The Architect Is In: Tips from Jen Turner's Grand DIY - Remodelista
Photography by Mathew Williams for Remodelista. A young architect’s own home renovation can be like a grand DIY. She is available for the next 48 hours to answer any and all questions. “Ordering everything myself saved money, as normally a contractor would add a fee on top of the cost for the materials... ...but this meant I was also responsible for getting the right overage on the tile and making sure everything arrived in the right sequence,” she says. The architect Jen Turner in her bedroom on the second floor of the carriage house. The first floor of Turner’s house is essentially one large room with the kitchen and dining area at either end of the room and the living area in the middle. The painting on the wall, “Partial Map of the Known Universe with Loops,” is by artist and friend Kysa Johnson. “I splurged on tiles from Heath Ceramics because of the extraordinary depth of their colors (and non-colors) and handmade character,” Turner says. Turner’s decisions in the kitchen are an example of her balancing act between high and low. Given the open nature of the multi-function room, she avoided upper cabinets and a full height refrigerator for a more integrated overall aesthetic. An example of Turner’s creative resourcefulness; making a feature of her lighting cords by arranging them into a geometric pattern on her ceiling. Turner used a quartzite stone called Luce de Luna for the countertop of her kitchen island; it resembles marble but is a bit less porous so less susceptible to staining. Turner used a neutral palette to create a background that would accommodate her high/low design approach. When I was at Ikea shopping for my kitchen cabinets, I saw the lamb’s wool throws and thought they were a perfect no-fuss solution for extending the lifespan of the stools by a couple of years.” Turner’s home is filled with vignettes composed of natural objects she has collected on her travels or on hikes. A birthday cake made out of random packing materials, which Turner finds fascinating and collects, sits on a vintage Jonathan Adler table which she purchased at a sample sale for $30. Turner’s dining area is comprised of a Lindsey Adelman DIY chandelier and a dining table whose base she purchased from a reclamation store in Redhook, “one of those places that you literally have to excavate things from the ceiling-high formations of furniture and bric-a-brac.” The wood tabletop was made by a millworker as a ‘thank you’ on a library project Turner worked on with him when she was working at Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. Turner feels some music types and musicians, including the Blues, Fela Kuti, and Cat Power, sound lusty and better on her Rega Planar turntable... ...which she loves for its “excellent function and beautiful, simple design.” Sitting at a bus stop in Queens on the way to a friend’s barbecue, Turner spotted her yellow chair. A vintage Le Corbusier armchair and midcentury dresser maintain Turner’s neutral palette in the sitting area of the master bedroom. The glass box on the left contains pine cones in increasing sizes that Turner has collected on her walks, while the glass box on the right contains things belonging to the sea, collected in Mexico, Africa, Belize, and Costa Rica. Above L: Turner converted a solid walnut millwork sample from a past job into a bedside table. The wood headboard with bookshelf and secret storage drawers is one of Turner’s own designs, which she has named The Marfa in homage to Donald Judd. The French walnut shelf is another job sample that Turner re-purposed into a bedside table. The only thing Turner kept from the original bathroom was the toilet. The brick infill on the front facade of Turner’s two story house in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn leads her to believe it was originally a carriage house for the building next door.