How an Interior Designer Maximizes Her 650 Square Foot Studio Apartment
Today AD joins interior designer Christie Ward of Ward and Gray to see how she makes the most of her 650 square foot studio apartment in NYC. Small living is the reality for many New Yorkers, and how to maximise that small amount of space is a question on many residents’ lips. How do you effectively fit multiple rooms into one? Can you have both a couch and a bed? Join Ward as she shares her creative journey and thinking when it came to designing her tiny NYC home.
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00:00I really enjoy living in this small space. I feel like it's very practical. It kind of has
00:12everything I need and feels very intimate. I wish I had a bigger house. I'm not joking.
00:19I'm Christy Ward. Welcome to my 650 square foot apartment in New York City.
00:26When I was studying at Parsons, I met my now business partner, Staver Gray,
00:30and we then started Ward and Gray about four years ago, focusing on boutique hotels.
00:36I love designing hotels. I like how they can be experiential and fun, and you can take a bit more
00:42of a risk with them. When designing this apartment, I really thought of it as a hotel.
00:48This space is about the same for a large hotel room, so I thought in the same way.
00:56How do I create rooms within a room? It is a studio apartment, but I wanted to have a dining
01:02space, a living space, a workspace, and creating all those little nooks was something very important
01:08to me. The first time we walked through the apartment, every single wall was a different
01:13color. So there were avocado green walls in the living room, pink and purple walls in the
01:17bathroom and in the kitchen, and I was excited because I saw all this opportunity here. So I
01:22started drawing all these options for the floor plans. The idea was to bring as much
01:27function as possible into it. This is our living room.
01:39When we first saw this apartment, one of our favorite things was that we were just across
01:43from two parks, actually, so you get a lot of greenery in the space and you kind of get a
01:49break from the city. So I wanted to bring that color through into the fabrics here.
01:54I had photoshopped this room with a really deep navy first, but then when I got here and started
02:00putting color on the walls as test runs, I saw that the lighter color just really opened up
02:05the space more and that's kind of what we needed here. For our chandelier, we had it made with a
02:11glassmaster and I pulled that same green that you see from the park and on the wall sconces
02:17into the chandelier with the light blue that's also in our kitchen. So it just kind of helped
02:22to tie that room together. The sofa has been with us through our whole time in New York,
02:27and when we moved in here, we thought, why not keep it? So we decided to reupholster it in these
02:32really fun and lively colors. And then we have this credenza on this side, which is just kind
02:37of the focal point of the room and it kind of showcases the art. These are fish I found. They're
02:43little ceramic ones. Every summer we like to go to Praiano and in their alleyways, they stick
02:49ceramic fish into the stucco walls and I always thought that was such a beautiful idea. And so
02:54I've been collecting them, kind of thinking of doing that for a future project or house.
03:01I love this lamp in the corner as well. It's really fun because you can kind of tilt it
03:05if you're reading here, just hanging out. I thought what was nice is that it just kind of
03:10makes the room feel a bit taller being installed higher. It just creates a lot of height in the
03:14space. This room used to be a lot bigger because it was an open floor plan before for the bed and
03:22the living space. We did decide to cut it off and make it two spaces so that we had more privacy
03:27into the bedroom. And I think that helped to create a more intimate space here. To us, I
03:32think making it smaller actually made it a bit more functional.
03:43This is our bedroom. So we're just off the living room which we separated by this glass
03:50and metal divider. We knew we wanted to have some sort of separation between the living room and the
03:56bedroom and so I came up with the idea to do a glass and metal divider, something I did previously
04:02in a project for Soho House. We were trying to separate there the bedroom and the bathroom but
04:07here I thought that was a great solution for privacy. We were really deciding between a ribbed
04:13glass or a clear glass and ultimately I really wanted to get that natural light when I woke up
04:18in the morning. Sometimes I like to just hang out in bed, have a cup of coffee on the weekends and I
04:25wanted to feel like it was morning and I could see what was happening in the city without feeling too
04:29disconnected. So that's why we ultimately decided to go with the clear glass. This bed I designed
04:36with a factory actually in Portugal and the fabric we custom designed for the bed. So we've pulled
04:42out that green that's in the wall sconces and used the same color to create this hand-blocked
04:47stripe. My favorite detail of this bed is the fringe at the base which is really fun and playful.
04:54The position of the bed was important. At one point I had moved it over to the side and played
04:59around with a little bedside table but ultimately you really wanted the space on either side of the
05:04bed to just free up the space, feel a little lighter and not like you're smushed up into a corner.
05:11The challenge I think with living in a small space is having self-control not to buy everything you
05:16see in an antique shop or when you travel you just have to know what you need and not over
05:22purchase but it is nice to collect.
