Name: Heather Chontos, Kodie (12) and Zana (3), and dog Marvin
Location: Clinton Hill — Brooklyn, New York
Size: 1000 square feet
Years lived in: 3 years — rent
If this post title seems to have a lot of adjectives to describe the home, we felt it only fitting consider the creative woman renting this space happens to wear a lot of hats herself. Heather Chontos is an artist, furniture designer, stylist, illustrator, mom, business owner and more, and she filled the Brooklyn loft she shares with her two daughters full of fun creations, thoughtful finds and an eclectic mix of styles.
Enjoying an impressive 14-year-long career in prop styling and set design, working with folks like Tom Dixon and publications like Elle Decor, Real Simple, House and Garden, Oprah, Country Living, (and more) and life as a successful abstract painter, Heather has recently debuted Milk Farm Road, which will sell original art, print editions of art, handmade or repurposed goods, furniture made from reclaimed wood, textiles and ceramics (by Michele Michael of Elephant Ceramics).
She moved back to Brooklyn after spending some time living in Montana (though she'll continue to live and work between both locations) and we love how the interior of this loft shows hints of style from not only her long career but also all the places she's lived.
"At the studio [she'll have a little studio/shop in Montana opening March 1st in Bozeman, Montana] I will be holding workshops and classes about design and painting and there will also be gatherings. My goal is that everyone walks away at the end of an event with new knowledge and resources for beautiful things. On January 28th, the first inspired gathering by Milk Farm Road will happen here in Brooklyn and will be inspired by the color "blue." I have invited 8 special guests who all have to bring something that "blue" inspires ranging from art and food to music and I have created a menu with food stylist Chelsea Zimmer."
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Eclectic, modern farmhouse, rustic? I would think that all of those apply depending on the day of the week. The thing that attracted me to this space besides the big walls where I could hang lots of big art, were the old wooden beams. I love these beams!
Inspiration: Elements of color and form. There is so much to pick up on one's radar if you pay attention to what is around you, little shapes here on a napkin, an old painting in a restaurant, a color of a painted door. I am trying to pay more attention to the places and spaces I pass through.
Favorite Element: The randomness of all the different elements. I like that it feels kind of old in here and mixed up, like a collection without being one at all.
Biggest Challenge: My home is right next to the [Brooklyn-Queens Expressway] and it can be quite noisy at times. Otherwise it is a really great space that lends itself to a lot of abuse by my kids and great for having people over for dinners and drinks!
What Friends Say: That they love this space. I think they like hanging out over here when we have our little gatherings. The apartment is in a great old building called "the chocolate factory;" it was actually a chocolate factory in its heyday! The loft has one actual bedroom and the rest is open, and the ceiling is really high at like 20 feet. The hallways in the building are a crazy lavender and blue stripe and feel a little sterile, and when they come in here for the first time they do not expect how homey this place feels in comparison to what they just walked through.
Biggest Embarrassment: The closets. There are a few you should not open for your own safety.
Proudest DIY: Well some of the furniture I designed with my amazing carpenter and furniture maker Rob Fontes back in Montana. He is building and helping design all the furniture pieces for Milk Farm Road like the spindle leg shelving unit and the farmhouse dining table. He is amazing and we are working on more ideas as we speak.
Biggest Indulgence: My new crazy antique bed from the 1930s, all hand-turned wood. It has the most incredible fabric headboard. I got it at a thrift store, but it wasn't cheap. I don't really spend a lot of money on furniture. I brought a lot of things back from Montana that I found at antique stores. I like the find!
Best Advice: I think the best advice I can give, which I tell any of my design clients, is that your home needs to be lived in, it should feel good to you, it should fit your style, and that yes it is possible to mix old and new, to have modern and rustic together. There is a fine balance, but it is a fun mix of styles to go together that play off of each other. Also, colors and different shades of wood are really important. If they are not right they can affect everything in a space in a negative way, so be careful and pay attention to things that you buy or have at home before you buy new pieces to add to it. Lastly, it does not need to cost a fortune to make an incredible feeling to your home. Also, everyone should have a cow skull!
Dream Sources: I love Sawkille Furniture, I have one of his stools, my walnut stool next to my shelf, that I got from an art trade with Jonah, his work is incredible. I would love to have one of everything he makes, including his artwork and sculptures!!!
Resources of Note:
FURNITURE
The majority of my furniture is from my line Milk Farm Road.
LIGHTING AND TILE
I have gotten some great lighting from Restoration Hardware. I also love the tiles at Modwalls; they have the most amazing tile. I want to re-do the entire bathroom here in their dots tiles and they have oversized glass subway tile that is amazing!
