Interiors & Renovation

Design-Loving Couple Inject Personal History Into Crown Heights Home

When this design-world couple moved to Brooklyn just a year and a half ago, they knew exactly how to balance the home’s historical detail with a personal style reflecting their interests and cultural heritage.

Photo by Nancy Mitchell for Apartment Therapy

by Barbara Eldredge

03/29/2016 3 minute 0

Balancing style and comfort, designers Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason created a warm and character-filled home in their 1,200-square-foot Crown Heights apartment.

Hays and Mason are the creators of AfroChic, a design company and blog dedicated to helping homeowners tell their own stories through interior design. So when the couple moved to Brooklyn just a year and a half ago, they knew how to build off the home’s existing details while artfully adding personal style that reflected their cultural heritage.

“We spent our first few months in here with nothing,” Hays told Apartment Therapy in a recent story on the home. Mason chimed in: “We had two metal folding chairs and a white table and that was it.”

Today, the home is filled with objects picked up on the couple’s travels, and patterned fabrics designed for their product lines.

The living room’s bay window is framed by dramatic purple curtains from The Shade Store, while the historical detail of the room’s original wood fireplace mantel contrasts nicely with modern furniture in muted tones.

The blue Gelsenkirchin Club Chair adds a pop of color and midcentury lines.

In the gray-painted bedroom, a series of vibrantly colored AfroChic baskets decorate one wall. A Sonneman Orb Chandelier and 1971 photograph of singer Melba Moore hang over the bed.

In the kitchen, rough exposed brick contrasts with a glittery chandelier, smooth steel counter, and an inviting bentwood chair. The secretary is a family heirloom that belonged to Bryan’s great-grandmother in Philadelphia.

Check out the full story on Apartment Therapy for a video tour of Hays and Mason’s home.