This NYC Apartment Redesign Started With a Throw Pillow and Ended With a Full Renovation

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Redesigning a home is a lot like eating potato chips: it’s nearly impossible to stop at just one—room, that is. A New York City writer learned this firsthand when she enlisted designer Rachel Sloane Sherman of Rachel Sloane Interiors to refresh the open living and dining area of her Tribeca apartment, where she lives with her husband and two small children. “She has a great sense of style and she’s very creative,” Sherman says, describing her client. “She was trying to do bits and pieces, but it wasn’t coming together in a way that reflected her as well as it could.”

Some of those pieces—including a new backsplash in the kitchen, a custom shelving unit in the adjacent dining area, and curtains throughout—had already made an outsize impact. Sherman’s job was establishing a unifying palette to make the spaces feel cohesive while maximizing every square inch in the 1,631-square-foot home. Using her client’s artwork as a jumping-off point, Sherman chose a House of Hackney floral fabric to ground the living room’s palette, then brought in furnishings that balanced playful shapes with family-friendly function—like a custom ottoman with bun feet that can be moved aside for Magna-Tile marathons.

The writer was so happy with the results that she soon added the kitchen, entry, and bedrooms to the lineup. Here, Sherman gives us the story behind the design.

What was the jumping-off point for the design?

Given the nature of designing in phases, and because the homeowner was unsure if she wanted to do the kitchen, we looked at all the funky artwork that was already there for inspiration. She loves to play with color in an interesting and unique way, so I found this amazing abstract House of Hackney floral print [Hollyhocks in Autumn] for the custom lumbar pillow that brought together all the colors—the blue Clad Home sofa, pops of green in the Blu Dot chairs, the yellow trim in the custom ottoman. I’m typically a bit more muted, but I felt like with such a young family I wanted to introduce color in a way that felt fun but also elevated and sophisticated.

The kitchen has such a different energy than before—what changed?

Originally, it was a black and white kitchen that she tried to soften by updating the backsplash, but she was unsure if she wanted to change the kitchen because it was such a big investment and she couldn’t visualize what it could be. After we finished the living room, she started pinning and sending me images of green kitchens, but they were more of a sage, deeper green. As I was bringing samples into the space, I was getting nervous that it was going to feel dark back there. There was a want for something more saturated and moodier, and I said that we would benefit from something that felt light and airy but still got her that green, so we went with Farrow & Ball Light Blue. It’s different almost every hour of the day, so in certain lights it’s super minty and crisp, and in the evening it’s more of a light blue. I love how that happens.

Given that this is a space that’s visible from every angle in the apartment it had to relate elsewhere, so we added this touch of pink on the dishtowels to introduce the pink in the bedroom. There are nods to a color saturation idea, whereas before the kitchen read so graphic with this high-gloss white cabinetry with black outlines. It was a big transition. 

What makes the cabinetry feel so special?

I always love anything with a little French twist, so we worked really hard with our contractor and millworker on adding these details on the front of the cabinetry. It’s not a traditional Shaker; the trim work carries over multiple cabinets so that it feels unique. Previously they had this really heavy, dark, angular hardware on the cabinetry that was kind of sharp on the edges, so I found this beautiful Fort Standard hardware that’s not only gorgeous to look at but also has such a soft hand and is really pleasurable to live with every day. And then bringing in that touch of brass as opposed to that dark matte black hardware that was there elevates all the color.

The shelving in the dining area is a quiet showstopper. What’s the story there?

The homeowner introduced us to this very talented millworker named Chris Cushingham. He made the credenza underneath the television, which was amazing for record and toy storage, but he also made this shelving as a way to bridge the two areas. It’s the same oak that we used on the top and base of the credenza. We felt like we could do artwork here, but we already had this large television nearby, so I thought, ‘Let’s do something a little more dynamic that they could change out—they could display the kids artwork, they could put books there—so we loved it as kind of a rotating gallery that they could curate for the moment. And then we added sconces over the shelving. I love lighting a space in unique ways so we thought the option of having the two sconces over those shelves was a nice way to give different moods and vibes even though it’s in this one space.

There’s also a custom moment in the entry, right?

For the first phase of the project, we were all trying to kick our shoes off in the entry, and there was just this teeny little bench and ten other pairs of shoes on the ground. When my client said we were going to do the entry, I felt like, ‘I’ve lived here enough to know what you need.’ So that helped inform this custom bench that we built. Inside, these three drawers are customized shoe slots so everyone has their spot. And then we introduced these cushions covered in one of my favorite performance fabrics from The Lawns. We also loved that if one got stained you can flip it and switch the spots, so it was a great way to make it functional but really fun to look at when you walk in the door.

The bedroom is much more serene, but still colorful. What was the idea there?

We thought it would be a harder sell to saturate the room in this gorgeous pink, but the husband saw it and realized what an impact it would make. I feel like this is one of the truest expressions of going for it and drenching the room in color. It just took on this ethereal vibe that makes it feel like a calming oasis that just hugs you. I found this beautiful vintage suzani, and we loved how it picked up the color of the rust throw pillows. It’s not an exact match but it has the same tonality in the purply pink adjacent to the rust that just worked so nicely together. Then we added this beautiful flatweave rug that we made larger than what was previously there, which adds to creating this moment of serenity and calm and not having too many line breaks on the floor. 

Any unexpected splurges along the way?

We updated the nightstands in the bedroom, which was one of the more unexpected splurge items for them, but in New York you’re paying for storage and every inch matters. They had a drawer with a shelf beneath, and the more you can hide and put away the better. The shape was perfect as a way to not be too boxy. And then we added these beautiful bedside sconces from Blueprint Lighting. It’s this beautiful organic shape—in a small space you don’t want everything to have sharp corners. The dresser had that already, the bump out in the wall, so to introduce some soft features felt really great.

And a favorite budget find?

The one hack that transformed the dresser was updating the hardware. Instead of the angular black handle that was there, we found these origami-shaped brass handles on Amazon. We searched a lot because these had very unique center-to-center measurements so it took a lot of digging to find something good looking.