The New York Times recently featured the apartment of British expats Hilary Robertson and Alastair McCowan in Brooklyn, laden with great repurposed objects in the softest of palettes. Robertson is a stylist who has worked with the furniture company Ochre and their secondary line Canvas among others, and the Ochre influence is clearly seen in this space. She even took their fantastic Chesterfield in the living room in lieu of payment for a job.

Elsewhere the couple has been ingenious with inexpensive found objects. The light fixture is a $2 trash can spray painted white and a vintage pool measuring board hangs between the windows.

Robertson is clearly a magpie and shells, glass bottles and vintage chocolate molds are gathered on this side console. A woman after my own heart!

Robertson marries old metal bases and marble tops to make consoles and will sell these in her new Brooklyn shop, Mrs. Robertson. I think this would make a great kitchen island in my beach house.

McCowan collects vintage mirrors and they are used like jewelry throughout the space. This series of arches has me humming.

The chairs were spruced up with paint, shoe polish and stapled on muslin upholstery. They look fresh from les puces, but were actually bought at Brimfield.

In a typical brownstone layout, the rooms are an enfilade and the bedroom would actually have been the back parlour.

Remember I called her a magpie? Love this!

The bedroom has another great “chandelier” – a birdcage in this case.

More mirrors on the mantle. Reminds me of these I just saw. Great to see others are addicted to aged silvered glass.

I have found numerous amazing clothing forms here in the markets. One of these days I’ll get to a post on them!

While the parlour floor is all light, bright and frothy, the English basement below has the usual brownstone drawbacks of low ceilings and minimal light. Rather than fight it, they embraced it, painting the room in chalkboard paint. It turns the mirror collection in here to sparkling jewels while also disguising the irregularities of the walls and making them disappear. Camille just posted on a similar trick in the kitchen.

I love it all! What about you?

All photos by Trevor Tondro for The New York Times. The article is here and more photos here.

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The Magpie Gene…Vintage Kimono and Judyth van Amringe
Shrine Sale Scorcher…Vintage Mirrors on an Extremely Hot Day
So Long Summer…Vignettes and Views Around the House
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…Vintage Etched and Engraved Plateaus
Pale & Interesting…More Mirrors From Dave Coote and Atlanta Bartlett
Perfectly Pale…Megan Morton’s Australian Home
More Pale Grey From Abroad