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A family in Hudson Heights made room for a third sleeping space without moving by reorganizing its apartment around a compact flex bedroom, custom storage and a color-forward kitchen. The design, by Ideas of Order Studio, uses a sliding glass door and an openable porthole to balance separation with borrowed light. It also keeps the apartment’s sunken living room, parquetry floor and arched passageways, so the new work reads as a contemporary layer inside a historic home. The project offers a useful lesson for anyone considering color in a small interior: plan color alongside storage, sightlines and light—not as a last coat applied after the layout is settled.
The project details and architect quotations below are reported by the matching feature republished by OBSiGeN; they are not independently verified. The feature does not give the apartment’s floor area, budget, exact paint specifications or construction timeline.
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The family needed more room as its two sons grew, wanted a renovated kitchen and needed better entry storage. According to the feature, the family had considered moving to a larger home but found few options within its budget. Rather than describe a larger addition or a move, the feature focuses on an interior reorganization: a compact bedroom fitted with a bed, desk and storage, coordinated with the kitchen and entry millwork.
The room is separated from the lower living room by a sliding glass door. An opaque curtain can add privacy when needed. A small circular window with shutters connects the bedroom to the adjacent kitchen; it can be opened during the day to pass light through. The room is therefore enclosed enough to serve as a bedroom while remaining part of a larger, carefully planned sequence of spaces.
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The account does not provide dimensions or a floor plan, so it cannot establish how much area the room occupies or whether the arrangement would fit another apartment. Its value is in the relationships it describes: a door that separates without making the room feel entirely cut off, a light opening between uses, and built-ins that keep necessary furniture from consuming all the available floor area.
What makes the extra room a flex bedroom?
The room was designed to meet the family’s current need for sleeping space and to remain useful if that need changes. The feature says it could later become an office or guest room. Its reported bed, desk and storage support that adaptable purpose, although the source does not specify whether any of those items are movable or built in.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesThat distinction matters when planning a small room: “flexible” should describe a credible future use, not just a label. Before committing to cabinetry or a bed, consider what must remain in place for the next use. A desk may work for homework now and remote work later; a guest room may need clear floor space that the bedroom setup does not. The feature does not show a conversion plan, but the project’s stated intention makes future use part of the design brief rather than an afterthought.
For a renovation of your own, write down the present and likely future uses before deciding where color, lighting and storage go. A color that makes a bedroom feel distinctive may still work for an office, but the room’s light, privacy and access to outlets or task lighting also need consideration. Those are planning questions, not specifications reported for this apartment.
How do the door and porthole balance privacy and light?
The design treats privacy and openness as adjustable rather than all-or-nothing. The sliding glass door marks the bedroom boundary, and an opaque curtain can shut out the living room when privacy is important. The porthole, meanwhile, offers a separate way to share light with the kitchen; its shutters allow that opening to be closed.
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In the feature, architect Henry Ng explains the privacy option: “If you want to, you can still shut everything out.” That point is easy to miss in photos of open, glass-separated rooms. A connection between rooms can look appealing but should not make the occupants give up the ability to close off a sleeping space. Here, the curtain and shutters create different degrees of separation at different points.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteThe porthole also contributes a shape that contrasts with the surrounding millwork. Jacob Esocoff describes it as a “playful counterpoint” to the millwork’s rigid geometry. It is a small architectural gesture, but it has a practical role too: the feature says it can be opened during the day to pass light toward the kitchen. It does not report how much light reaches either room or whether the opening provides ventilation, so it should not be treated as evidence of a measurable lighting or airflow improvement.
For anyone considering a similar borrowed-light opening, the useful design questions are specific: which spaces should share light, when should they be visually connected, and how can the opening be covered or closed? A glazed door, shuttered opening and curtain do different jobs. They are not interchangeable, and the right combination depends on privacy needs and the apartment’s actual layout.
How does color organize the kitchen and entry?
The kitchen is described as enclosed in blue and magenta, with optimized storage and a bar for entertaining. At the entry, a pink-and-gray coat closet adds a separate color combination and incorporates four pull-out drawers, one for each family member. These are not isolated decorative accents: the kitchen and entry are part of the same custom millwork plan that accommodates the household’s needs.
Color can help make functional elements legible. In this project, the strong kitchen colors identify a distinct zone, while the entry closet’s drawers give each person a defined place for belongings. The feature does not say that the colors were chosen as wayfinding or that the drawers were assigned by color; those are possible ways to think about color and organization, not reported intentions. What it does show is that storage decisions and color decisions were made together.
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That coordination is especially useful in a small home, where cabinets occupy prominent surfaces and serve as part of the room’s visual character. A palette planned around the millwork can make a storage-heavy wall feel intentional rather than like a collection of add-ons. Conversely, an attractive color scheme will not solve a storage problem if the cabinets do not fit the household’s daily routines. This renovation links the two considerations without supplying dimensions or product details that would allow a direct template.
Why use blue, magenta, pink and gray together?
