Rayman Boozer believes that a home can't only look ravishing. It also has to feel friendly. "I know friendly doesn't sound like a design word," says the ELLE DECOR A-List designer. "But it's really important to me that when people walk into a home, it feels like they're welcome. Things should be pretty but still feel like, Oh wow, a nice person lives here. Or at least that a nice person decorated."
That sentiment is immediately apparent in a Harlem apartment that the Indiana-born, Manhattan-based principal of design firm Apartment 48 renovated for a family of four. The space is textured and unexpected. The living room, painted in a soothing light blue, features a piano bench upholstered in a purple zebra print, French landscape paintings, gauzy curtains in a blush-pink and lime-green marbled pattern, and antique Chinese pottery. While the combination keeps the eye engaged, the overall ambience is comforting, like a full-body exhale.
In some ways, the project was decades in the making. Boozer's client, a self-described "major Rayman groupie," first met the designer at his cult Chelsea boutique, also called Apartment 48 (since closed), which was furnished like a real home. "I would go in and visit some of my favorite items and pretend it was my own apartment," she says.
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Denne historien er fra October 2024-utgaven av Elle Decor US.
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MORE, PLEASE
Eric Hughes joins forces with Standard Architecture to transform two neighboring homes into a sprawling family compound.
SIZED TO FIT
Designer Nannette Brown reimagines a new-build apartment with unexpected depth, character, and texture.
Play It Cool
In balmy Texas, Ashe Leandro brings urbane style and a chill vibe to a home in a historic district.
Mic Drop
For former talk radio star Tom Joyner, Studio Roda creates an oceanfront pleasure pad with out-of-sight views and disco-era glamour.
EYE IN THE SKY
How do you cozy up a Manhattan high-rise? Call designers Hendricks Churchill.
THE JOY OF KØKKEN
In Brooklyn, a writer transforms her kitchen into a space of warmth and connection, blending personal memories with Scandinavian design.
CURTAIN RAISER
ELLE DECOR partners with designers Christine and John Gachot to refresh an iconic lounge at a New York institution, the Metropolitan Opera House.
The Empire Strikes Back - A 19th-century gem in Cambridge, Massachusetts, gets a tour-de-force restoration thanks to Frances Merrill of Reath Design.
Is it possible to simultaneously go back in time and leap forward? This was the challenge a couple set for themselves upon purchasing a salmon-pink 1869 house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from Longfellow House, the National Historic Site that served as George Washington's headquarters during the revolution. We loved all the beautiful old details of this house, the homeowner says.
Just Like That, But Cheaper. -One writer tried to replicate a classic ELLE DECOR interior in his apartment. Could he do it for $500?
It was all about the green curtains. In 2008, to my great surprise, I was offered a ninemonth fellowship based in New York City. I had lived there twice before, both times unsuccessfully, meaning I had failed to create any kind of significant social life, and so this was a chance not only to do research for my new novel, but also an opportunity to get things right. I swore I wouldn't let the city break me a third time.
And How! - Decorator Nick Olsen transforms a Sag Harbor home into a Hamptons retreat with an irreverent humor.
If you must go to the Hamptons, however-because it is devilishly good fun, after all-you may notice an apparently modest, low-slung cottage on Sag Harbor's Main Street and think, with a comfortable sort of feeling, Now that is how a house should look. Nestled amid the Botox bars, helipads, and club-staurants, it could almost set the sordid world aright both a rebuke and a solution to the chaos that surrounds it. A real home.
