He Made a “Boarded-Up” Window Look Like a Massive Framed Art Piece (No Frame Necessary!)

A frustrating aspect of renting an apartment is that some things, unfortunately, can’t be changed (unless your landlord is super-flexible). For a moment, it might feel like your only option is to live with the unwanted feature. Prop stylist and interior designer John Dittrick experienced this in his 1920s Brooklyn rental apartment.

In John’s apartment, there’s a “boarded-up window” that would have distracted from the cozy, farmhouse aesthetic he created. Rather than accepting it as a permanent eyesore, John enlisted his sister’s help to disguise it.

Hiding the unusable window actually became John’s favorite DIY project in the apartment. At the time of the House Tour, he explained that the window looked like “a big random rectangle with a frame around it. Luckily, my sister Liz is a talented artist, and she did a beautiful painting the exact size of the old window to cover it up.”

The siblings didn’t stop at just the artwork. To make it look more finished, John painted the window trim using gold paint to make it look like a framed piece of art. 

Living in apartments — especially in New York City — can mean having a bedroom window that looks directly into another building (or, worse, someone’s window). I’ve been there! That view doesn’t bring in much natural light anyway, so why not make it look more intentional by copying John and his sister’s project?

What could’ve been a seemingly permanent eyesore became such a standout feature in John’s dining room with a little creative thinking. Plus, the walls are painted Benjamin Moore’s “Bedford Blue” (lightened by 25%), and the rich, sentimental art piece complements the paint and ties the room together.