Practical Magic

An actually luxurious condo apartment. Photo: Will Ellis

The amenities are great and the lobbies look swell, but once you get into to your “luxury” apartment, is it really all that luxurious? Danielle Fennoy, who along with her design partner Cece Stelljes runs their company, Revamp Interior Design, states, “The word luxury is definitely used loosely with developers these days. These apartments definitely got a big upgrade in terms of square footage, but the low ceilings and no overhead light left us with quite the project.” The project entailed decorating the condo apartment for a family with three teenage kids (and another one in college who visits). The ceilings were eight feet at best, and some areas, like the hallway, seen here from the living room, were dark and a bit tight. “We had a lot of fun with wall coverings,” Stelljes says. “A lot of times people don’t have collections of art, which can get pretty expensive, so it’s a great way to dress the wall with personality and vibrancy and set the tone for the apartment.” The wall covering in the hallway, seen above, is Black Edition from the Romo Group, the two Gubi Beetle lounge chairs in the living room are from Suite NY, and the black-and-white wall art is from Minted.

The eight-inch Flush Dome lighting is from Allied Maker, and the console is from Blu Dot. The Handjob wall hooks on the left are from Thelermont Hupton. “It’s fun,” Fennoy says. “It’s a small space, but we had to make a big impact with the wall covering because it’s a pass-through space. If it was in a bedroom it might be a little much.” The wall-hook series is incomplete. “There is a middle-finger one—but we didn’t put that one on the wall,” Fennoy says. Photo: Will Ellis

“In the dining room we dropped the ceiling by a few inches so that we could put a chandelier over the table,” Fennoy says. This one, Cloud 19, is from Apparatus, the cabinet on the right wall was designed by Revamp, and the table from Carl Hansen & Søn extends for extra seating. The VIK chairs are from Ligne Roset. “It’s really about being functional; they have people over all the time,” Fennoy says. “They wanted it to be comfortable, not too pretentious, and inviting, because half the time, it’s teenagers and family functions.” The artwork on the left wall is by Heather Day. Photo: Will Ellis

The den, converted from one of the five bedrooms, is completely covered in Trash Day Newsprint 06 from Studio Printworks. The comfy lounger and ottoman are from Room & Board, and the side-table wood stump is from West Elm. The cozy blue Chichi area rug is from Patterson Flynn Martin. Photo: Will Ellis

Room & Board’s Piper wood-panel bed frame in Natural Steel is featured in a bedroom shared by two of the sons. The Kodak-yellow Moda painted dresser is also from Room & Board. The bookshelf is from Blu Dot and the rug from West Elm. Photo: Will Ellis

Each of the four bedrooms has its own distinctive vibe. Here the mint-green painted walls complement the abstract artwork by Kristi Kohut above the bed. The tiled nightstand is from West Elm and the Tolomeo wall light is from Artemide. It took Fennoy and Stelljes almost two years to complete the project, as the décor was done in two stages: the installation of the main design items and then the decorative accessories and art. “There was a lot of mix-and-match, high and low,” Fennoy says. “The closing happened, and then they were just like, ‘We are moving in.’ Then we kind of worked around them,” she adds. “Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of dusty stuff happening.” Photo: Will Ellis