apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Really, really well done. I used to live in an unfinished loft with very similar dimensions, and this was the kind of storage/living solution that would have made me want to stay there longer than I did. I'm so impressed.

That's really beautiful, but as a mother of a 14 month old, I can only see accidents waiting to happen.

I agree with Meredith. It's beautiful, but terrifying. I'd worry about tripping while carrying the baby, or about the baby tumbling off the lofted areas once (s)he's mobile.

Absolutely fantastic. This is exactly why I come back to AT. What a celebration of small spaces!

I am sure adjustments will be made as the baby grows to accommodate different safety concerns.

No doubt, it's beautiful. But the safety hazard would be such a hassle to me.

I dunno. Depends on the baby. Our son is very cautious and tends to recognize danger. Our daughter, otoh, is pretty reckless.

The platform is a great idea as it creates a more 3-D space. Some of these super-tall but small footprint loft spaces make me claustrophobic.

Beautiful and ingenious space!

I think as far as kid-proofing, I'd merely go for switching for some "normal" stairs, installing the aforementioned railing, and for at least a year or two, adding some of those kinda ugly but very useful self-stick, rubber bumpers you can buy at kid stores for the corners of the coffee table and dining table.

Gorgeous studio! I would love to live there. No pictures of the kitchen or bed area though?

I agree, it definitely needs a little kid-proofing though. That coffee table is awesome, but it looks so dangerous for a toddler!

Gorgeous, thanks for sharing. This is what AT is supposed to be about. I'm moving my loft slowly and surely in this direction and wondering how much head room there is in the sleeping space? How much below? Thanks!

I really hate the snark that so many express for other people's homes on this site, but in this case, I just can't contain myself. It's clever and well-designed, but unsuitable for a child. Those stairs look like part of the apparatus at the climbing wall of my gym. I don't think *I* could navigate them safely, and I've been independently mobile for more than 30 years. And the drawer passed off as a playpen?! I get that die-hard New Yorkers will sacrifice space to stay in the city. But this is an argument in favor of moving to the burbs once baby arrives.

A few words come to mind: ingenious, creative, beautiful, sophisticated. Also: toddler death trap.

Toddler death trap?!
Are we forgetting what kind of dangerous things we survived as children? Psychotic junk at the playground, the good ol' faulty Jolly Jumper, actual playpens far more dangerous than a drawer, that's for sure.

Didn't anyone ever tell you people it's rude to comment on how people raise their children? I, for one, think a child raised in a stylish, creative, and sunny New York apartment are likely better off than a kid raised in a round-cornered, suburban gated community.

I'm not a klutz but I'm pretty sure I'd eventually break my neck on those staggered steps.

WHY, WHY, WHY MUST OTHER PEOPLE HAVE SO MUCH TALENT AND I HAVE SO LITTLE. WHY?

Very hip and beautiful

Guys, if you read the article they say that safety additions are in the works:

For now, Teo is a toddler and doesn't take up much room. The current solutions work wonderfully and will be even better with the added guardrails and protective elements built onto the stage. As Teo elongates, and outgrows his crib, there is enough room in the crib alcove to incorporate a child's bed.

Phase II will include a transparent low wall for the upstairs loft, a hand rail for the precarious steps/boxes up to the loft, and a media center that will serve as a partial wall for the platform area--all built by LJ.

Ummm that's bad:

Biggest Embarrassment: Elena’s mother almost falling to her death when she stayed with us a few months ago. In an effort to maintain the clean esthetic of the apartment, we did not provide hand rails.

Very well done, especially the storage solutions and general use of space. Fresh and airy with clean lines.

Beautiful and dangerous. I don't think you should be surprised by the comments and concerns.

My toddler just did a running, trip, slide into the wooden entertainment console... and got a black bruise the size of a penny on his cheek, while my 5 month old is trying to crawl, and I worry about his head hitting the wood floor. I can't IMAGINE having small children, ESPECIALLY toddlers in the apartment --- as cool as it is to visit, I wouldn't want to live there. Concrete floors. No rails. YIKES!

love the built in cabinets, can you come here?

Conceptually interesting, but they seem both awkward and unsafe to use with or without handrail for ages 1 year and up. These actually to code?

