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A Greenpoint, Brooklyn rental shows how to build a richly patterned home without changing its permanent architecture. Designer Brandi Howe layered rugs, wallpaper, art, antiques, vintage furniture, custom fabrics and saturated color around resident Camille Orders’s personality. The result is maximalist, but not random: each room gains character from repetition, contrast and objects with a story.
The project was profiled by Lauren Harkawik in Architectural Digest on June 6, 2022, with photography by François Dischinger. It is one completed apartment rather than a universal decorating formula, but its decisions offer a useful framework for renters who want bold rooms without replacing floors or making irreversible alterations.
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Why this Brooklyn loft feels layered rather than cluttered
Howe’s starting point was not a color chart or a trend. It was Orders herself. “There are so many layers to her as a person,” Howe said. “And I felt her apartment needed to have just as many layers as her. So she was the biggest inspiration—her personality.”
That idea gives the apartment a clear organizing principle. Furniture, fabric and art are not treated as isolated purchases; they are parts of a portrait of the person who lives there. Howe also wanted visitors to keep discovering something new: “I wanted guests to have an experience,” she said, “Every time they visited…and maybe even a different experience every time.”
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The loft’s exuberance therefore comes from accumulation with intention. Patterns belong to different eras, but they share visual energy. Antiques sit beside contemporary pieces. Strong colors are allowed to meet instead of being diluted into a neutral scheme. Howe summarizes the philosophy bluntly: “I believe more is more, not less is more.”
How the design works within rental restrictions
Covering the existing wood floors
The apartment’s wooden floors did not suit Howe’s vision, and replacing them was not an option in a rental. Her solution was reversible: bold rugs covered the existing floorboards. A large patterned rug can change the perceived color and rhythm of an entire room while leaving the building untouched.
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For your own apartment, treat the rug as a major architectural layer rather than a finishing accessory. Choose its colors after you understand the room’s largest upholstered pieces, then use smaller textiles to echo one or two of those tones. The feature does not identify the loft’s rug size, fiber, price or durability, so those details should be decided according to your room dimensions, traffic and lease.
Adding drama to a brick wall
In the primary bedroom, Howe repurposed a room divider by attaching its panels to a brick wall. This move supplied the visual effect of a decorative wall treatment while reusing an existing object. It also demonstrates a useful rental distinction: a freestanding screen can be temporary, while fastening panels to masonry is a more involved intervention that should be cleared with a landlord and handled safely.
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The broader lesson is to look for portable surfaces—screens, large textiles, art panels or bookcases—before assuming that a rental’s walls must remain visually plain. A removable layer can provide pattern and height without painting over brick or installing permanent millwork.
Letting furniture carry the commitment
Instead of altering the shell, Howe invested in pieces that could move with Orders. Vintage furniture, reupholstered seating and distinctive beds create a strong identity while remaining personal property. This is especially useful for renters: the most expressive decisions can be made in objects, textiles and lighting rather than in floors, trim or built-in cabinetry.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute| Design move | Example in the loft | Rental consideration |
|---|---|---|
| Floor covering | Bold rugs laid over the existing wood floors | High visual impact with a generally reversible installation |
| Wall layer | Room-divider panels attached to brick in the primary bedroom | Creates a focal wall, but attachment to masonry requires landlord approval and careful installation |
| Furniture renewal | Vintage pieces reupholstered in custom fabrics | Portable investment that can move to a future home |
| Decorative sourcing | Art, antiques, wallpaper, fabrics and one-of-a-kind objects | Allows personality to build without replacing the apartment’s structure |
How to mix bold patterns without losing control
Start with a personal anchor
Orders’s personality was the anchor in this project. In a less personal room, choose an equivalent starting point: a painting you already love, a family textile, an inherited chair or a color that appears repeatedly in your wardrobe. The anchor gives later purchases a reason to belong.
Repeat color, not necessarily the same print
Pattern mixing becomes easier when colors recur across unrelated materials. A floral, stripe and geometric print can coexist if one or two colors travel between them. Howe recalled reassuring Camille that the colors did go together, even when the combination initially seemed risky. That reassurance points to a practical test: place fabric, wallpaper, rug and upholstery samples together in daylight before committing.
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Vary scale and density
Using several tiny, equally busy patterns can make a room feel noisy. A large-scale floral needs breathing room beside a smaller motif or a solid field. Let one surface carry the biggest visual gesture, then support it with medium and small patterns. This creates hierarchy without asking every object to compete.
Mix eras deliberately
The loft combines antiques and vintage furniture with newer fabrics, wallpaper and art. Different eras add depth when a shared color, material or silhouette links them. A contemporary print on an older chair can feel more intentional than a room where every item belongs to the same period.
Use negative space as punctuation
Maximalism does not require every surface to be covered. Clear passages around furniture, a visible stretch of floor between rugs and an unfilled section of wall allow the strongest patterns to register. The goal is a sequence of discoveries, not a single undifferentiated field.
