Name: Bill Indursky
Location: Chelsea — New York, New York
Size: 350 square feet
Years lived in: 17 — owned
Paint it black? Only a true design maverick like Bill Indursky would have the courage to paint a tiny studio such a rebel color. But Bill is a confident character. He's the man behind VandM.com, the site that has been taking on 1stdibs. Take a look at his fearless and fabulous apartment.
It takes a great deal of inspiration and intuition to create something that defies accepted conventions and the status quo. The last time I visited Bill's home in early 2008 VandM.com was just an idea and his studio was all white. Today VandM.com has 100's of international dealers offering an array of desirable objects and Bill's studio is a paradigm of small studio sophistication. Kudos to Bill Indursky for not only creating a viable alternative to 1stdibs but also creating a chic and cozy apartment that is all black!
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Because of VandM.com, I review approximately 500 items each week…it can become hard to tune out all the noise — so my preference is for items and interiors that make bold statements and stand out from the crowd. My apartment, which I have been living in for the last 17 years, has become slightly more luxe and I describe it as “London Bachelor Pad Chic”. It is bold, masculine, and filled with small ironic counterpoints without being too cold and formal.
Inspiration: It started with the idea to break the cardinal rule of interior design “don’t paint a small space dark colors”. Like all things, I took it to the extreme. First, I painted a wall a flat chalky black. Then after much convincing, and a trust that developed over the past ten years, my boyfriend who lives with me and our dog, agreed to allow me to paint the ceiling black as well. Painting the walls black dematerialized the space’s definition and made it seem larger. Other elements crept in based on their look and ability to live with the existing items from the previous makeover. Furniture and accessories with an African feel, with an Asian feel, items with an industrial look, and lush smoking room and pub styles started to combine to build the space. I used to call the apartment (because it was an all white box before I made it over) Urban Adirondack — the Manly Loft — a more butched up version of the once popular Shabby Chic style. Most of the original elements stayed but a more more bold look developed.
Favorite Element: The Murphy bed. It folds down, but is hidden by what the manufacturer calls a “cabinet”. Real wood was out of my budget but I was able to design the laminate. I added hardware from the Home Depot and it became a real feature in the room.
Biggest Challenge: Space! When you live in a 350 square foot studio apartment with two people and a dog, designing the layout of the room and its furnishings for multi-tasking is not easy. I was able to create distinct areas in the room: TV watching, sleeping, home offices etc. — but it was tricky! We have a rule that unless you can eat it, it does not come into the apartment. I don’t think most people realize just how much junk they accumulate in their lives that is weighing them down and is useless. If the show Hoarders teaches you only one thing, it should teach you that memories are not things.
What Friends Say: They are often surprised how an all black room can feel warm, inviting and big. People who like beige on beige don’t always get it.
Biggest Embarrassment: Nothing embarrasses me. There are so many people in the world suffering — to be embarrassed about silly things seems self-indulgent.
Proudest DIY: I refinished and stained the floors, did all the painting, installed the bathroom sink, made my own backsplash for the kitchen — I will attempt anything.
Biggest Indulgence: The club chairs. They are 1940‘s deep block arm chairs purchased from one of VandM.com’s Las Vegas-based dealers. I had sat in well over several hundred chairs throughout Manhattan’s design districts. The chairs where going to be in lieu of a couch so we planned to spend the same amount on them as a single couch. After you include shipping, the original purchase, the Ralph Lauren fabric, and the custom upholstery work it cost about $5,000 for the two chairs.
Best Advice: Think about creating symmetry and balance in your interior through lines, colors, textures and most of all of hard and soft surfaces. People who are drawn to hard surface Modernist spaces need to remember to balance it with some soft curtains or warm pillows.
Dream Sources: Of course I love my own web site VandM.com for all things home decor, collectible, art, and jewelry.