Amen, theserovingeyes. I'm delighted to finally meet some parents who aren't swathing their infant in metaphorical bubble wrap. Somehow despite the fears of the nervous ladies commenting here, their baby has made it to toddlerhood without death or major disfigurement, despite the presence of concrete and and absense of handrails.

Guess whose child is going to be better at risk assessment in 10 years' time?

Guess also whose child is going to have wonderful memories of their cool, exciting childhood home?

Thank you, Blandwagon.
(Not surprisingly, my spellcheck does not recognize "Blandwagon" as a word.)

while I'm not totally okay with their safety standards here in Europe (have a big problem with the lack of pool enclosure and bike helmet regulations), I have to say that I don't see this apartment as quite the death trap that others do (and I have 2 young children).

In this part of Europe, most homes have either tiled or stone floors thoughout, and subfloors are concrete. Extremely narrow stairs without handrails are not unusual either - even in homes with young children. The kids survive (they learn!).

The design is very nice, but not safe. The steps are so small, the mom might trip on it. Not fit for toddlers, believe me.

Love it! Does anyone know where the bar stools came from?

the playpen drawer is genius!

inspired by robert downey jr's apt in 'less than zero?' or is it spader's? think so...

I love it. It's the Swiss army knife of apartments! Very ingenious.

enough about the "dangers" to the child. i think the apartment is gorgeous, ingenious and a testament to the owners' creativity and hard work. well done!

i used to live in this building (i now live across the street) and i am familiar with this apartment line. what someone who is not familiar cannot appreciate is how this work has brightened what was once a dark and weird space (it is fairly narrow and has very high ceilings). i am stunned by the transformation!

note to LJ and elena -- could you post your contact information, i'd be interested in seeing if you'd be available to do some work for me in my new place.

great job!

I really don't like it, everything seems very awkward. Do you have to move the first set of steps to get to the playpen!? And how do you walk up the stairs to the loft upright? That loft looks like torture. It's better than the original but homemade stairs are not something I'd trust.

They completely redesigned and rebuilt their apartment for their child? We should all have been so lucky. I'm guessing if the design proves unsafe in any way, this resourceful pair will address it. Fantastic, stylish job.

I love, love, love it! And I'm going to use the stairs-as-storage idea! Thanks for the inspiration! Just gorgeous!

Thank you for all of the comments and the debate. I wanted to respond and add a few myself.

First, a little history:

My wife and I decided in January to do the renovation with little funds and only my body to contribute to the cause. (It all started with wanting to fix the creaky parquet floor). She and our new son left for Italy to visit family for a month in January while I took a two week hiatus from work and did the work with the help of friends. My ambition was to complete the entire thing including kitchen and bath before they returned but finances and time ran out and we put the project on hold until now. Understanding the realities of trying to do all of the work yourself was a true reality check. We are revving up the renovation again in a few weeks and I will be doing some of the work again myself and finally getting a contractor to help push the project to completion which will include the kitchen and bath renovation and safety measures for the little guy and us as originally planned.

Responding to many of the safety concerns that were voiced; I was also worried about Teo injuring himself in the interim before finishing the work but in the 5 months that he has been crawling and the last month of walking he has figured it all out for the most part. Sure, there are bumps and scratches but he keeps away from the edges and we keep a good eye on him. The concrete floor poses no problem and he loves to play with his toys there as well as the surface being easy to clean up.

Other comments:

The bar stools are ca. 1920 drafting chairs that I was given from an architect who was closing his office in NY.

The chairs are Thonet bent plywood chairs we found on the street in the Village in one of those New York scavenger moments where this guy carried them out to the street and everyone on the sidewalk stops and rushes for them. (We got there first).

I built the coffee table in the architecture school wood shop in Lexington, KY a number of years ago. One side is made from laminating old oak tobacco palettes together and the glass is cantilevered off of two small pins at the other end. The only issue with Teo is that he likes to try to climb on it.

The sleeping loft had a 5 foot ceiling when we moved in with a hard-to-navigate ladder accessing it so that you had to turn and go down backwards in the morning. It is listed in the building records for all of the apartments as a storage loft, which by code, it is. We just happen to sleep up there which greatly opens up the loft. You get used to bending over to get into bed.

