Tour a Textural, Family-Friendly Brooklyn Loft

Murphy's home embodies the essence of urban loft living: modern, industrial hardware; high ceilings; and a carefully composed layout that maximizes small-space constraints. She was inspired by the architecture and history of her Brooklyn neighborhood to create an old-meets-new vibe, balancing a collection of both vintage and modern pieces. According to Murphy, “Generally the modern provides visual structure in a space, and the vintage adds character and personality to a room.”

Given the smaller size of the loft, Murphy opted for a neutral palette to ensure that the space would feel cohesive throughout. “When working with small spaces, I try to design holistically so that each room feels connected to the next,” she says. “All furniture, fixtures, accessories, and paint for each room were considered as if they were part of one overall space. This creates cohesion, versatility, and longevity in that pieces can be moved around without any worry that they won’t work in a different room.”

Murphy's simply appointed nursery showcases the designer's attention to connecting different moments within the loft. The gray and white tones play off the unfinished wood to keep the space light and youthful while maintaining the neutral palette of the rest of the home.

The designer describes her aesthetic as “modern, eclectic, layered, mostly neutral, and often masculine.” For her home, however, she wanted to make sure that her husband’s tastes were considered as well. “Balancing his love for minimalism and my love of layering was a challenge,” she remembers. “But we managed to strike a balance by adopting a controlled palette and mixing lots of clean-lined modern pieces with more-organic forms and a few simple textiles,” she adds.

Texture was key to building dimension and warmth within the neutral space, as Murphy mixed sleek metallic lighting with salvaged wood furniture, canvas and linen upholstery, and geometric wall art. Murphy notes, “I make sure to use lots of texture in the form of woods, metals, and textiles to keep the eye interested and moving around the room.” Murphy finished the space with eclectic artifacts that give the loft a collected and curated appeal.