Irene Chung and Davis Owen, cofounders of O-N Architects, don’t mind if you call their work a little strange. “We like to create spaces that feel five degrees off of what you expect,” says Owen. “Things that require you to take a second look.”

Consider this recently completed brownstone renovation in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood, in Brooklyn. Its owners, a couple with young children, asked for room-specific solutions to a few problems they were having. On the main floor, a fireplace in the dining room was defunct, while one in the living room had a faux-classical facade that wasn’t welcoming anyone for a fireside chat. Downstairs, they needed a guest suite for visiting relatives, while upstairs, both bathrooms felt cramped.

Chung and Owen, in collaboration with architect Francis Aguillard, who consulted on the design, started the renovation with research. One of their clients is German and the other is a born-and-raised New Yorker, so first they went macro, looking at “the history of design and building culture in both countries” around the time of the brownstone’s 1910s construction, says Owen. This had them delving into the Bauhaus movement as well as the speculative development of brownstones, which were built in repetition with a high level of craftsmanship, and thinking about ways to marry the two.

Before: Entry

After: Entry

Next they went micro, digging into the clients’ personal histories and preferences. “We wanted to include approaches to craft from both of their backgrounds,” says Chung. “The husband liked these bold expressions of color, and the wife’s style was playful in a different way. Finding a happy middle ground was a fun challenge.”

They started with the entry vestibule, commissioning painter and tattoo artist Evan Paul English for a mural. “English is interested in American ephemera, vintage wallpapers and textiles, and botanicals,” says Chung. “We thought this could pair very well with our concept of two diverging aesthetic languages.” The color scheme, including a dusty blue and cherry red, show up in an heirloom cabinet of the husband’s and provided a motif throughout the redesign.

After: Staircase

After: Living Room

For the fireplaces, they opted for a sculptural intervention, first replacing the faux-classical facade in the living room by covering it with marble and plaster, and giving the plaster above the mantle a concave, hand-combed finish. In the dining room, there’s its opposite: a convex, demilune cabinet composed of fluted aluminum.

Before: Dining Room

After: Dining Room

The designers maximized the cabinet’s function by adding an integrated champagne chiller to the counter. (The aluminum keeps the ice cold, and the metal is light enough to accommodate the seven-foot-wide span of the doors when they’re open.) Plus, it makes for quite the moment midway through a dinner. “Once the party gets going, you open up this huge cabinet and it becomes larger than what it appeared to be,” says Chung. “It’s a little theater.”

Before: Basement

After: Basement

For the bathrooms upstairs, each was given its own identity. In one, the designers rearranged the fixtures to be all along one wall to make more space, then covered the room—floors, walls, the ceiling, a skylight—in a glass mosaic tile that’s typically used for pool surfaces. “It makes it very juicy feeling,” says Owen, “like gum drops.”

Before: Primary Bathroom

After: Primary Bathroom

By contrast, the hall bathroom was coated in a deep blue tadelakt plaster, with a custom vanity added, and the existing tub refinished, to a soothing, monochrome effect. The adjacent linen closet was converted into a powder room, with brick-red walls, custom oak paneling and storage, and a sink alcove lined in mirrors and slabs of Arabescato Orobico Rosso marble from Bas Stone.

“If you have kids, you’re always like, ‘Did you wash your hands after you went to the bathroom?’” says Chung. “This makes washing your hands feel fun and magical.” Plus, a high interior clerestory not only brings in natural light from the skylight next door, but acts as “an occupancy light,” says Owen, to signify when the room is in use. “It’s a little cheeky.”

And what’s all the playfulness for, if not to demand a second look? That’s just what Chung and Owen hope for when people interact with their designs. “We’re naturally shy people, but then, get to know us over time and we will surprise you,” says Chung. “Our architecture does the same thing.”

Before: Hall Bathroom

After: Hall Bathroom

Before: Linen Closet

After: Toilet Room

After: Hallway

More Before & After stories:

First-Time Homebuyers Prioritize Fun in a $514K Brooklyn Brownstone Rehab

They Returned From California and Filled Their Brownstone With Sunshine

Project Credits:

Architecture: O-N Architects

Project Design Consultant: Francis Aguillard / One With_ / @fdaguillard

Builder: Lambo Construction, Davaro Contracting

Interior Design: O-N Architects

Cabinet: Studio Solid

Muralist: Evan Paul English

Also Appears In

Before & After: Just Wait for the “Juicy” Pool Tile Covering a Bathroom in This Brooklyn Brownstone