LINENS
All of my linens, towels and bedcovers are from Eileen Fisher. Her linens and silks are just amazing at Garnet Hill. Some cushions are from Dwell, but most of them are from my new fabric line.
ACCESSORIES
Most of my stuff is antique, the handpainted folding screen I have had since I was a kid and my mother recently gave it to me again. The handpainted dresser I found down an alleyway antique shop here in New York, it is an incredible piece. I found it the same day as I found my bed; it was like a goldmine to find those two things!! I made all of my curtains, and I want to paint them like I did my shower curtain, though with huge blue stripes handpainted on them. I did that in my house in Montana and I thought it was so fun.
KIDS' ROOM
My kids' room is another diverse collection of things old and new and Ikea. You can't have a kids room without a little Ikea in it, or can you?
ARTWORK
A lot of the artwork is my own, but I am starting to get some work from other amazing artists like James Gallagher, Allyson Mellberg and Stefanie Augustine and photography by Chito Yoshida, she is amazing!
Thanks, Heather!!
Images: Heather Chontos
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The chevron blind with the uneven edge in the kitchen - in my house, it would drive me bonkers; in your house, it's utterly charming.
Lotsa nice things.
Cute puppy.
Intriguing, but I don't think the photography is doing the space justice.
wait - is that a child in the window??? :0
I love the space......
agree with susang i was distracted by the quality of the photos the whole time.
Yes, I agree. Great space and horrrrible photos, so much so that I'd like to see this house featured again in the future with different pictures.
Are those big abstract paintings made by Heather? I love them. And I really enjoy seeing homes like this featured here - ones that aren't heavily styled. This looks like the lived-in homey dwelling of a creative family. I love it!
This is an enviable home! However ...
It's "heyday" and "Eileen Fisher. "Restoration Hardware" should be capitalized.
I'd lose my job if I misspelled a name.
All the windows have window guards-the kid isn't going to fall out.
Jean! As someone who spots typos in professional publications more often than she should, I share your annoyance and genuinely appreciate you pointing them out! I've fixed them.
I adore your 30s bed. Great find! Also, I love the really deep windowsills - makes for great counter storage, and a great little lounge area too! ;)
Lovely and charming space, but I was also distracted by the quality of the photos and had my fingers crossed that the window was at least closed and had security bars or something - eek!
I really like her sensibility, with almost a Bloomsbury Group feel to it.
I'm with the others who commented about the photos not really giving a good sense to this space. I feel like it's a bit grubby and I doubt it looks like that in real life.
I agree with the posters above; the quality of the photography is just awful, and distracts from what seems to be a lovely home. I also don't get much sense of the layout of the apartment.
I love this!! Where did you get your daughter's bedding with the colorful horses on it? Absolutely adorable.
aha! found it on eileen fisher kids!
Seriously, why is that kid in the window...
"the ceiling is really high at like 20 feet"
Those ceilings look more like they're 11-12 feet high. If they were 20 feet high, there would be a lot more space between the tops of tables and the ceiling in the loft.
Beautiful post! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Heather's home and paintings! She is an amazing talent. The photos of Zana are so cute throughout. (Btw, there are window guards....quite clear in the photo if you care to look!)
ohh i love it!
As VIC said, it does have a Bloomsbury feel to it. A fun Brooklyn Bloomsbury feel. Nice to see a REAL home featured . Love it.
It looks messy and like she forgot that Apartment Therapy was coming over to shoot photos that day...refreshing and charming.
BTW, i agree that this house needs a re-shoot. Amazing photographers must be a dime a dozen in Brooklyn.
Amazing, amazing, amazing.
Also, amazing!
it doesn't look 'messy' at all, it's a family home and it looks lived in and loved.
if people read the article correctly, the images were provided by heather herself. at the very least AT should've sent someone out to re-photograph her place.
What a refreshing change from the usual homogenized home photo shoot. I loved that nothing was perfect! It made me think, not only do I love this (real) home, I also would love to get to know these people.
I don't "get it" either. It kind of looks like a student apartment of mishmashed rickety furniture lined up against the walls. It looks open planned, it would probably be better if there were distinct areas defined by rugs, or if ALL of the furniture didn't sit against the walls.
it is beautiful! however, personally, i would NOT hang a cow skull over a bed! the nail is already bent downward!
I thought that some parts were sloppy and some parts were genius. But my favorite was the last shot with the kids. They are precious.
One more thing....I checked out Sawkille Furniture, and it is amazing. I too wouldn't mind having quite a few of the things he makes.