The materials and objects that define the apartment
Wallpaper and upholstery
The feature names Pierre Frey upholstery and wallpaper, along with S.Harris’s “Floral Kingdom” fabric. These examples show how a coordinated textile program can connect walls, seating and soft furnishings. They are reported pieces from the 2022 feature, not a complete inventory or a guarantee that the same patterns remain available.
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Vintage furniture with new skins
Howe reupholstered vintage furniture, including pieces by Vladimir Kagan, in custom-made fabrics. She designed some patterns by drawing on her iPad, turning a digital sketch into a material specific to the apartment. That process makes upholstery more than a color change: it can give a familiar frame an entirely new identity.
Statement pieces and collected finds
A Julia Grey poster bed is among the named furnishings. Dining chairs were sourced through Chairish. The apartment also contains art, antiques and distinctive decorative objects gathered over time. Because the story does not publish a full shopping list, room-by-room dimensions or current stock information, use these names as evidence of the sourcing approach rather than as a prescriptive product list.
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A sourcing strategy for one-of-a-kind rooms
Shop in concentrated trips
Howe and Orders took daylong shopping trips, including a visit to Brimfield flea market in Massachusetts. Concentrated shopping creates a useful feedback loop: you can compare colors and proportions in person instead of buying isolated objects online. Photograph candidates, record dimensions and keep a running list of the colors already present at home.
Buy the frame, then decide on the fabric
Secondhand furniture does not need to arrive in perfect upholstery. Inspect the frame, joinery and scale first; treat the fabric as a separate design decision. Reupholstering a sound vintage chair or sofa can produce a one-of-a-kind piece while diverting usable furniture from disposal. Howe described this as an opportunity to recycle furniture and create unique results.
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Make a custom pattern proportionate to the project
Drawing a pattern on an iPad gives a designer control over repeat, color and scale. You do not need a custom textile for every item. One bespoke cushion, chair or curtain can act as a signature, while ready-made fabrics and vintage finds fill in around it.
A practical plan for decorating your own rental
- Map the non-negotiables. Photograph the existing floors, brick, trim and fixed lighting. Mark what cannot be painted, drilled or replaced under your lease.
- Choose one personal anchor. Select a piece of art, heirloom, textile or color that describes the resident rather than an abstract trend.
- Set a color family. Pull three to five recurring colors from the anchor. They can appear at different intensities; they do not need to match exactly.
- Select the largest pattern. Use it on a rug, wallpaper, curtain or major upholstered piece. Confirm the scale against the room before buying yardage or committing to installation.
- Add contrasting patterns in smaller doses. Pair the large motif with a stripe, geometric or smaller floral, repeating at least one color between them.
- Layer portable architecture. Use rugs, screens, art panels, bookcases and lighting to change the room’s structure without altering the building.
- Source vintage before buying substitutes. Check flea markets, secondhand dealers and resale platforms for pieces with unusual silhouettes. Measure doorways and stairwells before purchasing.
- Reupholster selectively. Prioritize a structurally sound chair or sofa whose shape adds something the room lacks. A custom fabric can become the bridge between otherwise unrelated pieces.
- Stage, then edit. Live with the arrangement for several days. Remove anything that blocks circulation or repeats a pattern without adding color, texture, history or function.
Where to look for colorful, collected pieces
For rugs, search by category—such as bold patterned area rugs—and evaluate pile, fiber, maintenance and return rules for your specific room. The Greenpoint project confirms the visual role of a bold rug, but it does not identify an exact model, size or material.
For wallpaper and fabric, begin with pattern libraries and showrooms that provide full samples. Pierre Frey and S.Harris “Floral Kingdom” are named examples in the feature, while custom upholstery can be developed from an original drawing. For furniture, flea markets such as Brimfield and secondhand marketplaces can yield pieces with more character than coordinated new sets. Chairish is identified in the story as the source of the dining chairs; current listings and availability can change.
What the loft does—and does not—prove
This apartment demonstrates that a rental can feel highly specific without replacing its floors or redesigning every wall. It also shows that maximalism works best when choices relate to a resident’s life, when colors recur, when pattern scales vary and when vintage pieces are refreshed rather than discarded.
It does not establish a universal formula, a required budget or performance claims about any named fabric, wallpaper, rug or furniture maker. The feature is a reported home tour, not a product test, and it does not publish a complete inventory or confirm that every item remains available. Treat the named objects as references for a way of thinking: make the room personal, layer eras and textures, and use reversible interventions wherever the lease demands them.
The takeaway for renters who want more pattern
The strongest idea in the Greenpoint loft is not simply that every surface can be colorful. It is that a room becomes memorable when its layers explain who lives there. Start with personality, use rugs and portable elements to work around rental limits, repeat a controlled family of colors, and let vintage furniture gain a second life through upholstery. The result can be exuberant without becoming anonymous or accidental.
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