As Giovanni Botta and Amanda Pinegar began planning the renovation of the house they bought in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, they knew one thing for sure: The kitchen would have to be pink.
“We had already decided on the fridge, which is pink,” said Ms Pinegar, 44, a ceramic artist. “And we wanted a kitchen that would enhance that.”
To complement the pink kitchen, they also considered several other bright colors.
“Amanda wanted it very bold,” said Mr. Botta, 42, a software engineer at Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Alphabet. This was nothing new: In their previous home, they had painted their bedroom yellow and pink.
The couple had bought the mansion for $1.6 million in November 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, as they struggled to live comfortably with their twin daughters, now 7 years old.
“Honestly, we thought we were going to leave New York,” Ms. Pinegar said. “But we rented a house for a year and realized it wasn’t New York we were bored of — we were living in a 900-square-foot apartment with twins.”
Their new townhouse, which had nearly 2,100 square feet over two floors, plus a finished basement, offered significantly more space. But it had been split into three units with dated finishes, so it needed work.
The family moved in temporarily as they began interviewing architects, only to find that many didn’t share their enthusiasm for the creative use of color — or their belief that the renovation could be done on a budget of about $400,000.
But when they met Lucky Anderson, from Brooklyn Studio Officina, they discovered a kindred spirit. “I really love the colour, so it was an easy sell,” Ms Anderson said. “They were really awesome clients and it was a really fun project.”
Mrs. Anderson had removed many of the interior walls, turning the mansion into an airy detached house. At hall level, he designed a living room at the front, an expansive kitchen and dining room at the back, and a library in between.
Mr. Botta and Ms. Pinegar wanted a lot of ceramic tiles, so Ms. Anderson suggested a collection by Nathalie Du Pasquier for Mutina, with different patterns that work together. They used the tiles to create a long hallway that runs from the front entry to the kitchen at the back of the house.
Upstairs, Ms. Anderson designed a new master suite, three additional bedrooms and another bathroom. In the basement, he designed a casual family room with Marmoleum flooring, a flint room and a music room for Mr. Botta.
In the fall of 2021, Ms. Anderson requested preliminary pricing from two contractors, who promised that the renovation could be completed on budget. “It seemed like if we went with the right person, it would be difficult but doable,” he said.
But 2022 brought problems. It took a few months to finalize design details and secure a building permit, and by then inflation had driven up costs. The couple also discovered that the wooden structure had extensive termite damage that needed to be repaired.
The new deals “came in for more than double what we expected,” Mr. Botta said. Some contractors billed the work at $1 million.
Instead of looking for cheaper options to replace the materials they were excited about—including Mutina tile and new oak flooring to replace the old bamboo—they decided to postpone most of their plans for the top floor.
They then doubled up to hall level. To make sure the color scheme was exactly what they wanted, the couple scheduled a virtual consultation with Joa Studholme, color curator at Farrow & Ball in London, at Ms Anderson’s suggestion.
To keep the house light and bright, Ms Studholme suggested neutral shades such as the oat-coloured Stirabout and the cooler Strong White for most of the walls. But he chose vibrant colors for the windows and doors, such as Yellowcake, bright Danish Lawn green and warm Bamboozle red. To inject more color into the tiled hallway, she suggested bold blue crockery, painted from the floor to the height of a chair rail—and instructed the couple to apply the paint directly to the doors and be done. For the ideal pink kitchen they agreed on Cinder Rose.
“It was all about tuning in with the customers’ wishes and creating a design that would appeal to both the young and the young at heart,” Ms Studholme said.
In the end, the couple managed to accomplish a few things upstairs, including removing the old kitchen and renovating the bathroom, where they installed Tetris-inspired tiles in eight different colors (two chosen by each family member).
The total cost of the renovation, completed by Emiliano Construction, was $538,000, but Mr. Botta and Ms. Pinegar are so pleased with the result that they’ve almost forgotten to put their upstairs plans on hold.
“We haven’t even thought about it for a while,” Ms Pinegar said. “We probably could have done the whole thing if we’d cut back on the things we really wanted – but we really wanted those things.”
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