back in 2004 when jenna of whimsy & spice was apartment shopping with her partner (in life and business), mark, she never dreamed that she would end up in a new construction building, particularly in a neighborhood like park slope which has such beautiful brownstones. they were already living in the neighborhood on the top floor of an old townhouse but after going to endless open houses, but this apartment had the key features they were looking for: space (1350 sq ft), 3 bedrooms, good light, an open, airy feel, a bit of outdoor space (2 balconies), no renovations needed, a great public school district and most importantly, an elevator for jenna’s back problems (which eliminated carrying groceries, a heavy baby and a stroller up 2 flights of stairs). she says the trade-off is that it has no architectural interest and the bathroom and kitchen fixtures scream mid-2000 construction, but they’ve worked on making it a comfortable home that they’ve grown to love and will serve as the (eventual) base of operations for whimsy & spice. i love how jenna’s experience in graphic design adds so much to their business and home – such great style. click here for more images of this lovely home and here for jenna’s delicious recipe for peach ginger ice cream blondies! {thanks, jenna!} -anne
[above: This wall is on the north end of our apartment in between a window and sliding doors to the balcony. All the furniture are ebay finds, the pillows are ones I made from Hable Construction remnants and the print is a tour poster from Small Stakes. ]
In general our apartment is fairly neutral. The living room has very pale gray walls, a rich velvet blue chair from Room and Board, a bluish-gray sofa, also from Room and Board and black and yellow accents.
The bookcase was the first major piece of furniture I purchased after I finished grad school. I bought it at a furniture store on Broadway in the Village and we use it to separate the living room from the dining and kitchen areas. The main space is just one big room. Sometime last year I banished all toys from the living area but kept the toy kitchen so the kids can cook next to Mark. The kitchen is on the other side of that narrow black wall.
This wall is opposite the couch and features another chair I got on ebay. It arrived with the ugliest, brownest upholstery you can imagine so I immediately started working on covering the cushions literally a half hour after the chair arrived.
CLICK HERE for the rest of jenna’s sneak peek after the jump!
We have this weird area by our entryway where we have 2 doors next to each other. Our elevator opens right into our apartment and then we have a door to the stairwell right next to that. It’s a bit of a design challenge as it really creates no foyer area in our apartment. We recently painted it a slighter darker gray than the living room and put up a whole bunch of prints and dried seaweed specimens from Hawaii which belonged to Mark’s grandmother.
We recently converted the nursery back into an office and guest room.
It’s a relief to have all our supplies in one place, organized and put away in one space instead of tucked into every crevice and free space around the apartment.
Our bedroom is a white bedroom. The bed is a modern wrought iron bed from Charles P. Rogers and the linens are from Dwell. I made the garlands from coffee filters after seeing them somewhere on the web last year.
I’ve been really into black walls lately and just painted one side of the hallway leading to the bedrooms with BM chalkboard paint.
We recently moved our girls in together to the same room. It was a challenge to consolidate all their toys and clothes into one room (we did a lot of purging!). The furniture is a combination of Argington, Room and Board, Spot on Square and Ikea.
The bunk bed is from Room and Board and the bedding is from Ikea.
Our kitchen, which is part of the open floor plan of the living area is in the middle of the apartment between the living room and the hallway to the bedrooms.
The kitchen cabinets and granite countertops are quite dark (was NOT my choice of materials!) so we decided to wallpaper the backsplash with Ferm Living wallpaper in Berry Black to give it some interest.
