棲居美學8 房屋參觀 | 紐約中央公園附近一間充滿珍寶的永恆公寓

Hi, Homeworthy, I'm Alexander. Welcome to my little apartment here on the Upper West Side. Come on in. You're watching Homeworthy, where we believe every home has a story. My name is Alexander Widener. I'm sharing the journey of opening my interior shop and guest cottage in coastal Maine on TikTok. But today, I want to show you my little apartment here on the Upper West Side in New York. Take you for a walk in Central Park, so you can see the beautiful neighborhood that we're so lucky to live in. And if you stick around, I might even show you some of my favorite tips on how to care for your topiaries. When we first moved into this apartment, it was really sort of a blank slate. White walls, ugly boob lights, all of the 1910 character of the building had kind of been lost to the landlord special. And so I knew that I needed to make some design choices to really bring it back to life. So I added in a lot of color, textiles, all of my favorite things, my collections of books and baskets and textiles. And I think, you know, that's what really helped me make it my own. And I spent maybe about six months decorating, going up to New England to collect some antique pieces and to bring them back. And I'm really happy with the result. OK, so we're here in the living room. And the first thing you'll notice is the green paint color. And that was kind of the jumping off point for the space. This is called Green Ground by Farrow and Ball. And it's this perfect, you know, really light, almost sweet green. And, you know, the apartment is right near Central Park. And so I really wanted to bring in some of that green and verdancy that you see out there in the park. I wanted to bring it into the apartment, especially since we face the street. So the green was the jumping off point. And then I wanted to bring in some other natural elements to the room. One of those elements are these 18th century framed prints. These are really beautiful hand-colored prints of birds that I picked up at an amazing estate in Newport, Rhode Island. And, you know, I almost think of them as like birds who have, you know, come in from the park and are hanging out on our wall. And underneath it is one of our favorite things in the apartment. This is our sofa. And my husband works in theater. And it was important for me to, you know, have him represented in the apartment. And so this sofa is something we picked up from the auction of Stephen Sondheim. And Sondheim, of course, was like an amazing composer who wrote some of our favorite musicals. And this was the cheapest thing at his auction. And so it had to come home with us. But it's a really beautiful sofa. And, you know, it has a great story. But it also has really beautiful lines. It's quite comfortable. Big down cushions. Obviously, our little dog, Rudy, loves to take a nap here. And so it's just, you know, a great addition to the space. You might have noticed I have a thing for pillows. I spent my career working in textiles. And I love fabric and color and print. And so I just can't resist layering on the pillows. It might be a little much. But each of these fabrics speaks to me and makes me happy. And so here they all are layered on. I've been shopping for antiques since I was a little kid. And my piece of advice when you're shopping is to only buy what you love. If something calls out to you and speaks to you, I think you should bring it home. It doesn't matter, you know, what era it's from or what design style it is. You can kind of, you know, take all of the things that you love and mix them together. And you'll have a space that's really unique to you. And this is another great object. This is a little 18th-century Italian side table. It's actually a wooden base with a metal tray on top of it. And then, of course, I couldn't resist a Staffordshire lamp. So everyone loves the rug when they come in. And these aren't new. People have been using these rugs, I think, like since the 70s. This one I picked up at an estate sale. It was pretty inexpensive. But you can buy them new online now. And this is another thing that I love, which is just this little needlepoint ottoman. Also came from an estate sale. It was probably $5. But I love, like, the time-worn fabric. And I think there's something really elegant about the shape. Another really great estate sale find is this beautiful Gustavian chair. It's upholstered in one of my favorite fabrics from Brocconi. And it came this way. Again, I think it was $5. And it's such a special chair. Now, have I ever sat in it? Absolutely not. But I think it's so beautiful. And it adds, you know, this sort of, like, pop of red. And I really love the bright green piping. When living in New York, I think it's important to bring plants into your space. I really love topiaries. So I have a bunch of these Myrtle topiaries here. I think they're so charming and beautiful. And especially on, like, an antique wire plant stand. I found this one on Facebook Marketplace. I think, you know, having a collection of plants makes such a beautiful statement. And, again, I think when you're decorating a space, it's all about the layers. And so having objects sitting in front of other objects makes your space feel bigger. It also allows you to show off your collections and your favorite things. I love collecting antique portraits. And this is a, you know, a pretty little, maybe it's, like, 1850s. I think I probably do need to get a new frame for it. But it works in the space, layering some things in front of it. I think only