The Insider: Affordable Decorating, With a Glance to the Past, in Bay Ridge
Evan Schwartz and his wife, Rebekah, were “tired of spending all their money on rent,” so they left Park Slope and migrated south to Bay Ridge. “At first I pooh-poohed the idea, but 24 hours later it was a done deal,” said Schwartz, an interior designer for private clients and Homepolish, a company that provides…
Evan Schwartz and his wife, Rebekah, were “tired of spending all their money on rent,” so they left Park Slope and migrated south to Bay Ridge.
“At first I pooh-poohed the idea, but 24 hours later it was a done deal,” said Schwartz, an interior designer for private clients and Homepolish, a company that provides affordable by-the-hour design services. “The streets are wide, it’s quiet, there’s good food. Yes, the commute to Manhattan is annoying, but the rent is reasonable and you get more space.”
What’s more, he added, is that the view of the Verrazzano, his favorite bridge, “made me fall in love with New York all over again” — that is, for the first time since he arrived here from the Midwest 14 years ago to attend Pratt for photography and take interior design courses at Parsons, SVA and the New York School of Interior Design.
Schwartz calls the 900-square-foot, one-bedroom Bay Ridge apartment “my practice pad.” There, “I experiment and see what works,” he said. “I love putting colors together and making little vignettes with objects. It’s supposed to be fun and whimsical.”
For instance, though the apartment came painted “rental white,” Schwartz treated the wall between the two living room windows to a coat of Benjamin Moore’s Holiday Wreath. Then he filled it with an assortment of framed pictures.
“It’s a little more sophisticated and traditional, and I wanted something that would draw your eye across the room and give it more depth,” he said.
Other things Schwartz loves: art hung gallery-style, sheepskin throws to warm up inexpensive wood seating, hunting for vintage finds, hacking IKEA items, creating art from the unexpected, making his own furniture, incorporating personal collectibles into home décor and saving money.
“I would love to step it up a notch,” he said, “but this is what we have right now. That’s what I tell my clients: it’s a high-low thing. You can have a few good pieces, and pepper in the rest.”
See below for more from Schwartz’s bag of affordable decorating tricks.
The Room and Board sofa is a “versatile, classic style that can be linked to any era,” Schwartz said.
He made the coffee table out of pine wood and plumbing pipe. The orange rocker (top) is from Modernica.
The old wooden bowling set is the sort of nostalgic thing Schwartz collects and sells on his site, Brooklyn Auction Barn. “I’m not a pack rat, but I do think more is more. If you’re drawn to something, don’t get one — get the whole basket.”
One end of the large living room is given over largely to a salon-style wall of framed art, with overflow propped along the baseboard. Many of the photos are Schwartz’s own work.
The black bench is an outdoor Dexter bench from West Elm, softened with a sheepskin throw. The wire bookcase is from CB2.
One wall in the bedroom is painted Benjamin Moore‘s Garden Oasis or what Schwartz calls “tennis-court green.”
Bed and bedding from West Elm, as are the papier maché antlers above the bed, whose horns Schwartz dipped in gold leaf. The folding chair is a discontinued IKEA item, the art above it an old archery target Schwartz mounted on canvas stretchers.
The striped entry hall was a weekend project that took the couple eight hours to complete. “I wanted something with a wow factor when you walk in,” Schwartz said. They used Frog tape to mask off the stripes, choosing a glossy gray paint that would “pop, but not be too contrasty.”
In the arched niche typical of prewar apartment buildings, over a telephone table holding a vintage typewriter (the sole remaining from a former collection), Schwartz arranged a display of family photos, eyeglasses, bottles and other collectibles.
“The commonality for me is nostalgia — the idea of touching something and envisioning it once being used by someone. I love that connection to the past.”
[Photos: Claire Esparros for Homepolish]
The Insider is Brownstoner’s in-depth look at a notable interior design/renovation project, by design journalist Cara Greenberg. The stories are original to Brownstoner; the photos may have been published before.
Got a project to propose for The Insider? Please contact Cara at caramia447 at gmail dot com.
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Bay Ridge is great, but not loving the design so much. Fees like a mishmash and also uncomfortable. Dislike horizontal stripes anywhere, least of all in an entrance hall. Maybe a baby’s room.
Design choices are so personal (or should be), so I seldom love everything I see in the Insider’s homes, and that’s the case for me with this one as well. But what I loved this time is that this place looks like the design choices were made by real people with unique personalities. Most of the places you see on this site and on other shelter sites or in the few shelter mags that are still publishing all looks almost the same to me these days. People pay others to put the designer’s signature “look” in their places, and it’s mostly all the same spare, modern, nobody-lives-here result. It’s started to bore me–and i love interior design and old buildings.
Bay Ridge is great, but not loving the design so much. Fees like a mishmash and also uncomfortable. Dislike horizontal stripes anywhere, least of all in an entrance hall. Maybe a baby’s room.
Design choices are so personal (or should be), so I seldom love everything I see in the Insider’s homes, and that’s the case for me with this one as well. But what I loved this time is that this place looks like the design choices were made by real people with unique personalities. Most of the places you see on this site and on other shelter sites or in the few shelter mags that are still publishing all looks almost the same to me these days. People pay others to put the designer’s signature “look” in their places, and it’s mostly all the same spare, modern, nobody-lives-here result. It’s started to bore me–and i love interior design and old buildings.
How different! Love it!
How different! Love it!
Love the eclectic mix!. Nice to see a designer type person look beyond the obvious mid-century-boring.
Love the eclectic mix!. Nice to see a designer type person look beyond the obvious mid-century-boring.
This ahs got a real masculine feel to it—most of the living spaces we have seen on this site have been decorated by women and you can tell :). I like the entry way and the gallery wall painted green, great idea.