Upper West Side Apartment Combination
Combination & renovation of two apartments for a young family in Manhattan
“After a long search for an architect, we serendipitously came across Luki and Studio Officina and we immediately clicked. She is calm and confident, quietly persistent, funny, full of design knowledge, and generous with her ideas and entertaining ours. Importantly she provided a great layout for our apartment combination, which was a tricky space to combine with good flow.”
Kieran & Barun
Early in the Pandemic, a young family reached out to us to get help with combining their existing 1-bedroom apartment with their neighboring 1-bedroom apartment. Their neighbor had long-talked about one day selling her apartment to them so they could expand their living space for their two young kids. The opportunity to do so finally arose during the Pandemic when space was feeling particularly tight for our clients and their children.
Each existing apartment had a generously sized living room and bedroom, with large windows facing west with a picture-postcard view of typical Manhattan apartment buildings.
But combining them was not easy, as a large wall of building pipes and risers blocked off access between the two apartments. Figuring out how to make the two apartments feel like one large, open-plan home with a seamless flow between spaces became one of the key challenges of the project.
Because the combined apartments boasted so many large windows, we wanted to find a way to maximize their impact by creating an open-plan living room, kitchen and dining area that would allow as much natural light as possible into these key spaces.
We therefore spent the early stages of the project creating countless different floor plans showing how the apartments could be combined to use as many of the windows as possible in the main living space. Creating a logical and efficient circulation path between bedrooms, bathrooms, the apartment entry and the living spaces was critical as well.
We also made sure to include ample storage closets throughout, as this is so important in New York City apartments!
The newly configured combined living and dining area is generous in size and provides a long wall for hanging paintings and other special objects, a key priority for our clients who have an extensive and diverse collection of art.
Finding places for art and sentimental personal belongings is a key goal in all our projects we undertake.
“The design process was seamless, and while we ran into problems during construction, Luki helped us navigate these and we have a home with the kitchen of our dreams and a comfortable space that works for our family and for entertaining.”
Kieran & Barun
Close to the entry door, we dedicated a significant area of wall to the installation of this lovely large-format photographic art print that our clients had always hoped to hang somewhere prominent in their home.
We selected simple white sconces to bookend each side of the artwork. There is room below for a table to set down keys, phone, etc. when you walk in the apartment.
The new apartment entry door faces one of the large windows, immediately drawing you into the spacious and inviting layout of the combined apartments.
Our clients take advantage of the ample natural light for their collection of house plants.
The kitchen island has plenty of space for stools and provides an open-plan connection between the cooking area and the living room seating.
We had hoped to keep and reissue the existing Pre-War wood flooring, but it was too thin to sand and salvage.
For this reason, we installed new wood flooring throughout. We selected long and wide White Oak floor boards as we wanted to add a floor finish that would reflect the natural light from the windows and also emphasize the expansiveness of the new layout. The wood flooring feels warm in the space and combines easily with all the other finishes and furnishings.
The new kitchen next to the large chase wall of building risers that previously divided the apartments.
We pocketed a walk-through pantry and washer / dryer closet into that area, making sure we created plenty of space to store dry goods for the kitchen and to hide a microwave.
Both clients were interested in using green cabinets in the kitchen.
We sampled and reviewed lots of possible hues of green, finally settling on this “Calke Green” from Farrow & Ball. It’s a deep, rich color that changes in mood and tone over the course of the day as the sunlight shifts across the cabinetry.
We paired it with White Oak cabinets and brass handles that are practical to use but also add a nice decorative detail to the kitchen.
We designed in areas for storage wherever we could throughout our clients’ home.
The side of the island that faces the living and dining area includes a cabinet for homewares and open shelving for cookbooks, both within easy reach of the cooking zone.
Special details are scattered throughout the home, including this tactile handmade Zellige backsplash tile in the kitchen.
A long floating White Oak shelf above the range and back kitchen counter provides space for regularly used glasses, mugs and bowls, along with personal ornaments and postcards.
Nonetheless, we managed to squeeze sufficient space for a large dining table between two columns here.
A sizeable walk-in coat closet was built out near the entry door, seen on the right-hand side of this image.
A small amount of depth was leftover on the left which we turned into open shelving for books and personal effects. This shelving leads you to the primary suite doorway.
There were many structural columns throughout the apartment that also made the floor layout hard to resolve, along with a meandering party wall between this apartment and its neighbors.
Our clients loved the idea of using blue tile in their new primary bathroom. We found this vertical 2x8 tile and lined the whole room with it, from floor to ceiling on every wall.
The bathroom had only a tiny existing window, so the rich blue tile doubles-down on the idea of this room as a dark but sophisticated space.
Simple White Oak custom cabinetry complements the handmade-quality of the uneven gloss blue tile.
A back hallway links the living areas to the study and kids’ shared bedroom.
We wanted to ensure that this circulation space still felt useful and special, so we added a long length of floating bookshelves along one side.
Last, but not least, a critical part of the project was the addition of a large new window opening in the kids’ bedroom facing Central Park.
Adding this sizeable casement window to an existing exterior masonry wall was no mean feat, and involved many different types of approvals along with the installation of a hanging scaffold twelves floors above the sidewalk.
The resulting view made it all worth it though.
“Luki has such a good eye for interior design and her suggestions for fixtures and trimmings helped in our decision making and really contributed to making our home aesthetically beautiful and functional.”
Kieran & Barun