An assortment of previous owners had left their mark on this Chelsea loft, which is located in a 1900s row house that had been sub-divided into units in the 1960s. This particular apartment had good bones, including two soaring double-height living spaces, each with a working fireplace. But those features were overshadowed by a series of bad decisions, which had created a chopped-up floor plan and left behind vestiges of finishes from every decade since the building’s conversion.

The owner, a television writer who travels between coasts, needed a base where he could work, relax, and entertain friends. He tasked the Brooklyn-based firm e.g. Projects to create a flexible live/work space that utilized the home’s best qualities.

Before: View to Kitchen and Mezzanine

After: Living Room and Kitchen

The apartment has a unique layout, with two double-height living areas flanking a mezzanine level. Those soaring spaces are capped with skylights and each has a floor-to-ceiling fireplace with ornate 60s-era masonry. “But the unit had been carved up into so many small, enclosed spaces, and then built out and over detailed,” says architect Keith Greenwald. “So, there was just so much in this apartment that felt cramped and dated.”

The firm took an approach of “subtraction” in order to open up the spaces and connect them together more cohesively. They removed a wall in the mezzanine bedroom and inserted a metal railing in its place, to transform that bedroom into a flexible, lofted office.

Now, the writer’s desk benefits from an abundance of natural light, and has views into the living room below and out the living room windows. The original living room “is not super large in terms of its footprint, but very tall,” says Greenwald. “So, to allow that space to continue vertically across the mezzanine really makes the living room feel larger as well.”

Since the living room and dining room became so light and bright, the firm and homeowner pivoted in the treatment of the kitchen, and decided to go dark there. “The kitchen is a compressed space,” says Greenwald. “Rather than fight that, we really wanted to embrace it, and make it feel like an intimate, dramatic moment that's connecting these two bright, large, double-height, well-lit spaces.”

There, they painted out the cabinetry in ‘Hale Navy’ by Benjamin Moore, inserted a dramatic Antique Grey Marble slab at the island, and added a Caesartone counter and white oak cabinets for balance.

While opening up walls at the mezzanine instills an airy feel throughout the home, another important aspect of the redesign was to bring a sense of “urban nature” inside. In the dining room, the firm achieves that with a custom steel planter mounted to the fireplace. The planter was a collaboration between e.g. Projects, Kin & Company, and Greenery NYC. Its planted with Algerian Ivy, in a reference to the “numerous ivy-covered facades of the neighborhood,” says the firm.

Now, with crisp white walls, bleached oak floors, and just enough contrast to highlight the home’s most unique details, the loft is enriched rather than constrained, by its eclectic heritage. “We really saw it as an opportunity to bring it back to life,” says Greenwald.