No Less Than 17 Paint Colors Fill Every Inch of This New York Town House

In the 27 years they’ve been together, Michelle Erfer, a booking agent who works with venues including New York’s Paragon and Knockdown Center, and tech executive Theresa Mershon have never been afraid of color. Just two years after they completed a many-hued renovation of their apartment in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, they were displaced by a fire in the building. After two years bouncing between friends’ apartments, rentals, and hotels, they landed in East Brooklyn, just over the border with Queens, buying a two-story 1910 town house in Cypress Hills. Naturally, it was time to pour in the color.

To help, they brought on Studio Officina’s Luki Anderson, an architect known to use eye-catching hues. They used some of the beloved colors from their old Flatbush apartment and worked with new shades, too.

"When we started working on this house, I was still in love with those colors," says Theresa. Anderson helped figure out exactly where to bring them in and encouraged the couple to be bold with their new selections. While most renovators leave paint discussions until later in the process, color was the first thing they decided on, settling on more than a dozen shades before any construction even took place.