The Cut’s solo “Spring Fashion” print issue features Bad Bunny, Doechii, Rosé, conversation-provoking features, unique fashion and beauty coverage, and more.
RENOVATION DESIGNER Virginie Sommet BUILT 1888 BEFORE A Queen Anne townhouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant. AFTER Mod white spaces with a natural-stone pool out back. tHE GARDEN WAS USED as a garbage dump, filled with cement, glass, toys, wood,” Virginie Sommet says. “It took 85 garbage bags to clean it out.” That was in 2012, when she and her partner, Christian Frederick, bought this 1888 Queen Anne house in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It took a solid year of eight-hour days, five days a week, to finish the project, which required a whole lot of love and refinement—Sommet and Frederick are both artists, and she has her own design firm—but also a lot of lifting and loading. Why was she not intimidated by that? Possibly because, when she was growing up in rural Normandy, she worked…
The reconstruction meant that flexibility was available in a few spots where they wanted it. The closetlike kitchen and formal dining room became one open-plan space. Cotton hid the most identifiably kitchen-y elements, like appliances, behind custom-made cabinetry. Hutches that take their “The whole house was taken down—you can’t even say to the studs, because the whole thing had to be reframed.” RENOVATION DESIGNER & ARCHITECT Billy Cotton and Ethan Pomerance BUILT circa 1895 BEFORE A very creaky Brooklyn brownstone. AFTER Still a classic townhouse layout, but with modern structural underpinnings and an opened-up kitchen. iS THIS A NEW HOUSE? It’s hard to say. When the designer Billy Cotton signed on to help his friends Tina Tyrell and Ethan Pomerance with the renovation of their newly purchased Brooklyn brownstone, he figured he’d advise…
RENOVATION Pembrooke & Ives, DESIGNER Alexia Sheinman BUILT 1888 BEFORE High ceilings but no character, and a problematic second level. AFTER A minimalist marvel with space that belies the square footage. HEN Alexia Sheinman w invited her father in 2011 to see the Greenwich Village loft she was hoping to renovate, she knew she needed more than the usual parental blessing. The apartment, on the fourth floor of a co-op near NYU, was, she says, a “total wreck,” and Dad—Andrew Sheinman, founder of the interior-design firm Pembrooke & Ives—brought decades of experience (and opinions) to the table. “My trick?” says the younger Sheinman. “I took him for a Bloody Mary prior. And that was that.” Alcohol probably wasn’t necessary. Alexia had recently enrolled in the interior-design master’s program at Parsons,…
What does Sweeten do? TRICK OF THE TRADE “Don’t move the plumbing rough-ins. It adds 10 to 15 percent to the budget, and nobody walks into a new bathroom and says, ‘Wow, you moved the toilet!’” We like to say we’re renovation matchmakers. We help homeowners find great general contractors, and once they’re matched, we make sure projects are completed on time and on budget. We ask for references, research licensing, and conduct background checks. What about the intangibles, though? Once the technical measures have been met, the homeowner has to ask, “What’s my communication style? How have I been successful in the past when faced with a similarly costly and stressful decision? Did I work best with a person who was super-fluid or someone who was really structured?”…
Where do you start when framing valuable art? First, do no harm. The second thing is preservation. Whatever environment we make for the work will probably be its home for decades, so we want to be sure the materials we use will, in fact, protect it. Third, we have to ensure that the techniques we use are reversible, so that, 40 years from now, the work can come out of the frame and be in the condition it was in when we installed it. What do a lot of people do that they should avoid? Framers should never mount works. You’re adhering the art to a board, and that’s almost always irreversible. If a collector brings us a work to be mounted, we’ll ask if that’s what the artist wants.…
What advice do you give to people when they’re contemplating a backyard? TRICK OF THE TRADE “Get a vine going indoors. I have a vine going up one of the poles in my loft. It’s taken a couple years, but it cost me only $4.50.” Design based on how you’re actually going to use it: Are you creating a play space for your kids? Do you want it to be a contemplative place where you can sit and read? I start by thinking about the energy of the space, and then I identify the anchoring plants: the hero tree or shrub. Then design in layers from there—two or three are enough. Evergreen shrubs in the background and perennials in the foreground to create a visual focal point. A “hero…
