Brownstone Voyeur: Life in a Stylish Shoebox in Boerum Hill

Back by popular demand, Brownstone Voyeur, a collaboration between casaCARA and OTBKB. For more pictures and text go to CasaCARA.

THIS APARTMENT IS REALLY SMALL. If you dance like a dervish, I wouldn’t recommend doing it in Jane Rosenbaum’s apartment.

Just two rooms totaling 375 square feet in a pre-war State Street rental building, it’s nevertheless got a ton of charm and some good DIY ideas, yours for the copying. Such as:

• Limited color palette — white and periwinkle blue – keeps the tiny space from looking too busy. (This takes discipline! I intended to use only blue and white in my Springs cottage, but keep bringing in things that are red, brown, green, orange…)
• Secondhand furnishings were all painted periwinkle to unify them.
• Round table folds, below, to store against a wall. Open, it seats six for dinner.

• There’s a Murphy bed, below, behind a white curtain in the living room (and you thought they were only in Marx Brothers movies!)

• Salvaged chandelier in the living room is painted white and used with candles. Bookshelf up high makes use of every inch.

Moving on to the only other room, the kitchen:

• Galvanized buckets organize utensils, below.

• The cabinets are painted with chalkboard paint; Jane uses them to display the menu for dinner parties.