Laura Mineff always wanted to live in a converted industrial building — “to have that loft-y experience,” as the owner of Array Design Studio in Cleveland puts it. Renting a two-bedroom unit on the second floor of The Shoreway, the repurposed home of the Globe Machine & Stamping Co. in the city’s Gordon Square arts district, provided it with exposed brick walls, banks of factory windows and polished concrete floors. But the space, particularly the open kitchen/living area, came with interior design challenges. “The building [owner] said to me, ‘Go ahead and do whatever you would like to the unit,’” she says says. “So that’s what I did.”
(Photo courtesy Array Design Studio)
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The Kitchen
Before: Mineff inherited an updated but nonetheless pedestrian wall of wood-look laminate cabinetry with the requisite solid-surface countertops,
stainless-steel appliances and an island separating it from the rest of the room.
After: Mineff’s first step was to paint the baby-blue walls a brick red to inject vibrant color. She outfitted the island with a pair of
white-leather hydraulic stools that adjust to each user’s preferred height and swivel, allowing them to join conversation in the living space and a metal bench with a reverse-
leather-hide cushion at the end. The latter does more than provide
extra island seating — it provides a spot to slip shoes on and off near the unit’s entrance. A copper resin lamp on the top and an arrangement of reeds in a blue glass vase, along with a plant, on the floor at one corner make the island
read more like a table. Displaying works of art on shelves, on top of the cabinets, even on top of the refrigerator, reinforces it.
(Photo courtesy Array Design Studio)
The Living Area
Before: The space, furnished in a combination of transitional and contemporary pieces in grays and blacks, looks finished.
After: Mineff
filled the room with art, hanging a three-piece abstract giclee print in yellows, grays and white over the Italian bombe chest and spacing nine custom-made geometric designs she created, executed by a manufacturer in seven layers of media, over the
television. The new coffee table, distinguished by a top covered in velvet with orange-and-gray cotton-thread accents, is a work of art. But Mineff ditched the sofa table, replacing it with a cylindrical lamp she had custom-made in Morocco and two
cylindrical shell-covered side tables that create depth and dimension.
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(Photo courtesy Array Design Studio)
The Primary Bedroom
Before: Mineff moved into the unit with a bed frame, mattress and cream-leather headboard, a dramatic 6-foot-high feature quilted in a geometric pattern — and, in contrast, not much else worth noting. Color, pattern and texture were lacking.
After: Mineff punched up her white linens by folding a sunny yellow coverlet at the end of the bed and placing a couple of matching accent pillows against full-size ones in existing black shams. She drew the eye even higher by adding a linear porcelain-metal-and-gold artwork over the headboard. A corner of the room was enlivened by tossing a white throw and another yellow accent pillow on a chair, swapping a table for two round marble-topped stacking tables — pieces that add dimension, different shapes and materials — and hanging a vibrant dimensional piece on the wall.
(Photo courtesy Array Design Studio)
The Spare Bedroom
Before: Mineff needed a guest room to comfortably accommodate visiting parents and adult children. “But at the same time, I ran my
business out of my home,” she says. The traditional bed-and-nightstand setup simply didn’t work for her in a space that had to pull double duty.
After: Mineff installed a Murphy bed she designed and built. The bed
lifts into a plywood cabinet finished in a wood-look laminate that looks like a storage casement piece when the double doors are closed. The star of the room is a smoked-glass-topped desk with curving metal legs — a piece light enough for Mineff
to move to a corner of the room when guests are in town. Unobtrusive shelving units supply additional storage, while a white faux-fur rug provides “a comfort space for [her] feet” on the building owner’s dark-gray modular carpeting.
(Photo courtesy Array Design Studio)
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