adds to the charm. Because our apartment faces the street, we are in a fifth-floor walk-up. So we have some light, but not a whole lot of light. So I knew that I needed some sort of window treatment here. But I wanted to go, you know, as minimal as possible. So I made these Roman shades from this really pretty Thomas John fabric. And it has this sort of, like, tree motif in these really pretty shades of green. And this is, like, a Central Park reference. But I just did these really relaxed, easy Roman shades, which allow all of the light to come in, but still bring an element of pattern and texture to the window. Obviously, I love the color green. And this room is, you know, filled with green stuff. But this was actually the first piece that I bought for the apartment. This is a little 18th-century plate that I picked up at a flea market in Paris. And the green color of the pattern on the plate was certainly a jumping-off point for the rest of the space. So we've established that I have a pillow problem, but I really have a book problem. And especially when you're in an apartment in New York, there's nowhere to put all your books. So I've just started stacking them on the floor to my husband's dismay. But I think there's something kind of charming about them. And it also, you know, allows them to be out, so I can flip through them if I'm looking for a reference or need inspiration. All of my books are right here on the floor. Another thing that I love in this room are this pair of 19th-century English slipper chairs. And they're in this really beautiful, like, 1980s Brunswick-and-Fee fabric. It is literally shredded, and every time I sit on them, I think it rips more. But I love this fabric so much, and I really don't want to recover them. So I'm in my Mrs. Havisham era with my ratty slipper chairs, but I'm just obsessed with them. I think when you think of decorating a space, the dream is to have no budget. But I find that when I have a small budget, again, I decorated this apartment for a couple thousand dollars, it forces me to become creative. And, you know, I would love to have an endless budget to decorate a space, but honestly, when I'm working with what I have, I think I have more fun. OK, one of my tricks in this room is when we first took the apartment, it had this really ugly brick wall here. And, you know, the red brick just really wasn't my vibe and didn't kind of go with the color story of the room. So I found these vintage draperies at an antique shop, and my husband kindly mounted them on the wall for me. And not only do they help elongate the ceiling, and they add this really beautiful warmth and texture, but they cover the ugly brick wall behind them. Another great trick is using a secretary. I think when you're in a small space, in New York especially, you need your furniture to do double duty. And this secretary does a little bit more than that for us. This is an antique 19th-century piece that we picked up at Housing Works. And not only does it conceal our television, but it also provided me a space to work from home. All secretaries have these desks that sort of flip out. And so this was a perfect place to jump on a call, take a meeting, answer some emails. It has a few drawers which provide great storage. And actually, the bottom drawer hides my husband's PS5, because obviously that doesn't fit into the scheme. We found this secretary just at Housing Works here in the city. It's the most amazing thrift shop, and all of the proceeds go to benefit people living with AIDS. On top of the secretary, I think it's a great place to display objects. So I have like a rotating assortment of things that go up here. Right now I have this awesome Staffordshire figure, some antique books, and then this really beautiful wedgewood jug that my husband got for me. These are kind of rare and hard to find. He actually had bought me one a couple years ago and was washing it and broke it. So this was my replacement jug. Besides paint, I think one of the easiest things you can do to make a rental apartment feel like home is to swap out the lighting. I found these vintage bell jar lights on Facebook Marketplace. And one day my husband and I took down the old boob lights and put in these really beautiful lanterns. And I think they make the space feel a lot more personal to us. And they also elevate it in a way that a boob light certainly wasn't doing. Obviously our apartment is small, so our living room does double duty. So we've carved out a little dining nook here. We brought in some great 18th century chairs, another antique store find. This is actually a tilt top table. So the top kind of flips up. And these were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. But it's the perfect little round table that completes the corner. And this is just a great spot for my husband and I to have dinner. It's great for playing games. I think a round table is a great game table. We love to play Catan with our friends. We can all four sit around here and it's the perfect size for that. I think it's always hard to describe your style. But I would say my taste is very traditional. I really love traditional interiors. Some of my favorite designers are,you know, people who worked at Colfax and Fowler and Sister Parish. I love Mario Boada. And so these really traditional spaces influence me. I'm also a collector. So I love, you know, to mix and match things from all different eras together. I would describe my style as comfortable and joyful. Right next to the door, I wanted to have a little