floating shelves that work

A client with a beautiful home in the east village wanted a few more shelves that matched their existing shelves which were made of white oak.















The catch was, these shelves would need to be floating shelves... but also be able to actually hold a shelf full of books.
















I matched them perfectly. and the shelves are rock solid.















I also installed the flatscreen tv...

not made in China

Vincent took a look at my blog and loved what he saw. He gave me a call with a few projects in mind.

One of the project was inspired by a table he saw at CB2.




He scanned the image and forwarded it to me... "yup, I can do it, but it's a good idea for me to stop by and go over the exact measurements first"
After going over exactly what he wanted... the design was altered to fit his needs:

1) it's a bit higher then the CB2 table (he's tall and wants to be able stand well using his laptop without having to slouch over the table),

2)it's also a bit narrower and shorter in length so it fits his kitchen space perfectly

3) made of natural wood

4) a few matching shelves above the table

5) a few minor adjustments so the table will fit well with the floor trim and other furnishing in the kitchen.

6)easily disassembled for when he moves

I didn't look at the cost of the CB2 table, I just based the cost of the table on my estimated time and materials... only right before I wrote this post did I compare the prices... and I was surprised. Including higher grade material, the extra shelves, delivery and installation the cost was not much higher than the CB2 table (but that's including extra stuff and a visit to measure and careful planning for a custom unit).

And it's definitely constructed better too, using higher quality material and detailed craftsmanship...



















I think it looks amazing. It totally improved his kitchen space.
and it was a better deal than CB2, and he's supporting local people.

Roger's masterpiece

roger has an apt on the ues, his front widow faces central park. He is an art collector and artist himself. He also loves gardening and has an amazing plant collecting that overflows from his front window onto the fire-escape. The window grill is something he designed himself to hold planters. When it's open the plant life fill his living room in a natural loving way.
I worked with a faux-finisher and together with input from a handful of designers we completely transformed his living room. I built two bookshelves (the bottom portion with two drawers) w/ mirrored backs. One large cabinet w/ mirrored doors and side. Bracketless narrow shelves for artwork and bracketless triangle shelves. Along with rehabing the fireplace and random other odds and ends.

bracketless narrow shelves and bookshelf.

roger's artwork

large cabinet all mirrored, inside adjustable shelves.

triangle shelves

view of planter window grill open.

view from kitchen.

fireplace with artwork.

boookshelf w mirrored back

bottom portion of bookshelf: 2 draws
.

Lance and Harry

Lance and Harry have been carefully crafting an extremely stylish home in midtown, for it seems, quite a few years. When they came to me with the wish to spice up their office space, I was excited and up for the challenge. They needed more space (as usual), less clutter, better usability etc... After going over a few different design ideas we settled on this one:


Basically 6 boxes set on top of each other (on one corner), and storage/desk support box. I was happy to see that my contribution to there very hip pad was a success. I wish I had more pics of their apartment but that's another post I guess.



-I did a second smaller project for them as well. A simple book self for the bedroom.

Perfect Eye

Here is a perfect example of not doing a whole lot to get great results. Jane has a wonderful sense and knowledge of style and design. It was good to meet her and help improve her living space. She needed a more workable space in her walk-through kitchen area and we decided two slim shelves would solve this issue.

I added a slight curve to the lower shelf to keep it from seeming boxy (it's a narrow shelf so even an inch does make a difference). After custom fitting it into her kitchen and painting it gloss white we both thought it was beautiful.

Yes we are both nerds.
I hung some shelves as well, they looked so good I had to include
them.

Jane is a nature with decorating, as soon as I finished installing them, she set this up right away.
I love the red.

karla and family ELFA!

I first met Karla right as her and her family were moving into this new loft. She needed someone to install Elfa shelving and help create workable storage for many areas in the loft. I'm not going to show everything (cuz it would be boring and redundant), but I wanted to post a few examples of Elfa shelving (and what I've done with it). It's by no means my favorite subject to work with. I dont find it extremely pleasing to look at... etc.



But, I do think that of all the choices in storage systems, it's the best (for the money) that I know of. It's fairly quick and painless to put up, it does have a basically nice clean look to it, its durable, easily changeable, the Container store has always been helpful, anytime I have called with any questions... and I believe a lot of the Elfa shelving components can be returned if not needed....
That said... I spent a few days at Karla's screwing Elfa hangers to the walls. She had alot of Elfa stuff from her previous living space, so the plan was to try and reuse as much of it as possible. Some of the pictures I'm showing I got a bit more creative, to make the shelving work better in the new space...



This is May's room. Karla's daughter. We tore out the old stuff in the room and installed Elfa for a lot of the shelving, and desks. I customized some of the shelving to make it work better in this situation. Her room ended up looking beautiful.