Architectural Digest has long been a shiny toy filled with beautiful things, from eclectic Hamptons “farm” houses and slick fashion-y penthouses to Spanish villas overhauled by presidential decorators and Italian castles overhauled by, well, Martyn Lawrence Bullard. All exemplary interior design jobs, all rich people’s renovations projects. For the rest of us, though, the magazine features can very well be read like a primer in how to get sued by one’s landlord—unless, of course, one’s landlord is cool with “tearing down that bitch of a bearing wall” or “completely reconstructing every wall.” Below, a lesson in what not to do with a rental home, courtesy of Arch Digest:
Photo by Thomas Loof/Architectural Digest
13. ↑ “In the face of runaway extravagance, she addresses her designer’s concern over a blocked view with an imperious directive: ‘Tear down that bitch of a bearing wall and put a window where it ought to be!’ [Link]
12. Despite the potential nightmare of redistributing the column’s load, his response was categorical: Take it down.” [Link]
11. “Sheltered beneath a vibrantly gabled slate roof, the home has the same footprint as the original, but the amount of living space was dramatically expanded after the interior was reconfigured.” [Link]
10. “Ceilings were raised to ten and a half feet, as Candice requested, revealing awkwardly placed structural beams that Reger cleverly blended into handsomely configured coffers. Doors were heightened and aligned with windows, so natural light could flow deep into the rooms.” [Link]
9. “She jettisoned the living room’s 18th-century-style marble mantel in favor of a custom-made limestone replacement with an Art Moderne profile.” [Link]
8. “Len handled all of the architecture, completely reconstructing every wall and customizing every surface. Most dramatically, he dismantled the exterior walls and inserted a series of nine pairs of steel-framed glass doors that reveal the sweeping skyline and bring a metropolitan immediacy into the apartment.” [Link]
7. “By relocating the openings between rooms, circulation was enhanced.” [Link]
Photo by Luke White/Architectural Digest
6. ↑ “The designers brightened this once-gloomy space by ripping out dark paneling, painting the walls white, and installing a splendid light fixture that runs the length of the room.” [Link]
5. “Upstairs, Sultana and Croft had the task of converting two palatial salons into snug bedrooms. Their solution was to construct enclosed chambers inside each space—rooms within rooms. In the master suite, they broke up the wide expanse by building a capsule containing a bathroom in the area behind the bed.” [Link]
Photo by Scott Frances/Architectural Digest
4. ↑ “One segment of the glass wall is an immense 18 feet long by 9.5 feet tall. ‘It arrived from Canada on the last possible day we could close the street and hoist it into place with a crane,’ Harris recalls. And of course, he adds, ‘it ended up being the windiest day of the year.'” [Link]
3. “The only solution was a radical one—demolish the interiors and rebuild them from scratch, adding a level for extra space.” [Link]
2. “Fulfilling an important client directive, she combined three poky cooking and pantry areas into a single expansive kitchen. It now features two islands, green-painted cabinets (some with copper-mesh fronts), and a fluted hood. To accentuate the Spanish character, she incorporated dark-stained Douglas-fir ceiling beams, a strategy also employed in the main hallway.” [Link]
1. “Working within the existing footprint, the designer reconfigured the master suite to provide separate his-and-her studies—the latter embellished with a trellis mural by Valle.” [Link]
· All Architectural Digest coverage [Curbed National] · All Renters Week 2013 posts [Curbed National]
[Want to check out this tony Clinton Hill residence on your own time? You know where to find it! (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 14, 1865)]
