A Design Pro Made This “Generic” NYC Rental into a Serene Urban Retreat
“When I was moving into an apartment with my wife, we wanted a clean, cozy, art-filled oasis but, of course, we didn’t have the budget that my clients have so we had to get creative!” begins Dan Trumble, who works at the residential architectural and interior design firm GRADE New York.
How did the couple get creative in the 800-square-foot, one-bedroom rental unit in a building from 1963? Well, they “sourced much of the furniture from well-known retail brands” but made sure to also mix in “carefully selected vintage pieces” sourced from around NYC and on various vintage dealers on Instagram!
Another way they decorated the rental apartment, which they renting for $4,900 a month for four years, is by choosing art that is very personal to them. “We found that most galleries don’t really cater to new collectors, and that it’s hard to know what is ‘good’ or ‘worth it,’ even though we were going to be spending thousands of dollars on it!!” Dan writes.
“I’ve been lucky to meet and know a lot of very talented artists over the years, and so we were able to work directly with the artists — our friends — to find pieces of theirs that fit our space and our budget,” Dan shares of their hack for getting affordable, personal art.
In Dan’s professional opinion, he thinks when you’re decorating you should “[p]ick things that mean something to you — not just because it was on a list on the internet. Buy art from your friends [and] pick up accessories on your vacation that remind you of the trip when you see them. Prioritize the ‘story’ and don’t worry as much if it ‘goes together.'”
Resources
LIVING ROOM
- Textile art on the right — Helen Geglio, a renown fiber artist and our friend’s mother. She uses fragments of old cloths, aprons, and other instruments of ‘women’s work’ and stitches them together with mending techniques — an unappreciated and dying art traditionally practiced by homemakers, virtually all anonymous women.
- Bookshelf — Vintage, we saw it in an Instagram story and thought it would go perfectly with the Barcelona coffee table.
- Rug — CB2
- Sectional — ABC Home
- Painting above the couch is by Jane McNichol, an old school East Village artist who I met through work. She paints beautiful large-scale landscapes in oil, often with the sky and clouds taking up most of the canvas. This one is 48×48 inches, and it reminded me of the rolling farmland near my hometown in West Virginia!
- Leather chair — DWR
- Print on the left of the table lamp — An 18th century architectural treatise, a gift from a relative when I graduated architecture school.
- Lamp on the right — Instagram find (The Swan’s House in Tarrytown)
DINING ROOM
- Cesca chairs — Facebook Marketplace
- Bar cart — Room and Board
- Wool rug — Custom-made from Etsy
- Mixed media work above the bar — The archives of Frank Montana, an architecture professor at my university. We purchased it at a charity auction to support my alma mater.
BEDROOM
- Triptych of photographs above the headboard were taken by Colin Hofman, a landscape photographer, and my college roommate
- Desk chair — Paul McCobb
- Print above the desk — Cistercian abbey in France that we visited on our honeymoon.
Thanks, Dan!
This tour’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
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