Collection by Luke Hopping
Budget-Friendly Homes in Brooklyn
Brooklyn's real estate prices aren't much less exorbitant than Manhattan's these days, but by pinching pennies, it's still possible to make a high-design home on a budget in Kings County.
The kitchen of this Brooklyn brownstone features a brick backsplash with a metal panel connecting the Bluestar range to the Viking chimney wall hood. The mashup of materials preserves the personality of brick with the ease of cleaning stainless steel. The island and cabinets are fashioned from remilled Douglas fir beams salvaged from Upstate New York.
Perhaps Workstead’s most liberating move was to flip the position of the refrigerator from the galley wall to an adjacent space outside the kitchen proper. In one fell swoop, this strategy dramatically expanded cabinet space and added a working countertop.
Choosing tile for the kitchen backsplash was the biggest struggle of the project, according to Brechbuehler. They settled on light gray horizontal bars by Ann Sacks.
The Miner and Major is an experiment in communal living and fantastical form.
The five roommates share the common space in their high-ceiling loft. There’s a large library and a studio. The large worktable gives Dreitlein and Ionescu, who together have a small art/architecture practice called The Objectionists, space to paint and make models.
In the living room Daphne the dog keeps company with a Case Study Day Bed from Modernica, a LCM chair by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller, and a painting by the Brooklyn artist Joyce Kim.
Closet Case
To consolidate most appliances and food storage, keep his compact kitchen looking neat, and save money on cabinets, Sherman built a closet into the kitchen wall (“Cabinets are expensive but closets are cheap,” he offers). Inside is a countertop, blackboard surface, toaster oven, garbage cans, magnetic knife rack, and plenty of shelves. When the doors are closed, the unit recedes from view.
In the scrappy neighborhood of East New York, the design firm Della Valle Bernheimer built five buildings for low-income homebuyers.
The homes were built for $108 per square foot using cedar paneling and corrugated aluminum arranged horizontally to correspond with the vinyl siding of neighboring homes.