entryway moment, a place to land. So I hung this, you know, cool 19th century mirror along with this little delft tile table. This is my dog's perfume and some room spray that we keep in this little dish by the door. But I think it's great to just have a little landing spot in any space. Right off the living room is our bedroom. So why don't you follow me? I really wanted this room to be full of color, full of life, somewhere that was just joyful and happy. And I think, you know, painting the walls in this yellow color. It's Citron by Farrow & Ball. And I think it has this, like, really beautiful richness, a beautiful lightness to it. It's the perfect complement for the other colors in the room, the pinks and the greens and the blues. So this bedroom is actually kind of big by New York standards, but it's still a New York bedroom, so it's kind of small. And a great trick when you're dealing with a small space is to have furniture on legs. I think it really helps add some, you know, visual lightness to a room. So this is a great highboy. It's 19th century. It looks 18th century. It wasn't very expensive. But what I love about it is it's on these, you know, cabriolet legs that kind of lift it up off the floor. And, you know, if I had just a full chest of drawers here, it would have this, like, heaviness and weight. But this feels a little bit more elegant, a little bit more light, and it takes up, you know, less space in a room. One thing I love to do when decorating a bedroom is mix-matched side tables. I think, you know, when you go to West Elm and you buy side tables and they're the perfect match, you know, there's no personality or charm. And so we have mix-matched tables here that, you know, I picked up here and there. And, yeah, I really love how they play with each other. Obviously the heart of a bedroom is the bed, and our bed is here. I think, you know, you don't have to invest in everything when you're decorating a room, but I think when you're decorating a bedroom, you really need to go for it for the bed. So I have a really beautiful, comfortable, natural mattress. It are my favorite sheets. These are vintage du Porto linens. And they're kind of expensive. They're really, really beautiful. They're all handmade in France. And these vintage ones that have been washed a million times are literally the softest thing you've ever felt in your life. And so I'm constantly hunting for them on eBay, at thrift shops, antique stores, auctions. And I love this set that I have. It's a really beautiful blue pattern with, you know, the most beautiful little scallop detail. I also love to add an antique quilt to the foot of a bed. You know, they're a little delicate, so maybe it's not something you want to sleep with every night. But I think they have so much personality and charm when they're layered on a bed. This is all stitched by hand. It's this really beautiful basket pattern. Actually, this pattern was the inspiration for the logo of my company. And, you know, I just love this basket motif. And I think some of these country elements in a city apartment, you know, kind of bring it down a notch and make it feel like home. So this rug is really cool. It's very delicate. It's not in the best shape anymore. But it's amazing. It's a 19th-century Russian rug. And it has all of the colors in the room. It has the pink and the yellow and the blue and this really beautiful floral pattern. I have a pair of these rugs that I picked up at an estate sale. And I just fell in love with them. I think they're so beautiful and unusual. We're really lucky in this apartment to have such high ceilings. And I really wanted to accentuate that in the bedroom. So I've hung these sort of peachy pink draperies from floor to ceiling. And these are vintage. I picked them up at an antique shop. And they happen to be the perfect size for this wall. And I think having, you know, a full wall of draperies is kind of luxurious. These are cotton, so they don't have any shine or sheen. So to me, they don't feel fancy. But they still have that sort of, you know, luxurious quality that I wanted to have in a bedroom. So when I first hung the draperies, I realized that it was actually kind of a lot. And I needed to break it up. So I found this really cool Victorian mirror. You know, it's tattered. It's torn. It's seen some things. But I think, you know, I think I was watching the Gilded Age when we first moved in here. And so I might have been inspired by, you know, some of that, you know, late 19th century look. But I think there's something really cool about it. And then, again, I love mixing eras. So below is a really cool 18th century English chair. This is a great spot to drop my bag or, you know, put a stack of books. And I love the yellow upholstery that kind of mirrors the color on the wall. So this side table is so cool. It actually came from the same estate as the rug. And it's antique. It's French. One detail that I love is the little knob at the bottom drawer. And it looks like a hand, which is kind of cool. And it's the perfect size for a little side table here. One of the challenges of this room is that it must have had a fireplace at some point in time because we have this sort of, like, protrusion in the center of the room. And it's actually a little off-center. And it's slightly smaller than our king-size bed. So what I did was I brought in an oversized headboard. I slip-covered this in an old cotton sheet just to make it feel relaxed and easy. But because it's a little bit wider than the bed, it's obviously, you