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" Douglas Brenner: The mannequin in your window could be the Venus de Milo&amp;#039;s long-lost cousin. She must have a story. Juan Carretero: Soon after work began on the apartment, I realized we needed organic shapes to break up all the rectangles in the living room \u2014 and this lady happened to be waiting for us on the sidewalk in the trash. Now the torso faces out so that people walking by can say hello to her. I&amp;#039;m attracted to things that have a kind of otherness, that are not just there for decoration but have something sculptural about them and some personal meaning. I already owned this pedestal, which is tall enough to set that corner apart as an office of sorts when I put my laptop on the skirted table. Our pug, Ram\u00F3n, curls up under there, too. Every bit of privacy helps in a space this small. Did you gulp when the real estate agent told you the whole apartment measured only 700 square feet?  I&amp;#039;ve always thought that Manhattan agents should sell volume, not square footage. This apartment doesn&amp;#039;t feel so small because the living room is much larger than you would expect in a one-bedroom this size. The building was originally a single-family brownstone, so even though Victorian details got stripped when it was broken up into apartments and modernized in the early 20th century, we have 10-foot-high ceilings. The extra foot or so makes a huge difference. It tricks your sense of scale, in a good way. And there are these amazing windows and all the light they bring in. They were another prewar renovation. From brownstone to Bauhaus!  Back in the &amp;#039;20s, steel casements like these represented International Style chic. But by the time I started training as an architect in Mexico City, they were considered very low-income housing. Now, of course, they&amp;#039;ve come back into fashion because of their architectural lines. It was love at first sight for us. The industrial frames made me decide that our living room walls should have the look of raw concrete. With my friend Mark Chamberlain, an artist and decorative painter, I experimented with ways of creating that effect using layers of different paint colors. This combination gives the walls a depth and warmth that a flat gray wouldn&amp;#039;t have. Have you adapted to this classic Manhattan view \u2014 a brick wall?  We actually feel as if we have a garden \u2014 for free \u2014 because the ivy on the neighbors&amp;#039; wall is just as green in February as it is in July. I picked up that dark green for accents here and there, from malachite boxes to painted kitchen cabinets to our leather-upholstered headboard. Besides bringing the outside in, the greens take you from room to room without having to use the same finish on all the walls. In such a compact interior, you can define areas by varying the wall colors. There&amp;#039;s that sense of, &amp;#039;This is the foyer, this is the dining room, this is the kitchen,&amp;#039; even if they are barely alcoves off the main space. Who could miss a faux-malachite kitchen?  I had a malachite obelisk when I was growing up, and I still collect this beautiful stone. When we were about to paint the kitchen walls the same green as the cabinets, I had a &amp;#039;Why don&amp;#039;t you\u2026&amp;#039; moment. Mark showed me a sample and, to be honest, I didn&amp;#039;t think I could live with it. But if you can&amp;#039;t have a little over-the-top fun in a tight space, you&amp;#039;ve lost your sense of humor. And now the kitchen is like a fancy wrapper for your chocolate dining room. Dark color really pushes the walls out, though I also wanted to open some kind of visual window in here. The obvious thing would have been a mirror, but I&amp;#039;ve never liked eating in front of one. My initial idea was to put a photograph of a skylight up on the ceiling, but then I found this photo, which picked up that industrial quality in the living room and added another touch of green over the bench. When I told the Realtor I was going to seat seven people here, his eyes said, &amp;#039;No way.&amp;#039; But it works. How do you pull off the clown-car act? The table has retractable leaves, and the church pew is easy to slide into and surprisingly comfortable. For a big party, we carry the table and pew into the living room and switch out the coffee table. The kitchen pass-through counter is a separate piece of cabinetry mounted on casters so we can wheel it around as a bar. Multitasking with a wink and a smile. I started rearranging things when I was five years old. My parents would go out and come back to find the living room furniture in the dining room. The challenge here was creating storage for so many things, starting with the books and objects we unpack from our trips. There&amp;#039;s only one closet in the bedroom, so I designed armoires for the ends of the headboard. Built-in cubbyholes take the place of night tables. Rule number one: If something comes in, something must go out. Otherwise, this would look like a hoarder&amp;#039;s paradise. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/advice/a2537/juan-carretero-interview-0814/>