actually pretty good. The kitchen is the corner room, and currently they sort of use the entire space as the kitchen, and I think what we're going to do is take some of the laundry room that they had and then make that more of the sort of kitchen end to the room and then have a more of a dining room. So, let's go into the kitchen and sort of take a look at how we can maximize this room. So, currently there is this laundry room here and then you open out into this really exceptionally large kitchen for a New York apartment with the most fabulous view across town sort of over Hunter College. It's a really rainy, grim day today, but it's actually flooded with light normally. The idea would be to have sort of where I'm standing would then be the island and then over here would be the dining room table and then this solarium is actually it's possible to have this completely glassed and I think that that would be really cool and then around here we were going to do a big banquette with sort of coffee table so that you could have your morning coffee looking at the view, which this side is really great and you can't see it now, but you can see all the sort of huge skyscrapers going out into the city. So this is a really changing this room and how you feel because the previous owners, you can tell from here, had their dining room table kind of in this nook, whereas we're going to be sort of pushing it more over here. And then this wall of cabinetry that they have, we're actually going to take it down and join the living room and this room. So it's a really big open feel to the space, which I think would be really cool and really fun. And I think one of the biggest challenges of this particular space is so the view here is great. The view here is a little more challenging. This particular window looks out onto kind of, you know, let's face it, an ugly building, but this direction it doesn't. So the idea of the banquette came to us because if you line it here, the banquette this way, you'll get all the light into the room. But you're sitting, looking at everybody in the kitchen and the dining room. The thing that I do like about it is that it's full of young people. It is Hunter College. It's cool when you look out and you see all the students. So it has a very nice feeling to it. Also the other thing that's a challenge is this. There is this gas pipe here that has to stay. So it's going to be in the middle of the island. And we just got to make it look good somehow. But that has to stay. And there's a building riser. And yeah, that's not going anywhere. The plan is to completely change the way this looks and feels. Currently it's got strong colors. It's got heavy balances on the window. You know, there's a lot of brass and a lot of, you know, the black and white floor is high contrast. And I think we're going to go for a more fresh, contemporary look. We haven't quite decided everything. But I think we want to have wood floors, for example. And I think we want lighter, brighter and definitely a more sort of softer, fresher, updated feel. So from the kitchen, which we're ultimately going to open up into this room and take down a wall so that it all really sort of becomes one and flows really well. We're going to walk into what they had as their living room. And if we walk in there now, you see they carried the black and white marble floor through into this room. And they had this, you know, very rich and warm wood paneling that while it feels warm and inviting in many ways, it's too dark, I think. And so we're going to take it down and we're going to sort of completely brighten up this room. And I really think that the before and after of this particular room will be really, really a showstopper because it's just going to be so completely different, so completely light and bright and it will hang interesting art. And actually what we're going to try and do is put a fireplace in the center of that wall to sort of center this room, give it some architecture. It won't be a real fireplace. It'll be an electric one, which again, that's an interesting kind of idea because normally one doesn't really like the idea of an electric fireplace, but actually you can get really fantastic looking ones that really, really evoke a great atmosphere and warmth and feeling in that way. So we're sort of taking the idea of this warm room, but maybe sort of changing it so the warmth comes from other sources. But it's a great size room, like it's a really big, generous, spacious room. And that can also be quite hard to decorate because there's a lot of wall. There's a lot of challenges in that way. You know, you want to make it feel pulled together and not sort of overly large and overly sort of empty. Where you're standing actually is, Ken has a beautiful grand, a baby grand from his mom, who is a great musician. And so we're probably, hopefully going to be able to put the piano here. And then this wall, there won't actually be a door here. So it sort of makes sense that this corner will be taken up in that way. You know, this wood paneling is really interesting because it's actually quite beautiful. And I think again, it's how sort of fashion and trends evolve and change. I think for a living room, for a family room, the way that we all live now, we want something a little different. You know, families needs change over time and the way people live change over time. But this probably would have been a very beautiful formal living room. The challenge of this room is not only the size of it, the shape of it. It's kind of rectangular and long. It's also, in this apartment, the ceilings are about eight and a half feet, which is not low, but nor is it sort of high. So while I've been thinking about this apartment, while we've all been thinking about this apartment, we're trying to figure out ways to make it feel as light as possible, but also make the ceilings feel elevated height-wise. And I think the molding is maybe somewhere where we can really achieve that. So for example, this particular molding is, you know, it's large and it kind of speaks to the wall. It's part of the unit. And another way to do molding would be to have it quite tight up against the top of the wall and kind of going along the ceilings, fooling your eye that it's more an extension of the wall when it's actually on the ceiling. So it kind of elevates the wall that way. