When designers Dale Saylor and Joe Williamson decided to upgrade to a 2-bedroom apartment in Chelsea to account for their growing family, they had just one rule: everything they didn't own already had to be DIY. Come with us on a tour of their apartment to see how they did it.
One of the couple’s many weekend DIY projects is this pedestal built from books.
The living room furniture–a wool sofa from Cite and a vintage driftwood coffee table, an eBay find–moved with the family.
A lampshade that the couple made from strips of vintage fabric and sequins hangs over the dining table.
The pillows are a high/low mix: “We made the plaid ones from leftover Paul Smith fabric, the others are from Ikea.”
The coffee table had a glass top until their son toppled it. It’s now simply a piece of linen-covered, 36-inch plywood finished with an edging of copper tape to continue the metallic highlights.
A teepee from Amazon is pitched in the corner.
A resin bowl from Hong Kong rests on a media console made from barn wood that came out of the family’s house upstate.
The cloth-draped tripod light is Philip Stark’s Rosy Angelis Floor Lamp.
Sequestered at the far end of the living/dining room, the open kitchen, with midnight granite counters and laminate cabinets, is “pretty nice as far as rental kitchens go,” says Joe.
The couple wrapped the existing hardware with textured duct tape.
The master bedroom has a pillow headboard wall inspired by Martin Margiela's cloudlike installation at Les Sources de Cauladie hotel in Bordeaux.
Dale and Joe made their bedside lights from cloth-covered twisted cord sourced at Sun Dial Wire and brass lamp parts from Grand Brass (which also sells half-chrome bulbs).