The alternating tread stairs are an old convention and are surprisingly easy to navigate and are done to shorten the stair run to half of what it would have been. Also allows for a playful design piece to be made. My embarrassing moment comment about my mother in law was exaggerated a bit. If the loft was a legitimate bedroom the stairs would require a guard rail that would extend across the loft space at 36 inches high.

The smaller alternating tread / orange and blue playbox has adhesive backed, fabric floor glides and moves very easily for access to the playpen drawer. We used the same glides on all the furniture and they work very well. They do need to be replaced every 6 months on the chairs.

We bought those self stick bumpers for the corners and stuck them on everything. Teo immediately went over to each one, peeled them off and put them in his mouth. We were worried more about the adhesive poisoning him than the rare occasions where he bumps his head and cries for 30 seconds so we tossed them out.

The drawer as a playpen actually works. Didn't know how that one would turn out but he loves it and it's great for putting him and all his toys in for a half hour of calm. He likes to hide and make his own space in there and it is padded and up on rubber casters so that the noise from banging things together is dampened to our neighbor downstairs.

If you would like to contact us or see more of our work, we are: Porterfanna Architecture: www.porterfanna.com

what a lovely and very personal space. creative parents - lucky baby :-)

lj66,
Thanks for your amazing comments and responses - and again, it's great to see your iterative, responsive design process, where your experience is used to continually improve the space. For most spaces, there's one spasm of design and then a lot of coping or putting paint on it. Thanks again.

Teo is indeed one lucky baby to be growing up in this space. I think this is a lovely, well-thought-out space.

What I admire most is the pull-out ironing board! Wish I had one in my apartment.

I also have to add: This whole over-obsession with safety and coddling kids is so American. You have to raise your kids in the burbs... you gotta be kidding me. Yeah, the burbs are soooooo much safer.
Exactly the kind of thinking that leads to Americans inhabiting monster homes with humongous carbon footprints, driving their safe kids from soccer practice 50 miles to piano practice 30 miles to boyscout meets, etc.

Let's think out of the box a little, try to make better use of a smaller space. We've got to change this thinking to save the planet and our own species.

I spent my first 4 years in a very tiny Hong Kong apartment. My parents kept their glass coffee table and also an electric radiator for those rare times it got chilly during the winter. Guess what? I burned my hand on the radiator. My parents had told me not to, but I put my hand there anyway. I still have a slight scar. And guess what, I never forgot from then on never to put my hand there again.

Of course, there's moderation in everything. That doesn't mean you make make knives and hot pots accessible to kids. But please use some common sense too and allow your kids to figure out some things for themselves. As you can see from LJ's feedback, Teo has learned to avoid the sharp edges. This is part of a child's own learning process. I bet Teo will be come a much smarter, savvier kid than some overly coddled and swaddled kid growing up in a McMansion, being driven around in a huge SUV (they're safer!).

I know one thing at least -- Teo will grow up with a fantastic aesthetic sensibility. And he'll be growing up in Brooklyn, a really fun, exciting, beautiful place.

The difference between the before and after pictures - WOW!

What a fantastic apartment.

I had the same thought about baby proofing, then remembered that babies love stairs and steps above all things. Our son used to pull out drawers to climb to the top of chests and bureaus.

I checked out your website and look forward to seeing more of your work. Gosh, I wish I was an architect - instead I'm a bloody lawyer.

Good to see the UK College of Architecture represented. Nice work.

Brilliant apartment! I love the custom made storage. Bravo.

Where did you buy the book shelf system? I found yours better looking than the elfa in the container store. Are they sturdy enough to hold all the books? I'm looking for something similar (2' wide) so I went to Home Depot and the guy talked me out of it - he said that this kind of system will stay on but it will eventually ruin the dry wall. I'm not sure what I should do......Any advice? Thanks.

This is a wonderful display of creative imagination and I imagine Teo will learn a lot from just navigating the apartment. I might have missed it, but where can i find a lamp like the one in photos 35 and 36?
thanks

Un bellissimo appartamento, complimenti.