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think it's a very interesting way to treat, you know, ceilings are slightly lower and I've had a lot of success with that actually in the past and it really looks good. So that's sort of an interesting thing. And so not lowering the ceilings is how then do we light the room because we don't want to put recess lighting in. And so this room will have a lot of sconces or have a lot of lamps and it will have a lot of sort of interesting light fixtures that give this sort of perimeter lighting as well as some lamps that give this sort of focus task lighting. But there probably won't be overhead lighting, which is definitely, let's see how that goes. But take a look at this just for fun. It's sort of a lovely little piece of moulding. So my interior design business is just Katie Leiden Interiors. And we've been open for business, so to speak, for 20, I think it's 20 odd years. I have a really wonderful team, many of whom have been with me since the beginning. And we've done beautiful high-end residential projects in the city, in Long Island, in Connecticut. And we're currently working on a completely new house that our clients are building on Captiva. We do very thoughtful renovations through to full interior design, obviously. And we've had a lot of our clients been with us for many years. Sometimes I think some of our clients we've grown up all together, and we started out 20 years ago with their first project and here we are now working on their fourth, fifth project. I really believe in relationships. They can evolve over time and deepen with time. And you learn more and more about the client and how they choose to live and want to live and what works for them and what doesn't. We try to do things that make sense, that are comfortable, that are beautiful, that maybe have a little bit of a little bit of glamour to them for certain clients. And I think also sometimes you might take a project on that's not necessarily exactly your aesthetic, but it's interesting because you're growing and you're enjoying a different genre. Like we have one particular client who loves colour and loves rich textures and textiles. And perhaps it's a little more traditional than I usually do or gravitate to. But it's so much fun to have the opportunity to do that. So the entryway, funnily enough, was one of the first things about this apartment that I fell in love with. Currently, they've dropped the ceilings dramatically to put in recessed lighting. That was, is now, you know, you don't need to drop the ceiling anything like what you had to do before. You know, they've developed the recessed lighting sizes to a point where you can really hard, you hardly have to drop ceilings at all. But anyway. So even though it is not maximized to its full potential as it is now, I love the fact that you come in and there's a real entryway. It's this sort of welcoming moment. It's this sort of defining moment because you'll see so much of it when you come in. And it's this, I don't know, I just, it's such a luxurious thing to be able to have an entryway. Currently, I live in an apartment on 26th Street and it's lovely. But you, you walk in and it's kind of immediately the kitchen. And I've always secretly wanted an entryway. So here it is. And what I also love about it is that you come in and there is a beautiful picture window and that will be the den. So this apartment block was built by, or this building was built by Emery Roth who is a really excellent architect. And it is a post-war building. And what I think would be really fun to do is to maximize that sort of mid-century feeling. And it's such a cool, actually quite timeless sort of aesthetic. And I think that would be very true to the building if we sort of carried that aesthetic through in the interior design. So that's really the intention here. One idea for this room had been to panel it in wood in a way being inspired by the previous owner in the living room. But doing it in a more mid-century, lighter, more tailored version. And if, you know, if that works and if that can work, I think that's an interesting idea. Because it sort of like reminds us of the history in many ways, not only the sort of historical, but also the previous owner. You know, I think when you see an apartment, it's helpful to understand the architecture that you're working with and not fight it. It would be, I think, wrong to do certain things here because it doesn't fit with the architecture. It doesn't flow with the architecture and bring it out in the best way. So I think the acknowledgement and accepting that this is a mid-century building will really help us in maximizing the beauty of this apartment. The original intent will carry forth into the ultimate design because you're honoring the sort of original intent of the architect. A couple of designs on the table. The first idea is to panel this room in a very, in a contemporary mid-century way. That's one idea. And then another idea is to, and it would be a den. So along here will be a really comfy sofa. That's where the TV's going to go. And it will be a sort of richer colors, warmer colors, so that it kind of is in contrast to the rest of the apartment here that's like this light, bright sort of interior. But then this room would be more jewel-like, warm-like, a little bit of magic in its coziness. So that's sort of the idea for this room. I don't know if budget will allow the paneling, but we'll see. Welcome to the primary bedroom. And this room is amazing. I mean, it's spectacular. I'll show you why. So you come in and this room, but when I first saw the apartment, I did not realize that this was in fact a balcony that we can completely make glass. So you can have this like little beautiful glass nook, amazing views. Two little chairs. You can have a desk. We haven't decided yet exactly how we're going to use this, but we know we're going to love it. Today, again, it's kind of a gray day, but we've been here many times in the sun, and it is just so bright, so happy, so beautiful to come walk into this room and see all the light that could be here. And so we have to sort of rearrange it a little bit because the way that we're going to come into the room is actually slightly different, but we'll have different closet management, you know, different closets. But this wall, unfortunately, has to stay. It's a column. It's where all the risers are. And so we have to sort of work around this wall. There are always challenges like this, but this actually is a big challenge because it cannot move, sadly. Again, they've raised the floor here, which is sort of an interesting idea, but the reason they raised the floor was so that they could get this bathroom, which you've got to come and have a look at. This is amazing. It really is. It's amazing. I mean, look at these brass doors. Then there's this beautiful vanity that was obviously her vanity. And then there's his over here. And it's an enormous bathroom. And look at this incredible brass molding. I mean, you just don't see things like that anymore. You really don't. So this bathroom, we're going to borrow some of this space. It's just so big. The shower's almost like its own room. And then the loo is almost like its own room. So it's really, really big. So we're going to borrow some of this space and make the... We need closets. There's really only one closet. So we have to sort of figure out a new floor plan. And it does involve taking some of this space. But... So yes, and