Day Kornbluth isn’t a fan of home decor eyesores.
So she and her husband, Max Pitman, decided in 2012 to ditch their brownstone rental in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill neighborhood and buy a brownstone in nearby Cobble Hill after their landlord put down some jaw-droppingly hideous decking.
“My husband jokes that the landlord put some rubber stuff on the deck, and then something just broke in me. I was like, ‘We have to move,’ ” says Kornbluth, the vice president of merchandising at online furnishings marketplace One Kings Lane.
So their hunt for a new home began that July. After viewing three places in Cobble Hill, they made an offer on a landmarked, Federal-style, 4,000-square-foot brownstone on Clinton Street; it’s comprised of two rental units and a two-bedroom, two-bathroom owner’s duplex.
“This building is special because it has a lot of the things that beautiful, turn-of-the-century brownstones have,” says Kornbluth, 32, referring to its high ceilings, crown moldings, ceiling medallions, exposed brick walls and marble mantels. “Also, the standard brownstone is 20 by 40 [feet], but this is 22 by 40, with a 10-foot extension.”
It wasn’t a grandiose offer that sealed the deal — the couple appealed to the existing owner’s maternal instincts. “The owner had raised two sons in the duplex, and she had met our son at the open house,” says Kornbluth, who, with her husband, has a son, Arthur, 3, and daughter, Louisa, 9 months. “So I wrote her a letter, hand-delivered it, and said we’d love to raise our son here. Apparently, according to our broker, this was the reason we got it.”
Next up were renovations — which kicked off during the summer of 2012 and ended a year later. The family stayed in their Boerum Hill rental while their new home received a face-lift.
“The first thing we did was renovate the top [rental] floor, since there were no tenants,” says Kornbluth of the tweaks, which included refinishing the floors and a paint job. The other rental level was left as is, since the tenants remained and it was never unoccupied.
The duplex’s parlor floor’s living and dining rooms were repainted, and the original herringbone wood floor — covered by a nearly wall-to-wall rug by the previous owner — was refinished. The original moldings were also sanded, and a pair of built-in units was added, the shelves filled with coffee-table books from One Kings Lane.
As for the decor, Kornbluth drew on her personal sense of style. “The spaces I’m always drawn to are the ones that have a really clean palette,” she says. “The best homes are a collection of eras and design aesthetics.”
The centerpiece of the living room is the Bubble Chandelier, a cluster of glass globes suspended from the ceiling by leather cording, from Red Hook design firm Pelle, a One Kings Lane vendor. “Light fixtures are the jewelry of the home — it’s not the place to be subtle,” Kornbluth says. (There’s another, smaller Bubble Chandelier in the dining room.)
Beneath the chandelier are a pair of green leather poufs by Cisco Brothers, an Elite Leather ottoman partially covered in a Brahms Mount woven throw and a Moss Studio oatmeal Belgian linen fabric sofa — all of which were sourced from One Kings Lane. Also in the room: a vintage children’s rocking chair from Kornbluth’s godfather — but it’s rarely used. “No child of mine ever sits down long enough,” she says.
Other living room pieces bequeathed to her by loved ones include an oval wooden table (on which a vintage flower-print urn from One Kings Lane sits), a gift from her father-in-law, and a Richard Segalman painting (leaning against the wall atop an Art Deco Theodore Alexander bar from One Kings Lane) from her grandparents.
In the adjoining dining room is a showpiece of a table created from a salvaged maple lane from a bowling alley in Pittsburgh that was closing. Vintage Tiger Maple chairs found on eBay provide the seating, while a baker’s rack by Étagère Industriel from One Kings Lane holds dishes, cookware and cutlery.
At the rear of the parlor floor is the kitchen, which was one of the few rooms in the home that was fully gutted. “We raised the ceiling, painted the window frames black and the walls white, tiled the background [with tiles from Home Depot], got an awesome Smeg stove on eBay and classic Shaker-style cabinets from a cabinet maker in Williamsburg,” Kornbluth explains.
A bench with drawers was also built into the wall on one side of the kitchen, where a Ralph Lauren ceiling light hangs. “Those drawers are super useful,” Kornbluth says. “They are full of kids’ stuff, like crayons and books.”
The vestibule, off the kitchen and partly covered in Pierre Frey floral print wallpaper, is anchored by a Legends of Asia sky-blue Asian-style console from One Kings Lane. Off the vestibule is one bathroom.
“All we did to the bathroom was replace the sink and paint it a blue we custom-mixed,” says Kornbluth, who added a couple of paintings from her late art dealer grandmother.
Downstairs on the garden level are the two bedrooms. The children share one, which received a paint job, built-in cubbies, window treatments and refinished parquet floors. Kid-friendly elements include Hygge & West wallpaper with a print of the cycles of the moon, a Visual Comfort star-shaped ceiling light fixture from One Kings Lane, a wooden pie chest from a San Francisco vintage shop and a pine chest of drawers Kornbluth had as a child.
On the wall hangs a favorite piece of Kornbluth’s called “Snorkeler,” a fish-themed print of an abstract collage by British artist Ben Giles, from One Kings Lane. Says Kornbluth: “Kid’s art gets very saccharine. It’s hard to find something.”
Down the hall from the children’s room, past a bathroom they enlarged by moving around walls and reconfiguring the hallway, is the master bedroom, which opens up into the backyard.
The bedroom’s walls were reconfigured as part of the renovation, creating a new entrance, closet space and vanity area. The bed, covered in Matouk for One Kings Lane bedding, is flanked by a set of Global Views steel bedside tables with a brass finish from One Kings Lane. There is also a pair of white dressers — on which an Aerin lamp from One Kings Lane sits and a Thomas O’Brien for Visual Comfort light hangs from above — plus a brown leather Eames chair and a vintage khotan rug from One Kings Lane.
Given the home’s kid-friendly features, Kornbluth says she isn’t itching to move.
“What’s nice about this building is that it’s right across from Cobble Hill Park,” she says. “The other amazing thing is that La Vara, a Michelin-starred tapas restaurant, is directly across the street. We can go there with our baby monitor.”
She adds, laughing, “I know it’s setting a low bar for parenting, but it’s really fun.”
Highlights from Kornbluth’s home at One Kings Lane:
Landon Ottoman; Elite Leather; $899
Ben Giles, Boy and Bear; starting at $189
Lapis Stones, Zoe Bios Creative; starting at $299
Meagan Donegan, Sheep; starting at $189