Resources of Note:
PAINT & COLORS
- • Benjamin Moore Regal Interior Flat 100% Acrylic paint, Black
LIVING ROOM
- • Custom laser cut media console and radiator cover in one out of Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) and hand faux teak painted
• 300 gram weight Flokati 6' Round Rug 100% wool in natural white from http://Flokatirug.com
• Petrified stump table from local Chinese import/export store
• Kevin O'Brien pillows made in USA in burn out silk velvet
• Chairs VandM.com with Ralph Lauren fabric
• Cast resin mule deer antler chandelier custom painted white from eBay dealer in Canada
ART
- • Keith Haring Lithograph "Cock Fight" Pencil Signed & Numbered, 1985 1 of 80 in the edition 40"x32" framed with glare proof and UV protected Lucite with black frame
• Top Left: Vanitas with Sea Shells, 2008 by artist William Eric (Bill Indursky) 12"x12" Oil on canvas panel with custom Italian wood frame painted from life. ($1000 available for sale)
• Top Right: What is a Man? by artist Edward Dillon, 2009 Charcoal on Paper, 8"x11" Framed (purchased for $800)
• Bottom Left: Portrait of a Brazilian Man, 2006 by artist Bandon Soloff 18"x12" Oil on canvas laid on panel with custom frame painted from life. (gift of the artist)
• Bottom Right: Vanitas, 2006 by artist Chris Peters.
• Painting Near Window: Vanitas: Ash and Bone, 2008 by artist William Eric (Bill Indursky) 12"x12" Oil on Canvas Panel with custom float frame painted from life with palette knife. ($750 available for sale)
• Cast aluminum bull head from ABC Carpet & Home
• Ceramic centerpiece with grenades “Alzata Con Bombe” By Designer Silvia Levenson For Ginetta Mazzucato and Paolo Segantini Ceramiche Estensi artist protype
Thanks, Bill!
Images: Troy Seidman
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Beyond amazing. I want to run out and buy black paint.
This feels a little too enclosed for my taste, but you really did a great job. I particularly love the brick wall you painted and wish I had a brick wall to do the same to!
This is fascinating. I would love to see more photos of the space, not just close-ups of the art and objects. This seems to be the trend on AT these days. Please house tour posters, more wide shots of these wonderful spaces!
I like black too, but this feels a little like overkill to me. Would love the bull head and chicken painting.
Good luck with your new site for collectors.
I love the combination of the all black with the fluffy white rug. It feels like an irreverent mashup of heaven and hell.
Wow. This is so interesting! It's really beautiful and so well done. Bill, do you ever get gloomy/sad/depressed living in this color scheme? I've heard that colors influence mood. I can't imagine what living with all black walls does to someone's mood.
The space is stunning, though. The armchairs crack me up!
So six feet under.... flowers, skulls and everything... Paint the switch plates.. yes black.. and cut the tag on the undressed duvet. Daring which I really respect but not successful. Love the cabinets.
I completely agree with r2b2 - I too would love to see more wide shots! When a house tour is nothing but closeups it feels more like a tour of "look at all the cool stuff I own" rather than what I suspect is the true intention of the tour - to show the cool things that have been done to the SPACE!
one word about the decor: sexy!
and yes, i would like to see more wide shots as well.
For all those who really want wide angle establishing shots check out our VandM.com blog for more...
http://blog.vandm.com/2010/11/bill-goes-all-black-establishing-shots.html
Odd Nerdrum book on the toilet tank!
Yes, I have to agree with the others that I would like a house tour, rather than photos of objects and possessions.
On another note, the black must create a certain coziness and escape from the madness of the city, like a dark womb.
Yes, my request-- not just more wide shots, but please, please, please include a floor plan. Even for a 350 sq ft studio. It wasn't until half way through the photographs that I figured out the relationship between the chairs and the two desks, and having to deduce all that interferes in my enjoyment of looking at the pictures-- I want to appreciate the design, not solve a puzzle.
really like this.
Love the white floors and the flokati rug with the black walls and ceiling.
Also very interesting textures, the bricks vs. shiny metally thingies vs the tramp art vs. the reclaimed wood desk vs. the rug...
