This 900-Square-Foot Brooklyn Apartment Is a Tapestry of Travel Memories

Per the trio’s specifications, all the ornate doors, trims, moldings, walls, and ceilings were whited out, eliminating any trace of the color brown, not counting the original parquet floors. “The effect is like a wedding cake,” Jackie muses. When it came to deciding what went where, mother and daughter arrived at an unspoken understanding. “My mom and I are both bossy people, but we always figure out a collaboration. She knows exactly where things should go,” laughs Miro. “In my former apartment, she took a collection of pencils from my favorite hotel in Austin and displayed them on the hallway wall as if they were art. It made everyone who visited smile.” This time around, Jackie had the idea of turning her daughter’s Boby trolley into a bar displaying booze and various figurines Miro and Devra had collected over the years. Devra’s movie poster collection was equally attention-worthy, taking the spotlight on several of the walls.

Miro is no stranger to matchbox living (one of her past living rooms was actually a kitchen with a bathtub in it). Still, there was no denying that this apartment had its quirks. There wasn’t enough space for both a living and a dining area, and built-in storage was absent in the bedrooms. Another brewing issue was that there were doors everywhere—most unusable, leading to other apartments within the brownstone. In a bid to optimize space, Jackie dropped the idea of a living room, instead conjuring up seating by way of a dining table, chairs, and a shawl-covered bench endearingly dubbed “the sofa.” In Miro’s bedroom—formerly a sitting room with a fireplace mantel—she stacked storage boxes under the bed, using grass skirts to hide them in plain sight. As for the doors, she cast them as backdrops for the beds, benches, and other furniture.