296: Heirloominati
Architecture and design are the family business.
Rooms is Magasin’s interiors vertical featuring room-by-room shopping, furniture and decor wishlists, and renovation projects at home in Brooklyn.
It was inevitable that this edition of Rooms be about family. My mother Claude was closing her storage unit in DC, so we booked Amtrak tickets and arranged a U-Haul for the ride back. Naturally episode two would tee up a backstory to soften an audience to the protagonist.
Here’s what we packed into the U-Haul from my mother’s storage unit:
king size sleigh bed in almendro wood custom made in Costa Rica
Thonet bench (my mother’s 16th birthday gift)
portrait of my paternal great-great-grandfather
my father’s diplomas
6 of my grandmother’s paintings
my mother’s storage chest
Spanish wooden structure for holding ceramic drinking water vessels
objects from my childhood…a papier maché toucan, baby blanket, needlepoint alphabet pillow
various linens
When we brought everything home to Brooklyn, I found myself prickling at all the wood in the house. The poplar door frames, the stained pine floors, all of the various oak and teak furniture we’d collected ourselves over the years, and now, the hugely wood-skewing collection of heirlooms from my family home. An awful admission is that my autonomy was threatened by it: I loved these pieces intrinsically but also blamed them for getting in the way of the from-scratch universe I imagined I could’ve otherwise built in a new house. For a careless moment, I found myself envying people who furnished their spaces without the “burden” of handed-down belongings. What a sad thing to want. I had the thought: Some might find it strange and off-putting if their father asked to keep his old bathrobe in their closet for a few months, but others know what it’s like to wish they had something that still held his scent.
Almost everyone in my family is an architect. Maybe that’s why design feels so emotional. My mother, whose father was an architect, went to RISD for architecture, as did her brother, and her other brother’s son, my cousin, is an architect, too. My mom joined us in Brooklyn after we drove up from DC, and she invited some friends from her college days over to the house for aperitivo. “Uncle” David, another RISD-trained architect, peeled off with Nir for the entire evening, taking measurements and interviewing us about our renovation plans. (He went and drew up a bid set for us that he also sent to my architect uncle Guy before we’d even given him a call…whenever the family has a home project in the works, it becomes everyone’s project.) Franklin, an interior designer from RISD, turned out to live just down the street from us in a place he bought 10 years ago—the after picture to our before. Ignacio, a contractor in Manhattan (his ex-wife is the RISD connection), talked us out of the idea of stripping any more wood (“I’ve known guys to drop dead from that stuff”).
Bringing more of grandmother’s art back from DC was an important move for our home’s soul (my mom’s cohort all commented on her newly hung painting in our living room—they know a Mil Lubroth when they see it). She was a prolific and well-connected artist, associated with Klee, de Kooning, and Albers, though undersung being a woman and a mother during that era. I knew her work had reached collectors far off from where she produced it in her Madrid studio, but what I did not expect was, on a stop into Horseman Antiques on Atlantic Ave with my mother, for us to find one of her prints hanging on the wall. After the shock and awe, we said, “let’s leave it here for someone to discover.” Let me know if it’s still there you happen to go by.
Living
Building
At the threat of…death…the plan will no longer be to strip the paint from the wood frames and the door. We’ll be painting instead—something we’re looking forward to discussing at our Farrow & Ball color consultancy scheduled this week.
Buying
When my mother told me she was clearing out her storage unit with things from our family homes, the first thing I asked her about was the Omersa & Co. leather donkey footstool I remembered from England (bought from Liberty’s)—did we still have it? Apparently it was too beat up and didn’t make it. These things can fetch into the thousands, but I found a gorgeously weathered elephant, as tattered as I remember our donkey, for around $350 including shipping from Chairish. Here’s one just like it for $750 based in New York, and here’s a donkey for just $200.
Wishlisting
Knowing that Billy Bladwin slipper chairs may be trending (as seen in T Mag’s top 25 piece of the century) does little to put me off of them. We are fans of armless sofas—we’re also looking at the Stack by Ellison Studios as a second couch—so a couple of comfortable, cushioned single-seaters in that same vein would be a useful and flexible tool for accommodating extra guests.
Kitchen
Building
After several weeks of dedicated work, Nir finished stripping paint off the door frame, which, it turns out, required taking off the sheetrock covering the edges on both sides. He’s ordered replacement panels, so now, naturally, his next DIY is to rebuild the surrounding walls (even though we all kind of like them as is).
Buying
We’re stubborn enough to keep hosting dinners even within a construction site. Added a pair of Myrth dinner plates, but plan to get a full set soon (nice color, matte, and the right size), ditto a pair of Frama large ceramic bowls that we’ve already used for both solo bowls of ramen and serving salads to share. For drinkware, also picked up a Frama glass bottle and rocks glasses from Pleasure Island, a new company contextualizing crystal for a younger generation.
Bed
Building
While we thought we could quickly and easily take down the wall dividing the two rooms that would become our primary bedroom, it turns out we need to wait for the upstairs plumbing to be done, for which we need to wait for permits to be filed, for which we need a licensed architect. We’re in order-of-operations limbo.
Buying
The Fortuny lamp we sourced arrived after an extended back and forth with a dealer in California. The plot to get a Fortuny started with my visit to Cristaseya in Paris, and now that it’s finally here, it’s really something to behold. They’re available new, and there are a few on eBay that are gettable with much less headache (this pair of sconces is bidding at just over a grand).
Like the lamp, our new Nordic Knots rug—a contemplative turquoise the size of the full square footage of the room—can’t be put into place until we take the wall down, but we went ahead and got it anyway to lock in our vision for the space. What we can, and have, put into use in the bedroom in the meantime is a pair of Earthfoam pillows. I read you should replace pillows every year or two (I was overdue), and I like that these are 100% natural…remember, rubber is a plant!
Wishlisting
I’m loving the 21 Tara Indian block print sheets we’ve been rotating on our Casper Snow mattress (finally unrolled it—have never had a more comfortable sleep, I’m jealous of myself, even), and recently stumbled into Layla, an appointment-only home goods store on Atlantic. She’s been in the neighborhood 15 years and sells some exceptional versions herself. Need to set up a formal stop-in soon to build out our collection of king size bedding.
Hall
Buying
Armed with a big truck in a less-expensive metro region than NYC (marginally), we stopped by Community Forklift in Hyattsville, Maryland just outside of DC. We hoped to find doors but instead left with a pier mirror baring the same egg-and-dart motif as the trimmings in our place—it was $150! Inconceivable by Brooklyn standards. The paint was already chipping, so Nir managed to strip it with just a scraper and no chemicals.
Wishlisting
I sprung for an Architectural Digest subscription to access the archives and spent the weekend scrolling through ‘80s and ‘90s editions. One featured the home of Pierre Trudeau (father to Justin), an amazingly tasteful place displaying 1925 Muller Fréres lighting fixtures he’d inherited from his mother. I’m dreaming of a pair of sconces or a pendant light in our entry way.
Garden
Building
Still in fantasy stage, but my mom and Nir each took a stab at sketching out their ideas for a Moroccan-inspired backyard (our Moroccan Interiors book was the primary reference point).
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you having a family of architects just Makes Sense!!
I also inherited a few of these leather animals (and a wild number of chairs) from my in laws ❤️