Collection by Kendra Shackley
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Bleached walnut replaced cold concrete floors in this family-friendly renovation of a dated loft in West Chelsea’s late 19th-century Spears Building. To make the loft feel more welcoming, architects Ravi Raj and Evan Watts toned down the heavy industrial elements of the 2,700-square-foot loft with a warmer and lighter palette and added custom built-ins for a streamlined look. At the same time, the loft still preserves much of its historic appeal—from the exposed brick seen throughout the home to the oversized openings left intact.
A dusty-pink facade is only a hint of what’s inside this 18th-century structure. For Sérgio Antunes, cofounder of Lisbon-based Aurora Arquitectos, the charming exterior and its rich pigment provided a fascinating starting point for the renovation of the Rose Building—a single-family residence in southern Portugal that his team turned into five glowing apartments in collaboration with Lisbon architecture studio FURO. Throughout are huge swaths of color with unique touches: For example, painted on the ceiling of the central stair is a moody mural of a woman in the style of a fresco, and in one of the unit’s bathrooms, more ceiling artwork depicts a mermaid emerging from a swirl of waves. Elsewhere, arched windows, sloped ceilings, ornate moldings, and wooden doors elegantly play off Portuguese marble and patterned ceramic tiles. With the go-ahead from the city, the architects were also able to construct a modern addition at the rear—The Mustard Building—that pairs natural wood partitions with the subdued tones of creamy terrazzo.
A creative way of cutting costs is on display in son Nate’s bathroom, where the wall tiles are arranged in a whimsical, irregular pattern making use of slim sections of tile cut for transitions and corners. “We came up with a pattern that could incorporate random sizes so we were able to order the exact amount of tile that we needed,” Bischoff says. “It allowed us to get the most out of the tile price because there wasn’t that 20 percent that [would normally go] into the landfill.” The two-bowl sink is the Vitviken model from Ikea; it’s topped with a chrome Hansgrohe faucet and accented by Ikea’s Godmorgon medicine cabinets customized by MADE.











![A creative way of cutting costs is on display in son Nate’s bathroom, where the wall tiles are arranged in a whimsical, irregular pattern making use of slim sections of tile cut for transitions and corners. “We came up with a pattern that could incorporate random sizes so we were able to order the exact amount of tile that we needed,” Bischoff says. “It allowed us to get the most out of the tile price because there wasn’t that 20 percent that [would normally go] into the landfill.” The two-bowl sink is the Vitviken model from Ikea; it’s topped with a chrome Hansgrohe faucet and accented by Ikea’s Godmorgon medicine cabinets customized by MADE.](https://images2.dwell.com/photos/6063391372700811264/6145718142813097984/original.jpg?auto=format&q=35&w=160)

