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A three-year renovation of a New York apartment isn’t out of the ordinary. But a three-year, purely cosmetic redo of a 400-square-foot one-bedroom? That’s the sort of timeline that says a lot about the fastidiousness of the person responsible. “I didn’t want to rush the process,” explains Garrett Carter of the slow-and-steady approach he took to updating his home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a one bedroom with tall ceilings and gracefully curved windows of the sort that enrapture prewar aficionados. “Because the apartment is so small and narrow, I had to be very thoughtful about the selections,” says the Houston native, who moved to the city to attend the New York School of Interior Design and is now a designer at Stephen Sills Associates. “It took time to find the right pieces that were the appropriate size and that looked elegant in the space.”
The designer sits beneath a canvas that he painted in shades of white and cream. The armless sofa is from Castlery.
William Waldron
The fireplace was painted brick before Carter refinished it in plaster of paris; above it hangs a photograph found at Michael Dawkins Home and artwork by Carter’s aunt, Heather Becker.
William WaldronBut first, Carter had to lay the right canvas. “I knew that the surfaces were going to play a crucial role in enhancing the quality of the apartment, so I started with the walls,” he says. That part alone took a total of six months—again, a seemingly exorbitant amount of time, until you realize that every square inch was painstakingly finished by Carter himself. On the living room walls, he applied layers of biscuit-beige plaster; for the bedroom, he opted for a chalky limewash, thinned out and brushed vertically over mauve paint, which “gave the space so much more depth and interest.”
The thin wood-plank floors, with their orangey hue, presented their own challenge. Carter’s solution: Simply hide them under old-fashioned wall-to-wall carpet—solid cream-colored wool in the living room, off-white jute in the bedroom—which “instantly made the apartment look larger.” Even the painted-brick fireplace received its own surface makeover, transformed into a modernist, monolithic statement piece via several coats of plaster of paris that Carter sanded down to a clean, matte finish. Mirrored cladding in the firebox provides a sleek finishing touch.
To create the textured wall finish, Carter brushed Sydney Harbour’s Limewash Paint in Cashmere over a solid base coat of Porcelain by Benjamin Moore.
William Waldron
The curtain fabric, which Carter purchased at Mood in the Garment District, is actually leftover material from The Row.
William WaldronFurnishings followed the same rule: Keep it simple, subtle, and sophisticated. “Everything needed to be solid—no patterns—or else the space would immediately start looking too busy and sloppy,” notes Carter. Slowly, he assembled a collection of just-right pieces, including an impressive number of fortuitous New York sidewalk finds, like the steel garden chair picked up from an Upper East Side curb and the petite drinks table spotted outside Bloomingdale’s. A pair of Ultrasuede-covered pedestals, formerly part of a Bottega Veneta window display, were repurposed as coffee table bases; they’re now topped with smoky glass panels that Carter found—naturally—on the sidewalk next to his own building.
A custom Roman shade that spans the full width of the wall makes the petite bedroom feel wider, while a midcentury German glass pendant highlights the tall ceiling. The Louis XVI settee, found at Drouot auction house in Paris, was painted and re-covered in vinyl. “I love the modern textile on an older shaped piece like this,” he says. Jute rug, Beauvais.
William Waldron“It was well worth the wait,” Carter says of the finished apartment. At least, it’s as finished as it can be: “I’m still constantly moving things around and testing them out visually to see what works where and with what,” Carter admits. “I’m never really done with the space.” For him, the reward is in the process itself.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 16 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