05:30This is our kitchen. When we first saw this space the previous owner had cabinets that were on
05:38either side of us and we felt like we wanted to open it up. With this space we really wanted it
05:44to function as a kitchen but also as a workspace. So we actually cut this countertop in here to
05:50create this little nook and we added the bar stools and this is actually what we use as a
05:54little workspace and then we added these upper shelves here so we can just put our little objects
06:00and then in the cabinets we actually used this clear glass on top so that it felt more open and
06:07we also had beadboard done at the back of the cabinet just to add that nice little detail.
06:13The biggest challenge with this space is it's very narrow so we had to be really thoughtful
06:18about what we were putting in here. We knew we had to have a full-size range and fridge but the
06:25idea to hide the fridge away in this panel really helped so it doesn't feel like a ton of equipment
06:30it just kind of looks like nice thoughtful cabinetry. And then here we did this marble
06:35shelf that's open and we just store little objects on here and things we collect but I
06:40think it makes the space kind of feel less like a kitchen and and more like another room of the house.
06:46There's this painting here by the amazing Frankie Thorpe and we commissioned her to do it based off
06:52Praiano, a place we go every summer. Frankie actually included this glass from our Moncada
06:57home collection Spike and we named him after our favorite character from Notting Hill.
07:03We went with Ferrum Ball light blue for the cabinetry in here and we felt like that gave it
07:09a very calm feel it just feels kind of soft and nice and then we use a Honcur marble for
07:15the countertops and that just lightened everything up even more. We're really lucky to have this
07:22window here that looks out to a beautiful park so that brings in a lot of light. We used a nice
07:27linen sheer and I think that just creates this ambient glow. What I love about this space is it's
07:34really multifunctional so when I'm here cooking or chopping my husband can kind of perch on these
07:39bars tools and hang out and it's just nice in such a small space to be able to both be in here
07:46and be doing two things at once but it still works. If I could change something about this
07:53space I might add a door because we do get some light leakage into the bedroom mostly because
07:58these are sheer curtains but I think it's worth it for the nice arch we get coming into the space.
08:10This is our dining nook. Previously this was one big wide corridor. The old owner had a big
08:18cabinet here and it was kind of overwhelming the space. It felt very tight. This was one of the
08:23things I wasn't sure if I was going to invest in. On the floor plan it felt like maybe it wanted
08:28to stay a wide passageway into the living room and bedroom but I'm actually really happy I did
08:33this because it created a whole new room within this room and it's one of the most used spaces in
08:39our house. We decided to eat into this wall to create this built-in millwork piece. We did it
08:45in the same light blue since it's right across from the kitchen. I then added the same beadboard
08:50details that's behind the kitchen cabinets and this just created a ton of storage for us. So on
08:55the right and left side we have wardrobes here and then below the little nook bench we also have
09:01storage. When we have people over our friends can kind of hang out here perch on these chairs
09:07and then I'm in the kitchen but it's very social because there's no door
09:11and so everyone just kind of gets to mingle.
09:19So with small spaces I feel like storage is always the biggest issue so for us
09:23adding this whole corridor of closets was really impactful for us. These were formed by our
09:30contractor and he was using this kind of bendy plywood that took the corner and then he hand
09:36plastered over. This is actually a art deco building it was built in the 30s and the
09:43plaster was original to the building so we wanted to make sure we used that here as well.
09:54This is our bathroom. When we first started doing the layouts for this space we toyed with the idea
10:01of making the bathroom bigger but ultimately I thought storage was more important for our clothes
10:06and things like that. I think it was the right decision in the end. We have so much and trying
10:12to pack it all into a studio can be tough so I think the storage was a better use of space.
10:17The bathroom is quite tight so we used this light blue color to open it up and make it feel
10:22a little bit larger. I couldn't find a 24 inch wide vanity off the shelf so I really had to
10:30custom make this one. It's a very tight space so easing the corners of the backsplash really helped
10:37and I think makes it feel less angular and gives a nice kind of flow. The mirror has these eased
10:43edges. It's actually a polished nickel but I thought it just spoke to the rest of the apartment
10:48with the curves. I used the same sconce that I used throughout the house with that green just
10:54to tie in the colors. The whole process took us about a year but I feel like it wasn't that
11:07grand moment when you walk into a space and it was finished because I little by little was
11:10finding furniture and lights and it's still never really done. This was the first apartment I have
11:17designed for myself. I think having done it once now I just want to keep doing it again and again.
11:23The important thing I think in a studio apartment is just making sure everything
11:27is functional and has a purpose. I think we've managed to fit a lot in here. We have our little
11:35dining space, a bedroom, living room, work space. I think that's quite unique in a
11:40studio and also I guess our things make it unique. They feel uniquely us.