Interior Designer Optimizes Seinfeld’s Apartment - Set Reset - Architectural Digest

There are a lot of things wrong with the design of Seinfeld's iconic apartment. The first thing that sticks out to me is this dining table. It's generally recommended to avoid having a dining table aligned with the front door. It always feels better to designate your dining table to a more private area in the home. Having one right by the entryway can disrupt the sense of intimacy during meals. I understand why the living room was designed this way with a three-camera stage. So I get that they placed a sofa here, the dining table here, so we can see all the characters. But in real life, this just doesn't make sense. Ideally, the dining area should be as close to the kitchen as possible. It's just a natural progression of cooking a meal to consuming it. Feng Shui is all about good design and making your living space as efficient, balanced, and comfortable as possible. Let me walk you through all the changes I've made to improve the space according to Feng Shui. The first thing I'll do is move the TV out of the way, creating a dining area right on this wall. I'll also be swapping out the round table with a rectangular one because it just really follows the shape of the space. Placing the dining table closer to the kitchen makes serving and cleaning so much easier, and the shorter distance prevents potential spills and mess. If you're not seating more than two people at a table, you don't need a round table, especially when you can't walk around it. Jerry lives here alone, but instead of just placing one chair here, you always wanna balance out a dining table by incorporating even numbers. Odd numbers symbolize that one person is alone and not supported. It's actually very isolating. I would add another chair in there. It promotes more prosperity, like you're entertaining and inviting guests into your home. It's a good feeling. Now let's move on to the living room. New couch, baby. New couch, why? I love this couch. You know what the best part about it is? It doesn't fold out, so no one can sleep over. He's just not interested in having guests stay over, and I totally get that. I'm going to be redesigning this entire layout according to his lifestyle. So let's start by removing all of these elements that we don't need in this space. We just want a nice, clean, blank slate to start adding in the right furniture. For a single living, I love to create little pockets of joy throughout the house. This space feels very underutilized with this basic end table here. I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to create a really cozy reading nook here. Let's bring in a cute little club chair, a nice, comfy ottoman to kick up your feet. Of course, this reading nook needs to be functional with a little side table. I can already imagine Jerry sitting here and reading scripts all day. What I don't love is this structural column that's kind of in the middle of nowhere. You should never remove a structural column without consulting a structural engineer. Since I can't remove it, how can we make it work for us and not against us? I want to make it more functional. Let's start by building out a brand new wall. This new wall here is going to round up this cozy little reading nook. I want to install like a bookshelf here. If you are someone who is not tidy, always source bookcases with cabinets and closed doors. That way you can corral all of your clutter and hide it in plain sight. This is going to be our new bookshelf, cabinet on the bottom, a cute little countertop on top, and then maybe like exposed bookshelves. Moving on to the office. In the show, there's this diagonal bulkhead that runs from the office to this column. That's so weird. Triangular rooms feel imbalanced because we associate typical rooms with four walls, 90 degree corners. The sharp corners of a triangular room are jarring and particularly hard to furnish. But I can rezone this area by shifting this structural bulkhead. Once you move a structural beam, you compromise the structure of the building. I have to erect another structural beam in its place and balance out these two rooms and almost create a separation of spaces. What I want to do is create like a really beautiful moment to kind of frame out Jerry's new office. Now we can create a larger, more balanced office space where it's easier for Jerry to focus. Looks like what you really need is a decent desk for writing your skits. I don't write skits. Oh, of course you don't. You don't have a proper workstation. I don't think he needs to update the desk, but he should move it in a command position. If you're working with your back towards the door, it's much harder to focus and concentrate when you feel vulnerable to someone sneaking up behind you. The command position dictates that if you're seated at your desk, you should see who's coming in and out of the entry door. In season six, episode eight, we're reminded that Jerry failed miserably with his NBC pilot. I definitely believe that the position of his desk negatively impacted his work. All you have to do is rotate the desk. Now the desk is facing the entry. You are in command and you're gonna feel so much better as a result. Now let's move into the central core of our space, the living area. In order for me to design a living room, I always ask the users of the space, what do you do in here? For Jerry, it's probably watching television. Remember when we built out this wall? Here is where we can mount the new television. I would mount that on the wall on a swivel so that way you can kind of see it from every vantage point. You can see it from the living room, see it from the dining room, and now it's anchored against the wall. I love it. It really just opens up the living room. You're