Budget Breakdown: For $31K, a Brooklyn Family Makes Room for All in an 850-Square-Foot Apartment

Interior stylist and designer Merie Subryan always wanted a home with character. In 2016, Merie’s husband, Alex Sierra, a sound and retail display designer, walked past a former piano factory in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, that was advertising an 850-square-foot loft condo. Before viewing the home, the couple hoped to find the period elements and architectural finishes that Merie loves, only to discover that the apartment’s original details had been stripped and replaced with a generic aesthetic, aside from one large column that remained from the original floor plan. Ultimately, the 12-foot-high ceilings, abundance of natural light, huge street-facing windows, and sole remaining original column won Merie over. "I was really excited and felt like this was a project where I could bring back the integrity of the home while making it a warm, creative, and inspiring place for my kids to be in," she says.

Within a week of closing, the couple found out that they were soon to welcome their first child and realized they would need to reimagine their home’s layout. "When our daughter was born, we really had to home in on what was important to us, and a big one for me was having a small carbon footprint," says Merie. She and Alex saw the potential for their one-bedroom to accommodate their family for years, with the right tweaks.