“In Bed-Stuy, in my price range, you find two types of houses,” designer Ellen Van Dusen explains, reflecting on her year spent house hunting in the tree-lined, brownstone-filled Brooklyn neighborhood. “There are the gut renos, totally stripped of all their character but with no internal problems. And the ones with some original character and a lot of problems.”
If you’re familiar with Dusen Dusen, her pattern-forward line of clothing and homewares, then you’ll know character is not the sort of thing she compromises on. This is a designer who, bored with the blah bedding market, debuted linens printed with shapes, squiggles, and fruits. Needless to say, she went for the fixer-upper.
After all, she reasoned, she knew what to expect. For several of her high school years her parents—both architects—had renovated their place in D.C. She was used to the camping-in-your-own-house thing. So she called in her dad’s D.C.-based firm, Van Dusen Architects, to help with the interiors, hired a local contractor, and set to work.
Built in 1899, the place had loads of that aforementioned character: frilly picture-frame moldings, plaster reliefs on the ceiling, original fireplaces, and stained glass details on some of the window. But as in many turn-of-the-century brownstones, the kitchen was in the basement and there was only one bathroom.
“I always knew this would be the living room because it’s so grand,” she explains, sitting at her Ettore Sottsass dining table (a Craigslist find!), now fully installed on the ground floor. Her Boston terrier, Snips, lounges nearby. “And I wanted the kitchen to be next to it, for when people come over.”
The kitchen quickly became a focal point of the place, outfitted with a bright yellow range, a really big island, squiggle-printed cabinets by Barry Wells Cabinetry, and funny bits and bobs by her designer friends.
“I have a tendency to go overboard with color, so I had to actively talk myself into doing plywood,” she explains of the cabinetry. To add some pizzazz, she hired Barry Wells Cabinetry to route a motif of continuous curves: “It’s a subtler way for me to do a pattern without assaulting your eyes.”
She faced the same challenge when it came time to decorate. Ellen came armed with a smattering of her own printed wares—pillows, linens, a prototype for a rug—which she folded in with Craigslist and thrift store finds and works made by a range of local designer friends.
“I gravitate toward bright colors,” she admits. “But I’ve had to tone myself down. My rule of thumb: I never have the full rainbow. I feel that way about my prints too. I never use every color of the spectrum.”
Reno complete, she’s pleased with the results. Chez Ellen, Memphis-era collectibles, furniture by friends, and colorful contemporary artworks sit with kookier finds: an oven mitt shaped like a piece of bow-tie pasta, a gooseneck lamp, and one very large red tulip.
“I feel like everything in this house kind of looks like a cartoon,” she says. “And I love it.”