in doing that, you start to tweak and change the bathroom and you have to sort of start again, which we will ultimately do. They also raised the floor again in here to kind of allow for positioning all the vanities and showers and everything where they wanted them. But I'm happy to work with where the drains actually are so that there are some compromises with that. But that allows us then to return the floor to its original place. And then you sort of feel like you're in a slightly taller room, which is kind of nice. The thing about vinyl wallpaper is definitely commercial. There's no question about it. But wallpaper fades. And this room is so light and so bright. I wonder whether the previous owner used the vinyl because within a year or two, it would have faded. And we've had that problem many times with grass cloth, many times with wallpaper. And it's very disappointing when you've chosen something, you've fallen in love with it, you spent the money to put it up, and then it fades. And it can also yellow, which is also not so nice. So there is a reason for some of these synthetic wallpapers because they are resistant to fading. The other thing about them is that they've sort of got a bad name, some of them, because people are worried about their, you know, are they toxic? You know, what are they made of? And I think that that's a very, very relevant question. But there are now really, really good products that you can get that are not toxic and are not in any way harmful. But, you know, there are reasons for that. And fading can be very disappointing. So this is an interesting room to design and decorate, actually, because it's kind of choppy. You've got lots of columns, things that we have to work with, things that you wouldn't design, but you have to make the best of. And I can see why they chose a wallpaper, actually, because it kind of hides a lot of those problems. But I think that what I, what I think we could try here is a beautiful paint color that's soft, and maybe actually it's a paint finish. So it may have some texture. It'll be soft, I think. And maybe a soft color. And something that feels warm, but maybe not so busy, because I'm thinking that that might actually tone down some of the kind of funny soffits and kind of elements that we just have to deal with because they're, you know, big chases and things like that. So that's sort of a thought that I had for this room, is to do that. And I think sometimes if you're thinking of redecorating your primary bedroom and you want to sort of hit the refresh, but you're living with what you've had before, sometimes making the change from paint to wallpaper or wallpaper to paint can make you feel like you've got this completely different room. So that's kind of a nice, so this one, because I've seen it with wallpaper, to make it feel more my own and new, I think we would prefer to do paint. As you can see, this is quite a big project. And the more we learn about the apartment, the more we realize that things need to be done. For example, windows. Some of the windows are in fantastic condition, but actually some of them, it makes sense while we're doing this to look at them, review them and make sure that you don't then have to replace the windows in five years' time. Better to do it now. So questions like that. But so as the project evolves and has grown, I think so obviously has a schedule, but I think we start demo I think in about a week. Demo will take about a few weeks and then we've got to file with the city and submit the plans to the building which we're working on now. We've done a lot of them, but we need to do finesse them. And part of the reason we haven't been able to finish them is as a lot of stuff here that we don't know. Like we don't quite know where the electrical riser is. We think we know, but we're not totally sure. And that happens to affect the new corridor that we want to build going into the bedroom. So there's like big questions like that that will affect the overall plan. So once that plan is kind of approved by everybody, the contractor is saying if we get all our ducks in a row, he's saying it should take about four to five months to do the bulk of the construction. And that seems pretty good to me. I don't know if that's possible, but it seems pretty good. And then there would be probably a few months' hour time getting special finishes if we want done, detailing that we maybe want, so maybe some insulation of cabinetry, lighting. There might be after that sometime as well that we are needed for that. But the timeline looks set to be really good, which is incredibly, I feel really lucky about that because I wasn't expecting that. I don't know if it's possible, but again, if we get all our ducks in a row and make all the selections that we need to. And that's actually really a good piece of advice for anyone who's doing construction. The more that you can do ahead of time, the more that you can select prior to construction, ordering everything before, making those very important decisions, then will help speed the actual work up significantly. Currently there are two bathrooms here, and we'll be keeping them roughly in the same area, but changing them and updating them obviously. So we have two other bedrooms, and one of them will be for specifically my youngest daughter who will still be living with us. All the other children are much older and most,I mean, Ken's kids are all living in their own apartments, and my eldest daughter will probably also be living in her own apartment by then too. But Millie will be still with us. So one room will be very much Millie's room, and then the other one will be a great guest room, and will make it feel really welcoming for all family members, anybody who,you know, friends or,you know, brothers and mothers who want to come and stay, and it'll be just a really lovely thing I think to have, because I'm sure it'll be used. This is a very interesting part of the apartment because they created this step up into the private sort of area of the apartment. I think for two reasons, primarily because they wanted these large bathrooms. These bathrooms, they had to sort of rework,you know, all the plumbing to accommodate the fact that the bathrooms are larger, and they've put the plumbing in places that the building itself doesn't accommodate. So they've made this accommodation by raising the floor to allow for this sort of plumbing, extra plumbing. So that's I think really the primary reason. There's another part of me that thinks it's possible they did this because it sort of differentiates between the public and more private parts of the apartment. What we'll be doing here is restoring the bathrooms to where the building allows them to be and where the existing plumbing is. So then we can restore that height back to the level of the concrete slab that it is originally. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides, and so much more.