Partners in life and work, Noam Dvir and Daniel Rauchwerger, purchased a former run-down 1856 Chelsea second-floor apartment at the height of the pandemic in April 2020. It is there they set out to build a silver lining during such a tumultuous year — a dream house, home office and refuge to dream big for their newly formed architecture and interior design firm BoND.

The full-floor one-bedroom had long since lost its architectural details, following up time as a single-room occupancy with an uninspired renovation. However, with ceilings reaching almost 4 meters with tall, south-facing windows in the front room, the interior had the solid foundation to be transformed. The couple made this their pandemic project, which also delayed construction for a few months and hugely influenced the design and layout of the space.

Dvir and Rauchwerger reimagined the great room as a live-work space with multiple corners to occupy. The biggest spatial change they made was to build out the western wall to make room for a built-in library, which is ensconced in three new arches that brought its glamour back and look like they’ve been there since day one. Crown mouldings and a new herringbone oak floor added to the feeling of restoration, along with a striking custom Arabascato-marble mantel for the wood-burning fireplace.

The kitchen nods to the future with an added slanted ceiling like a periscope jumping from 4 metres to 2.5. The countertop is simple light plywood and the Ikea kitchen balance the grandeur of the great room it connects with. The duo created an all mustard-coloured mudroom tiled wall to ceiling that references a memory of Berlin — tiled U-Bahn stations in particular — a place very dear to their families’ histories

The bedroom — which faces the back garden — was made smaller than the original layout to give it a more intimate proportion. IT features a closet by Molteni, a sideboard from USM, bedside tables from Berlin’s New Tendency and a one-of-a-kind bed cover from the couple’s friend, Tamar Mogendorff.

[Images courtesy of BoND. Photography by Chris Mottalini.]