Lifestyle

Designer Danny Forster tosses convention out the window

As host of the Science Channel’s “Build it Bigger” and the Discovery Channel’s “Extreme Engineering,” designer and TV personality Danny Forster makes it his mission to bring viewers close to the most spectacular construction projects of our time. From one of the Earth’s deepest gold mines, to the world’s tallest sculpted tower, no architectural wonder has proven too daunting for Forster’s shows to explore. But when it came to actually renovating his own apartment, his mantra was “build it better” rather than “build it bigger.”

Forster’s first impression of the Chelsea one-bedroom he bought in April 2012 was that it was rather unremarkable. And yet, after seeing some dozen places with broker Lara Nangle, of the Nangle Team at the Corcoran Group, Forster eventually concluded that the space had some serious potential.

BEFORE: The ho-hum, linear space was begging for some new life.Lorenzo Ciniglio

“The mistakes were immediately clear and very rectifiable,” he recalls. “And the ceiling heights were ridiculous.” Indeed, with its nearly 12-foot ceilings and solid prewar bones, this apartment was clearly well-positioned for a fresh — and elegant — new start.

To improve flow and visual appeal, Forster decided on three big changes — alterations that would cause most real estate brokers to gasp: removing the entry closet, walling over a working fireplace and opening up the bedroom to the living area. And yet, to spend five minutes in Forster’s remodeled home is to see the genius in his transformation.

“The assumption is, ‘Put the closet by the front door,’ ” Forster says. Yet he contends city apartments, with their quirky angles and awkwardly-sized rooms, don’t have to play by the usual rules. So instead, Forster ripped out the closet to enlarge the foyer. He then created a floor-to-ceiling built-in storage nook — for coats, vacuums and just about everything else — around the corner in the dining room. The move meant sacrificing 18 inches in the eating area, but the loss didn’t faze Forster, who gained a larger vestibule and a versatile wall of closet-like cubicles.

Besides, he counters, “What are we, ‘Downton Abbey’ here? How many dinner parties for 80 am I going to have? I will enter and leave my home more times than I will have formal dinners.”

More blasphemous than losing the closet was ridding himself of the living room fireplace. However, not only was the hearth unattractive, it also occupied the one wall with a vantage point for appreciating the Empire State Building. Sheetrocking the fireplace gave Forster the chance to put a sofa where logs once blazed, which better showcased those skyline views and also improved the room’s overall flow.

Lastly, Forster decided to reconfigure what he called the shoebox-shaped apartment’s ultra-linear, “bowling alley condition.” To do so, he broke up the non-load-bearing wall dividing the bedroom and living room and replaced it with a floating wall with open bays on both sides. Clad in the same engineered wood as his floors and his storage space, the wide column disrupts the monotony of what had been a conventional “wall-with-a-door” set-up.

Forster installed a modular built-in closet to his new space.Brian Zak/NY Post

The partition features flat-screen TVs on both sides (one in the bedroom, one in the living room), as well as offset pocket doors that can be extended for privacy (but usually stay tucked away).
The genius in the apartment’s transformation — done for less than $100,000 and in roughly five months — is its relative simplicity. In the case of Forster, his goals were achieved with the aid of PM Contracting of Manhattan. He primarily worked with a highly skilled carpenter and millworker — tradesmen whose roles are essential in any renovation, he says.

With a bit of reimagining and by keeping things simple, Forster has finally realized the potential of his apartment. He’s also realized a nice paper profit, with broker Nangle estimating that his renovations have boosted the apartment’s value by some 25 percent. And Forster managed to do this all without touching the existing bathroom or galley kitchen, which were in decent shape and unable to be drastically altered.

“You have to think about the relative value of your investment,” Forster says, and “whether the alteration will increase the performance and function.” In the case of the kitchen, he jokes, “I could put in a 50-pound wok and go bananas, but it’s still going to be a galley kitchen.”

So, the money went elsewhere, and the sum total of his kitchen renovation was $27 — for wallpaper.

Forster’s tip trio:

Hire an architect or designer.
No one would represent themself in court or remove their own gallbladder — so why would you redo your home on your own? Having professional expertise will save you time, money and heartache.

Only demolish what you can improve.
When renovating, think tactically about the impact to areas you’ll alter. The more you can compress the renovation, the more you can manage costs and control the schedule. Put your energy into areas that will be truly transformative.

Think of scenarios, not floor plans.
Imagine how you intend to occupy your home. Think about how you typically do the simple stuff: Where do you charge your iPhone? What’s your morning coffee ritual? The way you naturally meander through your home indicates how to resolve more banal aspects of a renovation.