I actually smiled, sitting here all by myself, at the paper towels on the hanger in the kitchen. Nice sense of humor.
I like the flat paint on the bricks and the desk legs/support - the texture of the materials stand out without any distractions.
Is no one going to comment about the fighting penis people? I guess I am just not as sophisticated and mature as you fine folks!
That computer desk is beyond awesome.
I am so confused. I think this looks great, but I'm wondering if some of the images have been mirrored, but I'm too lazy to try and figure it out for sure. Like, is the kitchen even still a part of this place?
Love how you dressed up the framelss cabinetry... Nice touch.
It looks bigger than 350 sq ft., which shocks me with all that black! That being said, I am not a "beige on beige" type of person by any stretch of the imagination but I still don't "get" the appeal of that much flat black in one space. On a positive note, the furniture is all to die for!!
OMG I cannot believe that upholstery! I wouldn't think it can work in any space. And yet it's perfect.
Love the colors. All the details are very inventive and intense. Seems super risky - so many details that all! Shout! For! Themselves! (Skull paintings, metal animal head, the Haring, the desk...) But it all works somehow. Supremely confident. Love it.
Genius! The chairs combined with the black walls.... WOW! Would never have thunk it. The only room in my house that I had the guts to have a dark color in my house was the powder room- so somewhat predictable and certainly design 101- but this is gutsy and amazing.
www.casacooper.blogspot.com
daylight in black rooms, something unexpected happens, a brightness, as i think we see in these photos? (or in photos of day lit people in them).
I like it, and I don't know why. Usually black does nothing for me.
And that desk is BEYOND AWESOME.
I think there are plenty of 'wide' shots in here - it is just a small space, so you can't get too far from things. Also, I think there is 1 desk and the room has been photographed with the bed down and the bed up which creates 2 different arrangements with the desk being constant. My question is: where do the chairs live when the bed is used??
I love the black as a neutral backdrop. And I really like alot of the furnishings, but will someone please tell me how you keep a fluffy rug like that CLEAN?
ahhh ok, I see the 2 desks now...and then the curtain is the door to the bathroom...
I like the black walls, but I think I'd have chosen a patterned or textured black fabric for the curtains. The matte on matte just doesn't sit well with me for some reason. I love the Keith Haring, though it might be better in a chrome or white frame. "Rockstar-Magician" was the description that went through my head when I first saw it. If Criss Angel was an interior design style, this is what he'd look like.
I love this space. I think it really works for this space. I also agree about all these close up shots.
@mojones--I definitely took a second look at the fighting penis people...ok maybe like 6 looks but whatever.
Ehh, feels way too small. And light never reflects properly off of black walls. The place will never look right except for all the lights to be on, and then it just looks awful.
And on a sidenote, his site is ridiculous. Charging $2500 for two chairs from the 30s that look like they're from a schoolhouse?
This guy clearly hangs out in Anthropologie way too much.
Thanks, Bill for the additional photos. I can see that the black walls in a small space could actually make the walls sort of disappear giving the illusion of more space.
I love this room - I only wish that the kitchen had been painted black as well so that the entire space would flow together...
...and the cabinet is sexy - would like to know more about that as well as the specific RL fabric chosen for the chairs.
And yes, please more pix of the space and fewer pix of objects.
Beautiful. Want to eat the desk.
Great little place- love the black walls and the chairs are wonderful!
Truly a creative space.
It seems the art was the inspiration for the dark space or is it that this art just looks so amazing here..
I know maybe 2 out of 10 designers that would possibly be able to make a 350 sf space this interestingly beautiful let alone efficient. Bill you are obviously a very talented person.
Missing a closing bold tag.
freemason 666 illuminati NWO
PHENOMENAL.
Nice.......if you're really into death.
Others have already said this -- I love the computer desk, love the ambiance, love the fighting penis painting (though it would be too bold for my own apartment). I love the white "fur" rug on the living room floor. I also agree I'd like to see floor plans and more shots showing exactly how the furniture fits into the space. Thanks for an intriguing house tour!
