286: Is Magasin in the room with us now?

We're getting into the interiors game.

Introducing Rooms, Magasin’s new interiors vertical featuring room-by-room shopping, furniture and decor wishlists, and renovation projects at home in Brooklyn.

For the last year, I’ve been quietly preoccupied with a task that I can now proudly say has come to fruition: buying a house. I’ve lived in New York for 10 years…earning the right to call myself “a New Yorker,” as “they” say…this step feels like a final declaration of calling this place my place.

This is a shopping newsletter, so you might guess what this means for the syllabus—as my own interests and transactions expand further into the world of interiors, so will Magasin’s coverage, beginning with this column.

I am not an interior designer, I do not have a background in architecture or spacial design, I don’t claim to be the most knowledgable or seasoned decorator. But! I am opinionated and resourceful and have made a career out of training those traits towards fashion. I’m also incredibly lucky to have an enviable network of friends to consult with on this kind of thing—I’ve been here less than a month and have already foisted tours and peppered questions upon interior designer Darren Jett, architect David Cazso, journalist and newsletterer Lily Sullivan. Not to mention the general contractors, structural engineers, millworkers, inspectors, agents, lawyers, neighbors, and archives that’ve provided invaluable information specific to this address that will shape the long road of renovation ahead. Ultimately, I am an individual who is setting out on the long path of turning a house into a home, hoping to discover and develop my taste in interiors along the way. And I’m punching out a porthole for anyone who cares to watch along the way.

With each new installation of this column, I’ll share a room-by-room overview of what’s happening at home—from furniture under consideration to purchases and interior styling to structural projects…unless drywall proves really, truly too boring. It might!

It’s early days here, which means a lot of the structural decision making and execution needs to happen before I can start decorating in earnest (while resisting the pull to become a George Nelson lamp-senufo stool Brooklyn brownstone). I promise it will get there.

Living

The plan

Take down the drywall and glass door between the living and dining rooms; strip the 17+ layers of paint on the wood window frames, door frame, and built-in mirror (truly the meeting point between my interiors and fashion content to come); re-paint the walls; and replace the ceiling light fixture.

Wishlisting

This pendant lamp by François Bazin, which I’m imagining nestled within this ceiling medallion by Ekena Millwork.

Dining

The plan

Nir’a already begun stripping, and we’re planning to paint in here as well (as with most of the house, honestly), but as the walls in this room are currently a dark, light-swallowing teal, the situation feels a bit more urgent; planning to add glass French doors in between the dining and kitchen to close off the area we’re calling “the aviary,” which we mean literally.

Buying

So far, just lots of stripping materials (plus the necessary masks, gloves, eye protection)—this strong ass chemical is what’s working best.

Wishlisting

Maybe a pair of these pendant lights from & Tradition over the dining table—lighting is still undecided, tbh, it’ll be easier to conceptualize in this room once we take down the wall.

Kitchen

The plan

The kitchen and bathrooms are suffering most from cheap renovations done 10 to 15 years ago that are aging poorly—we’ll want to gut all of the cabinetry and surfaces, update the large appliances, and take down the walls that make up a hodgepodge of closets/pantry areas and streamline them into a more cohesive storage space. Instead of stripping the wood window frame in this room, we’re working with a millworker to recreate the original design and install a new version in its place (the original was damaged and poorly repaired).

Wishlisting

Grand and likely not-happening things like this 1900s French wine harvest table as a kitchen island. And this chandelier by Lostine. And all-new cabinetry from Reform. If I thought my eyes were bigger than my bank account in fashion terms, being a homeowner is a taser gun of a wakeup call…there is no upper limit to what things can cost.

Bed

The plan

We’re taking down a wall between two smaller bedrooms to create a new primary bedroom with access directly into the backyard. There’s no space for a walk-in closet, so instead we’re building a row of closets along the entire back wall of the bedroom.

The current main will become the guest bedroom-slash-my-office. Not much needs to be done structurally to make this happen, but it’s sweet thinking about how to assemble my first ever personal workspace.

Buying

About a month before we closed, I bought Nir some Indian block-printed bed sheets (from 21 Tara, a great little shop by our old place in Clinton Hill) for our two-year wedding anniversary, knowing we’d be upgrading our bed when we gained some more space. Now that we’re finally here, one of the first things we got was a king-size Casper mattress, a “cooling” hybrid model called Snow. It’s nearly $1,000 off at the moment for the brand’s Friends & Family sale.

Wishlisting

A LOT. It’s my dream to have a silk Fortuny Scudo light in our main bedroom, inspired by a recent visit to Cristaseya in Paris. This wood-and-mother-of-pearl-inlay headboard from Lemon Furniture. Library shelving from Frama around my desk (I’m keeping an eye out for a good Louis XL-style kidney-shaped one) in the study.

Bath

The plan

Might be a longer-term project (everyone tells us bathroom renos are e x p e n s i v e), but the idea is to extend the length of the bathroom closest to the soon-to-be-primary bedroom and add a door that connects it directly. It needs a complete facelift, but in the meantime, we’re just putting on a bit of makeup in the form of painting tiles, new light fixtures, and other quick cosmetic updates.

Buying

Some of our very first purchases for the place have been a ceramic sink salvaged from another brownstone (via Facebook Marketplace) and this large mirrored medicine cabinet (right size, right price).

Wishlisting

This toilet roll holder and towel rack by Maha Alavi Studio are the fantasy pick, but CB2’s roll and rack versions are likely the reality.

Hall

The plan

The stairs are covered in ugly, fake-terrazzo linoleum, which we’d hoped we could just rip up to expose the wooden stairs beneath. However, our GC has warned us there might be asbestos in the material. We’re bringing someone in to check if it’s present and will formulate a plan from there.

Buying

This morning we drove to an abandoned mansion in New Jersey, once owned by the Diocese of Paterson, to salvage whatever architectural detail we could potentially use before they demolish the building. We left with just one set of glass double doors we plan to use for the second entry behind the front door.

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