probably wondering why I started with the television. That's just the focal point of the room. You always wanna think about a hierarchy in a space. Start with a focal point because that is the main function of the room. The next natural progression is seating in front of the TV. I always like to place the largest seat in the house for optimal TV viewing. But remember my tip about following the shape of the home. So instead of just adding in like a plain old boring sofa, why don't we try an angular sectional instead? That way Jerry can watch TV and I can also add in like a lovely little entry console so that when he walks into his home, he's not greeted by the back of a sofa. And if you've been paying attention, you're probably gonna be like, Julie, stop right there. The sofa is not in a command position. It's not, and you're absolutely right. But remember, Jerry is living single. He's here alone. He has a command position from his office. He has a command position from this reading nook. And he also has a command position from his dining area. In feng shui, you won't win them all. You really just have to prioritize what's the most important to you. Now let's focus on the front door. The front door is the mouth of Qi. This is where Qi is invited into your home. Qi is that universal good energy that we want to permeate the space. So you wanna keep it clutter-free, bright and inviting. I added this entry console to welcome Qi. This entry console is gonna house all of your daily essentials. Treat it like your entry valet, a place for you to house your keys, your wallets, your purses, sunglasses. We don't wanna block Qi. So you wanna keep that entry console relatively low. If I opted for a taller console, it would feel as if we erected a new wall here. Opening the front door and encountering a wall directly in front of you feels cramped. It feels confining, and it confuses the flow of traffic. This low console gives your guests an open and inviting view of the entire apartment. You know, I saw the previous apartment. I just felt like this corner was really cluttered. So I wanna move this bookcase out of the way, and I wanna add like a really beautiful floor-length mirror. That floor-length mirror is gonna reflect all of this bright, beautiful energy and bounce it off into the space, promoting greater positive energy and more Qi in your home. The space feels so much different. It's bright, it's open, it's airy, it's happy. And bonus points for being able to redirect Qi in your space. Let's move on to the kitchen. Jerry brought in this new contractor to redesign his kitchen, and it's all sorts of wrong. Jerry. Yeah. What the hell is this? Where are you? Over here. You can see right through here. What is this? It's like you're selling movie tickets back here. It's kinda cozy. The upper cabinets block the flow of Qi. The entire configuration doesn't optimize traffic flow. I mean, he and Elaine can't even see each other. If you have a really good design, guests are gonna know exactly where to go, how your home flows, how to enjoy the space. I mean, this new design is absolutely horrible. It doesn't work at all. But I do love the placement of the stove because it puts Jerry in a command position. Now let's demo the kitchen and show you my new design. We're gonna add in our upper cabinetry because, of course, we're desperate for storage, and then place our refrigerator right back in. This already feels better, but we need to round it out by placing the stove in this floating island, and voila. So the new kitchen design puts Jerry in a command position. Imagine he's cooking at the stove. He can see who's coming in and out of the entry door. You have optimum flow for Qi to kinda move and meander around the kitchen, permeate the space. That Qi will flow through the dining area to the reading nook, permeate the living room, round back out to the office, and now we're entering the bedrooms, the private areas in feng shui that are considered a place of rest. Feng shui is all about balance. Common areas are active energy. That's called yang energy. Private areas, like your bedrooms or your bathrooms, are resting energy called yin. You wanna balance out yin and yang so they harmonize the space and bring in all of that positive Qi. There's not a whole lot that I would change in this bedroom, but I wanna talk about all of the things that are working in this space. I love that the bed is in a command position. You can see who's coming in and out of the entry door. The entry door is not on the side of your head because Qi is gonna bum-rush you on your side. We don't want that. If your bed was directly in line with the entry door of your bedroom, that is considered the coffin position. In feng shui, this placement is believed to disrupt sleep and symbolizes energy leaving the body. Just imagine it mirrors how the deceased are carried out of a house, and you definitely don't want that. Feng shui loves symmetry, so placing two symmetrical nightstands with two symmetrical table lamps beside a bed really harnesses that positive energy that Qi loves. The bed is anchored with a soft, cushy area rug. If you have a hard surface in your home, placing an area rug underfoot really helps with acoustics as well. It feels comfortable, soft, and cozy, and we definitely want that comfortable, cozy environment in our bedroom. Notice how this bedroom layout is very minimal. There's no clutter. It feels really good in here, and I've never even been in this space. So what do you think of my new design? Feng shui just really follows the good rules of interior design. The more you familiarize yourself with the basic principles of feng shui, you'll see a lot of it is common sense. You want to place furniture and home decor items that uplift you and energize you and just make you feel good.