Before — dark and gloomy kitchen!

After — bright and open. Love the subway tile wall!

My pal Nicholas recently completed a five month renovation project on his studio apartment. When I saw the results, I knew I had to ask him to share them with you. The total place is 450 square feet on the Lower East Side. To create more space, he removed three closets and created created an alcove area (which some would call an East Village-sized bedroom). He tore down a kitchen wall to open up it up into the living area and got all new fixtures and appliances. Though most was done a tight budget (the cabinets are Ikea), he spent extra on the appliances for brand names (Bosch and Fisher Paykel). — Angela M.

Want more details? Click through to the next page for additional photos and the secrets behind some of Nicholas’ great finds!

Here are are few of his sources:

The stools are industrial stools I found online from a place called MEYER MATERIAL HANDLING, at meyermat.com.

The sink and stainless countertops are from a industrial kitchen supply place in Chinatown called MASTER KITCHEN SUPPLNEW YORK, 212-533-2356

The Sputnik (kitchen) light I found in a thrift store and the orange one I inherited from a friend who passed away.

The wall art (Bollywood and Egyptian movie posters) I got on eBay. The limited edition Mike Mills (blue) poster I bought at Kim Gordon’s (Sonic Youth) store X Girl when it was around in the early 90’s. The Warhol/Basquiat flyer I got when I went to their opening.

The three hanging lights above the island are from REJUVENATION HARDWARE*INC. You can’t really tell from my snapshots what they look like. They sell them for $150 each but I bought the parts from them and put them together myself. It took five minutes to put each one together. It cost me $60 each this way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 5:21 am and is filed under decorating, fixing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.