Interior designer Christina Nielsen brought a location of English flair to Brooklyn just lately when she set up her Clinton Hill-dependent style and design apply, Christina Nielsen Style. By that she suggests “Everything quite intentionally place jointly, with plenty of levels and designs,” as in the decor of the duplex apartment she shares with her spouse. “I adore building rooms truly feel welcoming, warm, and like they’ve been there for good.”
Nielsen, who is at first from Connecticut, grew up paying out every single summer season in England, where her father’s family members life, and spent time in London herself as an adult, finding out modern art soon after pivoting from editorial perform at Vogue magazine. All that motivated her design and style aesthetic. England is also exactly where she received her very first style commission: a non-public box at Ascot race training course. “From there, I experienced a good deal of inquiries and it just boomeranged.”
Incredibly, the meticulously renovated area on the two lessen flooring of a vintage brownstone, with wonderful plasterwork, arched doorways and marble mantels, is a rental. The pair appeared for more than 6 months to uncover it. The householders experienced purchased the home about a 10 years before and “fully restored it,” Nielsen claimed. “I was incredibly lucky to appreciate what they did.”
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Nielsen did minimal to modify the envelope, aside from painting some walls on the lessen degree and placing her stamp in the kitchen area with Moroccan tiles in an arched alcove about the sink.
But she went all in on furnishing the place from scratch, mixing antique and modern day parts with simplicity. “I have hints of maximalism, as you can see from all the patterns, and I use a good deal of jewel tones. I appreciate English antiques and Moroccan influences, in particular in the information. And I like postwar art, so that delivers out a much more up to date feel. I don’t want interiors to truly feel stuffy with heavy antiques.”
Nielsen is not an on the net shopper she sourced anything in man or woman, mainly from antique suppliers in upstate New York and Connecticut. Creativeness with textiles is one particular of her contacting cards. She personalized sofas and chairs by owning them reupholstered in new materials, and did a little bit of Diy, generating a skirted table in the kitchen and disguising a Murphy mattress in the downstairs guest space with a hanging tapestry.
Every little thing was performed with an eye toward versatility. “Because this is a rental and I’m not going to be below eternally, ” Nielsen mentioned, “it’s truly significant that things can be repurposed down the line.”
Original doors and moldings, pristine white partitions and darkish wooden floors all produced for a remarkably attractive rental. There were being several candidates, but the house owners deemed Nielsen and her husband the ideal in shape.
A mustard velvet couch, antique armchairs, modernist espresso and aspect tables, and a sisal rug in the front parlor/living space are regular of the way Nielsen likes to mix matters up.
The barrel-again chair is from RT Facts in Kent, Conn., with cheetah print material from Pierre Frey. The wing chair arrived from an estate sale Nielsen recovered it in Claremont material.
Oversized mirrors carry additional gentle into a room that, Nielsen reported, “is super brilliant in the morning, then leaves you in the afternoon.”
Nielsen propped a huge mirror on the fire mantel, in scale with the higher ceilings. “There’s very little even worse than a mirror also smaller for the area,” she mentioned.
Nielsen revamped a dated Jonathan Adler couch in the middle parlor/dining area, replacing gray cloth with moss environmentally friendly velvet and stripping white paint off the legs, and pulled in a load of shade with vivid toss pillows.
A wall-spanning grid of framed architectural drawings has significantly far more impression than two or 3 would.
A new zinc major presents an antique wood desk with turned legs a up to date industrial feel.
Nielsen gave the vintage wood chairs new teal leather-based cushions to play off the artwork on the wall, an abstracted photograph of ocean waves.
The existing deep-grey kitchen cabinetry was quite a lot to Nielsen’s liking. She additional dazzling Moroccan tiles in an arched backsplash earlier mentioned the sink and aluminum stools for a modern day really feel.
In a corner of the kitchen, Nielsen designed a picket table base (“super easy”) and attached skirting with Velcro. It splits in the middle to expose a wine fridge and microwave. “I feel those people are this kind of eyesores,” the designer explained.
Nielsen introduced deep shade — indigo, teal and orange — into the yard-amount bed room with material and art. The slipper chairs, originally from One Kings Lane, were being reupholstered in Indian batik.
Even the back garden, with its gravel surface area and tiers of lifted picket planting beds, was charming and nearly ready to go. Nielsen included wrought iron household furniture and an umbrella, along with containers of boxwoods, herbs and bouquets for an “English satisfies French” vibe.
[Photos by Manuel Rodriguez; Styling by Benjamin Reynaert]
The Insider is Brownstoner’s weekly in-depth appear at a noteworthy inside design/renovation project, by style journalist Cara Greenberg. Come across it listed here every Thursday morning.
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