I wish I could have seen more of the kitchen. Is there a sink, fridge, place to eat?
Perhaps for the first time since Patrick (too)'s apartment a few years ago I'm actually jealous. What an incredibly beautiful place. Wow.
I'm tired of house tours beginning with vignettes. I want to actually SEE the SPACE before close ups of all of the "stuff". I'm annoyed.
I like some elements, but one of the first images was of a close up of a dead chicken painting. How is that art? I must not have taste.
@ vix vax, of course you have taste, you just might be missing the absurdist, dead pan humor here...hey, art history buffs, can some one share a bit on still life motifs...
ps
yes, deadpan might not be the best phrase, gallows humor, better.
Agree with r2b2 and beachliving. AT gets a F for not incorporating the "tour" in the 'hot house tour"
The roll of paper towels on the hanger is great.
Love Everything! Except the chairs....Sorry don't get the fabric.
I think the upholstery goes well with the black color, the Murphy bed cabinetry and the art work.
However the black makes the room seem even smaller and I don't understand why the ceiling had to be painted black as well. (It could've at least been a shade of grey.) The brickwall painted in black reminds of a room after a fire. I don't understand how somebody can feel comfortable and homy in there. It's claustrophobic and looks more like a dungeon... Sorry :)
Why is the kitchen white?
Hmmm
wierd
I really appreciate all the feedback. Here are a few answers to some of the questions that people are asking:
- The two desks are custom designed by myself. I looked at every desk on-line and off to find one that was really narrow (12"-18"). There are not many console desks out there. So i got two reclaimed wood pedestals ($450 each at ABC Carpet & Home) with a custom live edge table top mounted in between (from my friends at Olde Good Things for $175) for a total of $1075 each desk. The desk chair is from West Elm.
- As for all "the dead thing" paintings, I am a Classical Realist painter ( http://williameric.com ) and most of my work is still life. It comes from a long tradition (about 600 years or so) of painting still life. The skull paintings are my fascination with VANITAS, a particular type of still life painting popular in the 1600s. They were painted mostly during the Black Plague, especially by Dutch artists, to signify how fleeting and ephemeral life can be (It helped that there were a lot of dead bodies in the streets in which to get the skulls - since they burned the infected). Our cultural association with skulls today is very different - we think of them as haunted or spooky - but to me, who paints from real life, spending 40 hours staring at a still life set up or more, they are quite beautiful. The "dead rooster" painting is a famous important American artist that I am currently writing a book on, Emil Carlsen. I know it was trendy for a while, because of artists like Damien Hirst to draw and paint skulls, but I was painting them long before I knew who Damien was. He does it for shock - I do it to continue a 600 year old tradition.
apart from the flowers I think it is dreadful.
Crazy, Crazy, apartment, but i love it.... More than a studio, is basically a bedroom....
Totally breaking every mold....
Hehehehe, i guess, you guys are really into death..... why else, would you have the paper towel hanging over the stove!!!
Beside that, the place is stunning
You have made this place your own and it's creative and interesting, with some very good design elements.
I'm not into skulls, penis people or modern renderings reminiscent of taxidermy trophies, but I'm sure you wouldn't like my retro "Have a Nice Day" happy face cookie jar and coffe cup collection, or my giant rainbow coloured-butteryfly wing-flower print.
Here's to the celebration of individuality and to making your space a place you love!
Oh yes, I adore your fuzzy white rug. It tastefully softens the Grim Reaper mood. :)
I think two pieces of thick glass tops (custom cut, maybe) on those desk pedestals would work better.
Hmmm....I think I need to sleep on this one and get back with y'all...LOL...
Here's why I keep coming back to Apartment therapy
1) Small space ideas (some apartments here are over three times the size of my house!!)
2) Challenging new ideas
This tour clicks those boxes, kudos.
It has nothing do with my taste or what I like, if thats all I saw on this site, I'd never get new ideas.