I love the humanness of the space and I think it is cohesive and exciting. Nice to see something different from every other sterile place that is "just so" (much like everyone else's.) Really goofy question, but what kind of fridge is that? I've been looking for a smaller one and that looks good to me.
I do wish to see the antique bed.
So many people distracted by the quality of photos and child in the window - it is pretty funny.
Overall I think the design is absolutely wonderful and pretty unique - love the style of rustic modern going on.
I think one of the pieces I adore most is the hand-painted dresser you found the street! That is definitely a heck of a find - kind of reminds me of the Hammary hidden treasures door chest.
I wasn't distracted by the quality of photos like others, but some nice high-res images would do wonders to see the details in things such as that dresser!
Some people are so unforgiving...I find this place charming.
My fav place to sit when I was a kid was..... on the thick windowsills of our house. What's so odd about that?
I love the Bohemian charm of this very real, unstaged home. I can identify, as a mother who looks after her kids while working throughout the day on the creative product of my own mind... this house we share is never the same place two days in a row - 'cause it's as alive as the people who live here. You keep on rockin' on Heather & co.
Meh.
Haven't your mothers or fathers ever said "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all?" What is the purpose of picking on such trivial things? Why bother saying something negative over saying nothing and just keeping it to yourself? I don't understand it, but I guess to each their own.
The space, however, looks perfectly comfortable, warm, welcoming and imperfect to me, and imperfection is so divinely refreshing sometimes.
"So many people distracted by the quality of photos and child in the window - it is pretty funny."
So many condescending people on AT. Must be nice to be above it all.
I completely agree, Thorndale. Overall, AT, I would appreciate more House Tour photographs of the spaces themselves–how the furniture, furnishings, rooms and dwellers interact with each other, and fewer close-ups of "stuff."
People, please stop the parenting. Do you really think this woman would post a picture of her child in danger?
I agree with the above poster, if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it. Was it my favorite? No. But I did come away with a lot of the items in the tour that I loved. I can't say that I LOVE every single item in every single tour, can you? I think the little girl is quite the ham! You can tell she loves the camera! I actually did like the photography, especially the last photo. As far as the kid in the window, they live in Brooklyn, isn't it standard to hang out on a fire escape or outside window (safety) ledge??
I was very intrigued to see the tour when I read that she's done work for Elle Decor (MY BIBLE!!). But I was underwhelmed. Maybe it is the quality of the photos like several people have pointed out. I can see in certain details the eye of an artist though. I'm sure it is probably better than what it looks here. Adorable kids!
Seriously people. You hang out on the fire escapes in Brooklyn! There are bars. Just LOOK at the picture. Sheesh.
brooklyn mom of two toddler/preschoolers here... lol at all the critics. yes, kids around here hang out on windowsills. you can see the safety bars prominently installed. and guess what... that scooter the little one is swinging around? she rides it out on the sidewalk too.
i liked this space. sweet, rustic, personal and HUGE. i'd take it except i'm married to williamsburg ;)
Oh man, I love it. I really, really do.
I love seeing art all over homes. Up the walls, multiple at once. There is something so comfortable, personal, and inspiring about it! I'm an artist myself and I think it makes you keen on having a collection around you, it feels like home. Love this.
Jessica Rae
www.jessicaraesommer.com
I love the ecelectic mix. It looks lived in, homey, inviting... there's something intriguing around each bend and I like that.
This is by far my least favorite house that I have toured on AT...it is a MESS!
Your children are beautiful!
I love your place. Thanks for sharing!! What's up with the negative comments? Bunch of hypercritical jerks.
I like elements of her style. Very unique! But something about it just doesn't vibe for me. I grew up on a farm and too also live in NYC. I adore juxtaposition, but something seems "off". Just my opinion. Backlash away :)
My husband and I are moving into a studio apartment in a week, so I've been delving into archives and ran across your absolutely lovely home. I NEVER comment on things, but apparently I am now. Photography? Even with some serious ADD I can focus on your beautiful space just fine. And seriously... I'm a speech pathologist and work with kids constantly... I busted out laughing (by myself) seeing your kids and could not quit smiling through the entire collection of photographs. There is nothing more satisfying and oddly comforting than seeing true child-like children-- children who are free and know it. Well done! I am disheartened to see comments with implications-- which are hazy at best-- about parenting. This is about a designer and her space, not a mother and her children. Let's be respectful and considerate, everyone!
Ok I have to ask... Where did you find the fabric for your headboard?! Did you design it? I am seriously in love. I am equally in love with your pieces of furniture-- they are so refreshing. But seriously... any fabric info you have... hand it over!
Thank you!!