know, wider than this protrusion. And I think it kind of, you know, creates an even field. And then the bed doesn't look so funny, you know, on a small little wall. And this is another one of my favorite portraits. This is an early 19th century American portrait. And I kind of fell in love with this guy. Don't tell my husband. Because he has the most beautiful rosy cheeks. And it's like the perfect pink color that's in the draperies. Obviously, the ground, the background has this really beautiful blue shade and a little bit of yellow peeking through. So I think it's, you know, an object that kind of unites all of the colors in the room. And he's so charming. So off the living room is our tiny little New York City kitchen. If you live in New York, you know how tough a kitchen is here. But I've done a couple tricks to make it feel a little nicer, make it feel a little bit more useful and hopefully a little bigger. So the jumping off point for the kitchen was my collection of Canton plates. And these are antique Chinese plates that I picked up here and there. And I knew that I wanted to hang them on the wall. So I picked a Farrow & Ball color that I thought complimented them well. This is Lulworth Blue. And one trick when you're doing a kitchen or a bathroom is to make sure your paint has a little bit of a sheen to it. It makes it really easy to clean. It's super durable. And it's a great way to keep your walls looking fresh in a space that might see a little bit of a mess. Obviously, the cabinets and countertop left something to be desired. And because the cabinets are white and the countertop is this, like, cool tone, I really wanted to lean into that instead of trying to hide it. So I've gone for a cooler story here. In terms of colors, it's, you know, classic blue and white. And I think it really helps, you know, the cabinets almost disappear. So this is a great little piece. This is a little pine dresser. And we brought this in because we have such small counter space and storage in this kitchen. And this is great. It has awesome drawers. We keep our silverware in this drawer. And it also provides a countertop, a work surface, a place to display some of my favorite stuff. Like a lot of rental apartments in New York, when we moved in, the kitchen had the most ugly, heinous, builder-grade flooring, these, like, dirty, flesh-colored tiles. And so one of my favorite tricks is to take a rug. This one is just seagrass matting that I bought online. It was pretty inexpensive. And my husband and I just spent an hour cutting it to size. We used a double-sided tape to stick it down on the floor. And it kind of weighs the foundation for everything else to build on top of. I layered in this cool Chinese rug. And it's, again, an antique rug. And, yeah, don't be afraid of antiques in the kitchen. I think, you know, you should collect and live with stuff that you love. And the kitchen is no exception. If you've been out antiquing, you'll definitely have seen fruit paintings. I think they were really popular in the 19th century. But I think they're so perfect in a kitchen, you know, because they're kind of topical. It's obviously seen better days, but a cute little still life of peaches. I love the hand-painted porcelain bowl. And I think it's nice to have, you know, an oil painting in the kitchen. It might be a little unexpected. So especially when you live in New York, everything in your apartment has to be useful. But I also think it has to be beautiful. And so something like a little hand broom can be extraordinary. This one is handmade by my friend Eric McIntyre. He has a shop called Village Handcraft in Wiscasset, Maine. And he made this little broom for me. And I think it's so beautiful. It's natural. It works beautifully. And it also looks great hanging on the wall. So we've covered pillows, books, and portraits. But I also have a thing for baskets. And I love that these cabinets actually don't go to the ceiling because they give me a place for storage. And so I have some baskets up here that I can fill with odds and ends, linens, you know, stuff that I don't want on display. And I think it's a great little trick for storing things that you might not want to see in your apartment. So I feel like the hallway can be kind of the forgotten space of an apartment. But I wanted this hallway to be a little bit fun. So I went wild and did some trompe-l'oeil painting here. I used the same paint color that's in the living room and just painted it over the white. It might not be the most successful thing that I've ever done, but I think it adds a little bit of, you know, fun and joy to an otherwise pretty boring space. This little painting was a gift from my husband. It's painted by a British artist. Her name is Raphael Boulme. And it's a portrait of our dog, Rudy, sitting on an antique chair. And it's the first thing you see when you walk into the apartment. And I think it kind of sets the tone for the space. It tells you exactly who I am. And he looks so cute. This is a flea market painting that I picked up a couple years ago. And I think it's fun. It's really expressive, great colors. You know, it's not particularly well painted. It's not in a great frame. But still, I think it, you know, it's the perfect thing for this space. If you thought our kitchen was small, our bathroom is seriously tiny. But I've done a couple things in here to make the most of it. We're in our little bathroom here. It's teeny tiny. And when we moved in, it was very ugly. When you're renting, you don't get to decide what the