Building Blocks

Photo: Dana Meilijson

No, Christopher Coleman was not deliberately referencing Mondrian, the Memphis movement, or the Rubik’s Cube when he assembled the new Williamsburg apartment he shares with fashion designer Angel Sanchez. This gung-ho mix of bold elements—a geometric kitchen wall covering, a color-block chair, a sliding door in red patent leather—is his own design philosophy, where pricey Gio Ponti chairs share space with inexpensive Canal Street finds. “Angel did all the homework and found this,” Coleman says of the 1,156-square-foot one-bedroom. Now, Coleman’s design-on-a-relative-dime solutions surround the couple. The closet doors: acrylic sheets mounted on track. The black carpet: remnants from ABC Carpet’s basement. The silk shades on the bedside wall sconces: leftover from a show house the designer did in Miami. Call it early-21st-century resourceful.

THE LIVING ROOM
1. The throw pillows were made by Sanchez.
2. Coleman bought the living-room sofa in Florida. “It was like $1,800. I wish I had distorted it a little more so it doesn’t look so much like a piano.”
3. The chair, left, is from Prague Kolektiv in Dumbo, and is upholstered in a wool dhurrie Coleman found in Dubai while there with Sanchez, who was doing a wedding.

THE BEDROOM
4. The headboard is Liberty of London fabric.
5. The bedroom’s closet doors are sheets of acrylic from Canal Plastics, hung on a track.
6. The cantilevered bedside tables are from CB2. Coleman had them lacquered at an automobile paint shop.

THE CHAIR
7. The acrylic chair, right, is a Jean-Charles de Castelbajac design that Coleman found at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

THE KITCHEN
8. “The kitchen wall covering was inspired by fifties Latin American art. We figured out the scale and design, then had it printed on vinyl at Wolf Gordon. We did it like in two weeks.”
9. The window treatments are made from $9-a-yard parachute cloth, bought at Circle Visual on West 37th Street.

Building Blocks