This Serene New York Apartment is Flexible by Design
For her recent project on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, interior designer Christina Loucks combined curved forms, natural materials, and multi-functional furniture from Resource to create a cozy, peaceful, and highly flexible home for her clients.
Blending Beauty and Practicality in an UWS Apartment
There are many challenges that come with designing a small, multi-functional space, as interior designer and visual brand strategist Christina Loucks will tell you.
Case in point: for her recent project on New York’s Upper West Side, Christina’s clients had a laundry list of goals they needed to accomplish. While a three-bed, three-bath apartment may not sound very small by NYC standards, the space was certainly stretched to its limits: the clients needed a bedroom/gaming room for their son, a college student at Columbia; a guest space for visiting grandparents; a fully functional home office; and a flexible living area to soak in the apartment’s gorgeous views.
When Christina first saw the space, she instantly fell in love with its unique architectural features — particularly the wide, curved windows that wrap around the open kitchen-dining-living area, overlooking Central Park. There was clearly great potential in this space; the challenge for Christina was striking the right balance between functionality, beauty, and comfort. Enter: Resource Furniture.
Multi-functional Meets High Style
An Oslo queen-size wall bed with integrated sofa proved the perfect fit for the guest room. With one easy pull of the Olso’s hidden under-shelf handle, Christina’s clients can easily transform the space from a lounge area/gaming room to a guest bedroom in an instant. A Home Office modular fold-away cabinet was also installed in the guest room, revealing a spacious work desk with built-in storage and overhead LED lighting — a choice office solution for working at home or late-night cram sessions. By sticking to a soft, muted palette or grays and creams, this one room can easily transition between three unique settings depending on the clients’ needs.
In the living room, Christina selected the Flex modular sofa in a C.O.M. mohair fabric.
“What I love about using natural fibers is that they reflect incredible emotional aesthetics and are very durable,” Christina said. “It was a game of shapes, textures, and colors, and we kept a feeling of lightness in the space.”
But it’s not simply use the natural textures that makes Flex such an ideal piece for this living room; this modular sofa also features movable backrest cushions and sofa bases for endlessly reconfigurable seating arrangements. With a quick flip of the backrest cushions, Christina’s clients can choose between sprawling out to binge a favorite show or pivoting to enjoy the apartment’s dreamy views.
Don't Just Furnish Rooms — Create Moments
By thoughtfully layering warm, natural textures, organic shapes, and flexible furniture pieces, Christina was able to transform this home into a calm, cozy, and functional space that fulfilled all of her clients’ dreams.
Christina’s secret for seamlessly blending function and beauty? Don’t think about your space strictly in terms of furniture and décor placement — instead, think about the moments and emotions you want your space to evoke.
“My background as a brand strategist and visual designer have really helped inform this design process for me, because it helps you to look at things through a different lens. You layer spaces differently, you look at vignettes and corners and pieces differently. And you accessorize them in ways where they’re creating moments as opposed to just placements of furniture.”
Resource: A Partner to the Trade
With our unmatched collection of Italian-made wall beds, transforming tables, innovative storage solutions, and complimentary pieces, Resource is ready to help make your next project a success. As a dedicated partner to the design trade for over 20 years, we offer numerous benefits to registered members of our Designer Resource Program, including special trade discounts on our one-of-a-kind product collection, a dedicated project manager, rendering services, a referral program with accumulating rewards, and more.
