When people say that they “outgrew” their home, they usually don’t mean it literally. But that was exactly the case with a loft apartment in Brooklyn that a family of five (and a dog) decided to put on the market. The six-foot ceilings in the upper part of the loft were so short that the growing children actually hit their heads on them.
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They tapped Terry Mainord, principal of Terry Mainord Design in Brooklyn, to refresh the space and get top dollar for the two-bed, two-bath unit, which is located in a converted 1920s school building. With such a big family in such a small space, the apartment felt cramped and cluttered, even though the living room, kitchen, and main bedrooms were all quite spacious.
“Fortunately, the family was moving out prior to staging, so this gave me an opportunity to start fresh with the space,” she says. With that blank slate, Mainord’s goal was to make the living room feel more open by taking advantage of the large windows and ceiling height.
She immediately had the entire unit, as well as the kitchen cabinets, painted a fresh white. Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore is her “go-to color for adding light to a space. It’s very bright and clean,” Mainord says. To further brighten the home, she chose a light and neutral color palette, which provides a sense of openness, she says.
In the living room, the removal of a large built-in unit and two L-shaped sofas freed up a lot of floor space and gave her more room to play with furniture. To open up the floor plan and create better flow, Mainord chose to bring in a minimal amount of furnishings, including a beige sofa, a glass-topped coffee table, a sleek white TV console, and a modern accent chair that echoes the coffee table. The table, chair, and console all have wood accents, which add some warmth to the monochromatic color scheme.
A coarse area rug in a hue matching the sofa grounds the seating area while providing texture. On top of the sofa, two geometric-print throw pillows and a round tufted pillow add a pop of color with their blue tones.
To add some drama to the room, Mainord replaced the ceiling fan with a modern branching light fixture that not only adds further illumination but brings the eye up, emphasizing the high ceilings.
Over the console on the long wall, she hung an oversized canvas artwork of painted clouds, “which brought the outside in and further emphasized the ceiling height,” Mainord notes. To the right of the bank of windows, another piece of modern wall art provides balance to that wall, as well as some warm tones.
Of course, no room is complete without finishing touches, and Mainord incorporated a couple of books and three pieces of greenery in varying heights and textures, including a faux fiddle-leaf fig to the left of the window.
Within two days of putting the apartment on the market, the owners received an offer that was more than $200,000 over asking price. Mission accomplished.