The feature attributes the palette to the family’s history and references as well as the architects’ interest in color relationships. The owners were inspired by the rainbow-hued stained-glass window associated with Maria’s bedroom in the film version of West Side Story, and by colorful modernist Parisian homes they had seen while living in France. The architects also sought to respect the building’s art deco identity.
Ng says the studio drew on “the Josef Albers way of thinking about colours and the relationships between them.” Esocoff explains why the blue and magenta were paired: “We use a blue, but it has a lot of red in it that really starts to come through when it’s paired with the magenta — a red that has a lot of blue in it.” The point is not simply that two saturated colors sit side by side; each color’s appearance is influenced by its neighbor.
Esocoff also notes that secondary and tertiary colors can feel layered and that perception changes as light changes. In the feature, he says this visual interest matters in a living space where people spend time every day, so the colors do not become flat. That is a design rationale, not a guarantee that a particular blue or magenta will look the same in another apartment. The source does not identify paint brands, color names, codes, finishes or whether all the described colors are paint rather than other surface materials.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFor a homeowner choosing paint, the transferable lesson is to assess colors in relation to one another and to the room’s changing light. A blue viewed beside a red-leaning magenta may appear different from the same blue viewed against white or gray. Test candidate colors in the actual space and observe them at different times before making a final selection; that is practical guidance, not a method the feature says the architects used. Do not assume that copying the broad color names will reproduce the project’s effect without knowing the exact shades, surrounding materials and light conditions.
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What original features did the renovation preserve?
The apartment is in a building the feature dates to 1942. The renovation retained its sunken living room, parquetry flooring and arched passageways, placing new work within rather than replacing those existing elements. The studio’s aim to respect the building’s art deco identity sits alongside a more contemporary intervention in the kitchen, storage and bedroom.
That combination helps explain why the project is not simply a story about adding a room. The new millwork has a strong geometric character, while the apartment’s arches and floor remain part of the visual context. Esocoff’s comment about the circular porthole provides one explicit example of the designers responding to the geometry around it. The feature does not describe restoration methods or specify which historic finishes were repaired, so it would be inaccurate to claim that the renovation restored the apartment to a particular original condition.
When updating an older interior, it can help to distinguish elements you want to preserve from elements that need to change for current use. This project’s reported choices suggest that a new bedroom and updated kitchen need not erase the qualities that make an existing home feel distinctive. Whether that balance is feasible elsewhere depends on the building, the apartment and the work involved.
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What can this apartment teach you about planning color?
The project supports a few practical principles for thinking about color in a compact renovation. They are takeaways from the described design, not a specification sheet for copying it.
- Plan the layout first, then color it as a system. The bedroom, kitchen storage and entry closet respond to household needs. Color becomes more useful when it is planned with those large surfaces and functions in mind.
- Check how neighboring colors affect one another. The architects describe the blue and magenta as colors whose undertones become noticeable in combination. Evaluate a palette as a group rather than selecting each shade in isolation.
- Account for changing light. The designers specifically discuss how perception shifts as light changes. Consider the light in your own rooms before settling on a color; the feature offers no measured lighting data for this apartment.
- Give functional surfaces a deliberate role. The entry closet and kitchen millwork are storage, but the reported color choices also make them part of the interior’s identity.
- Keep privacy options in the plan. Glass and openings can share light, but the curtain and shutters preserve ways to close the bedroom off.
- Make future use concrete. The room’s office or guest-room potential gives the family a reason to think beyond its immediate bedroom use. Decide what a future conversion would require before building in elements that might prevent it.
- Respect what already works. Retaining the sunken living room, parquetry and arches let the new work respond to the apartment’s character rather than treating every existing feature as an obstacle.
What does the project not tell you?
The source describes a single apartment, not a set of measured renovation options. It reports no floor area, project budget, construction duration, quantified space saved, exact paint colors or retail products. It also gives no technical plans for the bedroom partition, porthole, kitchen millwork or coat closet. As a result, the feature is most useful as a design case study—not as a cost estimate, code guide or shopping list.
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The quotations are presented in the matching feature as statements from Esocoff and Ng; the available data notes that they were not checked against a primary interview. The feature also reports that the studio’s founders had worked together at WorkAC and Foster + Partners before founding their practice. These details provide context for the designers, but they do not establish how any other project will turn out.
If you are considering a similar change, treat the project as a set of questions to take to an architect or other qualified local professional: can your existing plan accommodate a genuinely private sleeping space; what storage must be integrated; how can light move between rooms; and what parts of the existing interior should remain? The article provides inspiration, but it cannot answer those apartment-specific questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did the feature publish the exact paint colors or codes?
No. It describes blue, magenta, pink and gray but gives no paint names, manufacturer, color codes or finish specifications. Those broad color descriptions are not enough to reproduce the exact palette.
How large was the added bedroom, and how much did the renovation cost?
The feature reports neither the room’s dimensions nor the project budget. It also does not quantify how much space the family gained or saved by renovating instead of moving.
Who designed the apartment renovation?
The feature credits Ideas of Order Studio, founded by architects Jacob Esocoff and Henry Ng. It reports that the two had worked together at WorkAC and Foster + Partners before starting the studio.
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