This Brooklyn Home’s $175K Gut Reno Was More Like an “Archeological Dig”
Adrienne Breaux
·10 min read
Christina Salway, founder of the design company ElevenTwoEleven Design, describes her home style as "collected, curated, eclectic, playful, joyful, teetering on a little weird." All on display in this three-bedroom townhouse in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"We renovated the house for around $175,000, which includes a total overhaul of the façade. That said, I don’t think most people could possibly squeeze a renovation this comprehensive out of that budget – we just did so much of the work ourselves, which saved us a ton of money," she writes. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"The floors, which we love, are old-growth pine floors, but were originally installed as subfloors. When we pulled all the vinyl rugs and linoleum roll up, I just thought it was so beautiful, and also — we saved probably $40,000 not installing new floors on top of them," Christina explains. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
When it comes to the biggest challenge of the home's renovation, Christina explains that it's the "whole thing. It was a really big lift financially for us to buy the house, so we definitely didn’t have the luxury of living somewhere else while we were working." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"I joked that for the first three months, we were basically camping in Brooklyn. The only working bathroom was in the garden apartment, but the only habitable bedrooms were on the second floor, and the electricity between the two floors wasn’t working for a few months," she explains. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"If you needed to pee in the middle of the night, we’d literally strap on a headlamp and descend into the basement. My son was not a huge fan of that arrangement. We just slowly plugged away, one room at a time, and gradually it became more and more normal." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
Christina explains that the tiger rug hanging in the living room was purchased at a street market in Paris, and "probably brings me the most joy. … It just makes me smile whenever I walk in the house." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
Another great purchase in the home is the armchair next to the couch. "I bought that at Doyle’s Auction house in the city, and I think it’s just superb. Everything about the experience was great — I went with a good friend to do the auction in person, which was so fun. I was obsessed with it, emerged victorious — so not only is it a great piece, it has great memories." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
The dining room is Farrow & Ball's "Green Blue." The chandelier is from Soho Home. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
The farmhouse table, the chairs, and the hutch are all antique. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"We are a decidedly informal family, but actually love having a proper place to sit for dinner, and really love being able to host," Christina writes about the formal dining room. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"We’ve had 14 people crowded around that dining room table for the holidays before — and it’s a joy to be able to welcome that many people into a New York City home." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
When it comes to the proudest DIY in the house, Christina says it's a split between "the tile work in the kitchen or stripping the marble fireplaces. The tile work is this huge brilliant green backsplash that stretches from the countertop all the way to the ceiling." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"It was tedious and slow-going to make sure it was straight and flat. It’s so visible it really had to be right — but we absolutely love how it turned out," she continues. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"The marble fireplaces were a true labor of love. All of the fireplaces in the house (there are four) were covered in layers and layers of paint. Every time we’d strip one, I would somehow delude myself into thinking it would somehow be an easier/faster process, and then — a zillion hours later and countless coats of 'Smart Strip' later, and I’d be whittling away with a toothbrush, cursing myself." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"But then, when they were finished, I couldn’t believe how beautiful they were, and that someone had covered them in paint! Worth all the sweat and tears," she explains. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"I feel like I am always encouraging my clients to do less, rather than more, and yet we have done 'more, more, more' every single time there was an opportunity," Christina admits. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"I think when I recommend 'less' to my clients, it’s because I know that the 'more' aesthetic requires a great deal of discipline. You can’t hang a tiger rug on the wall and have piles of Amazon packages and mail strewn around," she advises. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"You can’t have a screaming green kitchen backsplash and have every tiny appliance under the sun littering your countertops. If you’re going to go big, in my opinion, everything else has to be put away — shipshape — otherwise it just feels like anarchy. A riot — the bad kind." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"Our house feels a little like a 'Country House in the City' — which is a mixture of my design vision and the constraints of our budget and existing collection of furniture," Christina describes. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"When we moved into the Brooklyn house, it was a combination of all of our furniture from our previous Brooklyn apartment along with much of the furniture we’d collected for a country house we had sold upstate." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"My hope was to create a sort of 'cabinet of curiosities aesthetic' — I half-jokingly say that I want it to feel like the home of a Victorian explorer — full of verdant plants, peculiar taxidermy, interesting art, and our collections from traveling through life," she writes. Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
"If I was going to define my aesthetic in one word, it would be collected," Christina admits. "I am drawn to marvelous, bizarre, uncommon things — strange chairs, unexpected upholstery, old pine cabinets, rickety inlaid tables. I think I am weirdly attracted to things that are slightly ugly-beautiful." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
When asked if there are any "house rules," Christina described three of them. One: "Leave your shoes on. We are just not a shoes-off house. We have a dog and an 11-year-old. The battle is already lost." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
Her second rule: "Put it away/hang it up. I can’t stand it when people come in the house and leave their shoes and coats all over the place." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
And her last rule: "You have to go home by midnight. We like to host dinners and cocktail parties, but John always tells everyone they have to go home by midnight. It never works, and we always end up staying up too late." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
Designer Christina Salway, founder of the design company ElevenTwoEleven Design, and her husband, John Moskowitz, had their hands full when they bought this 2,800-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood.
What’s the one thing in your home that people always ask about? "Where’s your TV? (It’s hanging behind a painting in the living room.)" Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
“The house was a massive project, though it was more like an archeological dig than a full gut,” Christina begins. “The house had been occupied by multiple generations of one family for over 80 years, so the project was largely focused on returning the house to its original state.”
Define your personal home style in a few words:"Collected, curated, eclectic, playful, joyful, teetering on a little weird." Credit: Erin LittleCredit: Erin Little
“When we purchased the house, the living room and dining room were both being used as bedrooms, and all of the ‘living spaces’ (kitchen, dining room, living room) were in the garden apartment,” Christina continues. “We spent the first month just removing everything — pulling down dated wood paneling, dropped foamboard ceilings, and shag carpets from the ’70s, pulling up layer upon layer of vinyl flooring from every corner of the house. We discovered reams of newspaper from the 1920s and ’40s underneath the vinyl flooring and linoleum carpet, which gives you an idea of how long it had been there.”
“But under all of that stuff, we knew there were beautiful prewar details: multiphase crown moldings, pocket doors, pressed tin ceilings, ornate ceiling medallions, marble fireplaces, original old growth pine floors — so we just had to dig everything out to reveal what was hiding in plain sight. We really renovated everything — the kitchen, the bathrooms, all of our bedrooms, the living room, dining room, pantry, hallways — it was all just covered in faux-wood paneling, shag carpet, dropped ceilings — we really had to dig it out,” Christina explains.
“We did a huge amount of the work ourselves — basically all of the demolition and removal of the old materials — and then really got started. We did all of the painting, most of the drywall and plaster repair, all of the tiling, stripping the fireplaces, stripping the banisters, wallpapering, you name it. … And then we called in the pros where we had to — for plumbing, electrical, and the kitchen and built-in cabinetry.”
Christina has completed interior design projects around the world, in places like New York City, upstate New York, Maine, and France. She shares her home with her husband, John Moskowitz, 11-year old son Julian, and their blue-tick coon-hound mutt, named Henry. And when it comes to where and how the family spends time in the house, there’s a clear winner. “We spend so much time in our kitchen, which is funny because it’s the smallest room in the house, by a factor of two, at least. I often perch at the counter while John is cooking, or Julian will sit and do homework while I’m making breakfast … it truly is the heart of the home.”
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