tiles look like or what the finishes are in a bathroom. And so, you know, we inherited this space with this really dreadful sort of like flesh-toned tile covering the walls. Instead of hiding the ugly tiles, I wanted to embrace them and accentuate them. So we went with a color called setting plaster on the walls. And I think it brings out some of the pinkiness in the tiles. It makes them feel a little less flesh-toned and a little bit more neutral, actually. And another thing I did was bring in some print and pattern to kind of distract. And so, one of my favorite things to do is use Indian hand block prints. And this fabric is really affordable. Maybe this was $10 a yard. And I used this to make a custom shower curtain. I made it really full and pleated so it almost feels like a window drapery, but it's on the shower. And I think it's a detail like this that makes the space feel a little bit more elevated, especially when you're in a builder-grade bathroom. Another trick that I did was to hide the hideous vanity. I made a little pleated skirt. This is a great hand-screen-printed fabric. And I've just pleated it and attached it to the existing vanity with Velcro. And I still have all of the storage below. It's easy to remove. And I think this is a great, a great hack to make an ugly vanity a little bit more beautiful. As you know by now, I love collecting. So I wanted there to be a spot to showcase some of my collections in the bathroom too. And so, I don't think you should be afraid of putting a painting in the bathroom. Or above the shower, I've hung some meson plates that are really beautiful and,you know, kind of fancy, so unexpected to have in a bathroom. I think it's little things like this that make the space really feel like me. Yeah, it's just like such a pretty part of the park. I love it here. When I first moved to New York, I worked a few blocks away from here. And I used to spend my lunch breaks in this area of the park. We're here on the west side in the 60s. And I think it's just the most beautiful, beautiful place in Central Park. There's lots of, there's lots of places for people to sit and relax. I see regular people here all the time. It's almost like its own little community. And of course, Rudy loves it here. The worst part of Central Park is leaving. Often it's hard to get Rudy out of here, especially when he thinks there might be a squirrel nearby. Come on, goose. Go. This is the best view for squirrels in Central Park. This is Harper Lee Hall. This is where Madonna lived at one point, which is kind of cool. Actually, Ariana Grande lives two blocks away, and we see her sometimes in the park. I wish I was as small and pretty as her, but,you know, you get what you get. Another one of my favorite buildings on our block is the YMCA. And it has this really beautiful arts and crafts detail. And I think for like a public space that's open to anyone, it's,you know, so beautiful. And,you know, on our walks, it's always nice to kind of look up and see all the details. I'm not a topiary expert, but I do love collecting them. These are myrtle topiaries here. This one is a triple ball, which I think, you know, makes a great statement. And my friend Margaret, who is a topiary expert, taught me how to trim them. And here's my tip. Trim with abandon. Don't be afraid. Envision the shape that you want. I want this to be a perfect ball. And you can see it has like a few little flyaways. So I'm just going to go for it. And so I'm using just kitchen shears here, but,you know, ideally, I would have a dedicated pair of scissors. Don't tell Margaret. But,you know, you kind of just start cutting away and keep the shape that you're going for in mind as you trim. Keep looking and watching. And I think the biggest thing is don't be afraid. I think a topiary is going to sense when you're scared and it will know and your shape will end up bad. But I think if you, you know, if you just go for it and remember that it'll grow back, then,you know, you'll get exactly what you're after. And it's really easy as this. I think it can be really daunting, but it's actually not. It's super easy. And if you make a mistake, no big deal. You know, it'll grow back in a couple weeks. And topiaries can be kind of scary to care for. They're very finicky and high maintenance, kind of like the people who often collect them. And my advice is to water them pretty regularly. I feel like they like to stay pretty moist. And I always like to turn them. So every couple days you can turn them and that will keep them growing evenly on all sides. If you were on the fence of bringing a topiary home, I hope this gives you the confidence to go for it and live your bunny melon fantasy. So this is my last week here in this apartment. And it's so nice to have Homeworthy over to kind of like memorialize this place. As I move on to my next journey, you know, opening my store in Maine and, you know, kind of starting a new life up there, I'm going to miss being here in the city. I always dreamed of living on the Upper West Side. I'm going to miss going for walks in Central Park. My husband and I love to watch theater. And, you know, we could walk to see a Broadway show. And that's something that I always remember as a happy memory. And I think there's something really special about being in the center of it all. And, yeah, so I'll miss that a little bit. I'm also looking forward to, you know, more of a quiet coastal life. Thanks for watching. Be sure to go to homeworthy.com for exclusive content, shopping guides and so much more.