After Michael Mance and Shanie Easterby adopted a child, it didn’t take long for them to realize their 400 square foot apartment wasn’t working for them anymore.
“It was a nice little apartment,” Dr. Mance, a clinical psychologist, said of the one-bedroom co-op on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that he bought in 2006 for about $300,000. But when he added Bella, he was now 8 years old. , in the 2015 mix, it started to seem less than ideal.
“After about six months, it became clear that we couldn’t sleep in the same room anymore,” said Dr. Mance, 50. “We kept waking her up, and she kept waking us up.”
The traditional solution is to find a large apartment with two bedrooms. But he and Easterby, 49, an occupational therapist, liked their small space and neighborhood and wanted to stay there. And they didn’t like the idea of taking out a large mortgage.
So they started looking for a design solution to the problem. “We looked at different projects by different designers,” Dr. Mance said.
They found themselves fascinated by the work of Robert Garneau, founder of the New York-based Architectural Workshop. He designed many shape-shifting apartments with built-in cabinets and concealed doors to provide multiple functions in small spaces.
Mr. Garneau turns out to be some kind of mini-cosmic evangelist.
For him, the built-in cabinets he uses frequently are more than just storage. “I like to think of it as a wrapper that helps hide things and create structure,” he said. “You’re more in tune and you perform better. It’s not just that things have their place, it’s their logical place, and that’s reflected in your routine.”
In his works, entire sections of rooms move and change to reveal different functions. “There’s a nice change of scenery, a nice change of mood,” Garneau said.
When Dr. Mance and Ms. Easterby met him, they told him they wanted two sleeping spaces, separating parents and children. Living room with fireplace. dining room. Kitchen where you can prepare meals for large dinner parties. work space. You can store all your belongings.
While other designers might balk at cramming so much into such a small space, Garneau relished the challenge. “It was really important to be very cognizant of the scale of the space and all the needs the client wanted to have in it, and to strike a balance so it didn’t feel too crowded or claustrophobic.” he said.
He started by giving Bella a single bedroom in the back of the unit. He included a number of features to make the most of the space, including a murphy bed, a wall of cabinets with a flip-up desk, and a shallow closet with integrated lighting and shelving behind the door. .
We added pocket doors next to Bella’s room and bathroom, so Bella’s space acts as a private kids suite.
For adults, Garneau added another murphy bed to the front of the apartment, hidden behind a huge floor-to-ceiling door, defining a second bedroom that opens into the living room for bedtime. During the day, the partition is completed by another door that covers a storage cabinet on the opposite wall.
Inside that fold-out second bedroom, he added a console with a flip-up front and top that can be converted into a desk for light work.
In the living room, we created a recessed area for the TV above the new ethanol fireplace and installed a coffee table from Resource Furniture. When it’s time to eat, the table can be raised and expanded to dining height. Combined with folding chairs stored in a nearby closet, it’s spacious enough to entertain a crowd.
“We had Thanksgiving dinner, and there were six of us, and it went well,” Dr. Mance said.
“Small space kitchens are also great,” he added. Compact luxury appliances include a slim Gaggenau refrigerator, Superior range, and Fisher & Paykel pull-out dishwasher. “He can actually cook a 10-course meal there.”
This project did not materialize immediately. The family moved in in the spring of 2018 when construction began, and moved back into the apartment in early 2019 when most of the work was finished. A second contractor was hired to complete the detailing, but due to pandemic-related delays, the apartment wasn’t fully completed until his summer of 2022. The total cost was approximately $280,000.
Either way, Dr. Mance said it’s worth the effort. “It’s worked incredibly well for us and made life really great,” he said.
This project also didn’t deplete my bank account like buying and renovating a larger home would have done, so I had more funds available to support my daughter.
“We can spend resources on her education and future and our future and all the great things that living in this city has to offer,” he said.
He added: “That’s kind of a dream. This apartment makes it possible.”
Living Small is a biweekly column that explores what it takes to live a simpler, more sustainable, and more compact life.
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