WOW. Bill gets it right. The light floor/rug save the day. As a Vanitas painter, I can vouch they needn't be moribund as art and these are beautiful as are all the works chosen. The Nerdrum by the "throne" nails it for me. He would love that!
Ah, were I able to have you design such a bank vault!
This is one of the most sophisticated, elegant and stunning spaces I've ever seen. I suppose I'm a minimalist because it's hard for me to hang so much art without overwhelming it (lot of it is black), but this is a nurturing sanctuary that I would be gladly sentenced to.
Very, very well edited. And thank you for sharing it.
Oh, and I especially like the iconography and tradition of the skull paintings. I would love to have one.
As for many of the crude statements here, well, if you have to explain...
What is the surface carpet under the flotaki?
Finally, a home where I simply adore every single thing. Wonderful!
I love color and light. Yet I find your place just perfect. Thank you for sharing!
Black is beautiful. I love it but it does freak me out that you have lived there for 17 years. I am not sure why. You aren-t a shut in, are you.
I really appreciate how you told us the price of certain things. That really helps out.
Everything is wonderful. Are you still trying to figure out what you are going to do with your kitchen. I guess not if you have lived there 17 years. I guess that is the final kitchen.
Do you have dinner parties. How many people can fit in there. the question mark on my computer isnt working right now. sorry.
How do you clean a white flokati rug.
Bill, I like this. I really like this.
And I'm a wood and canvas, arts n crafts, can't-find-the-right Raj-Zen -blend gal. For goodness sakes I want Sky Chairs inside my home. Plural sky chairs. And a hammock.
I don't see this as Gothic or Death (since you probably curate your art in the home), but I see how it can read that way.
White grenades in a porcelain bowl?
Hate to say this, but I was in a carriage house back in the late 80s that had silver grenades in a silver serving bowl, complete with ladle.
Black walls, there, too.
You have, however, kickstarted some ideas of my own, especially with your desks and the paper towel roll on a hanger.
I use cloth only, and will avoid gas burners, but I think I will hang the day's towel and napkins on a wooden hanger.
Good design, like good art, elicits a reaction. You achieved that most handsomely.
A wide angle would show a little more of what it fells like in real; the furniture were shifted from one place to another for the purpose of a good shot so it's kinda' hard to imagine how small it is.
Who made the murphy bed?
A very gutsy color choice that turned out beautifully! Fantastic space.
I love all the feedback and wanted to answer questions that came up...
minimalist1 asks:
What is the surface carpet under the flotaki?
It is bleached or pickled oak floor boards (narrow).
House Voyeur asks:
Are you still trying to figure out what you are going to do with your kitchen. I guess not if you have lived there 17 years. I guess that is the final kitchen.
The kitchen was put on hold due to the economy. But one day we will redo it (it needs it). The apartment was different colors (even a pure white box for several years just before this make-over) so it was not black for 17 years!
House Voyeur asks:
How do you clean a white flokati rug.
You don't! Once it is bad it goes.
truepeacenik asks:
White grenades in a porcelain bowl?
Yes a great jewish South American artist designed it - this was the prototype.
mishka Comments:
A wide angle would show a little more of what it fells like in real...
You can see wide angle shots at our website here
DNBursky asks:
Who made the murphy bed?
The Murphy Bed Center in NYC on 23rd street made the bed, it is laminate and i added all the cool hardware from Home Depot.
I love this space. Unfortunately since this studio is inhabited by two men and very much apeals to my masculinity, I fear that my polar opposite girlfriend would not touch black walls, black drapes, and multiple skulls with a ten foot pole. I love pretty much every detail of this home, but alas she does not share my lifelong romance with the macabre. The only thing we both would agree on is the amazing white bowl of grenades laid out like an evil Martha Stewart's fall pinecones.
oh yeah @ mojones & bkrafi, The cockfight painting is a pretty bold choice and worth an immature giggle but I love Keith Herring and maybe if you knew more about him and his invaluable contribution to political/ socially concious street (or in his case subway) art, you would understand the absurd tounge in cheek humor and be as jealous of this signed peice as me.