Rental Revamp: How a Set Designer Transformed Her Rent-Controlled NYC Apartment With Just $1,000

When Catherine Pearson decided to renovate her Ridgewood rental in Queens, New York, where she’s lived since 2018, she set herself up for a challenge. In New York City, money leaves your hand quickly—but Catherine is crafty, and she’s not afraid to roll up her sleeves. She works a set designer and art director for luxury and design clients, including Balmain, Vanity Fair, L’Officiel, and even Dwell. And while Catherine’s worked with modest budgets before, her renovation fund was especially tight: She gave herself $1,000 cash to cover all costs.

It was largely a practical choice: Catherine’s renovation at the start of this year came as a relationship with a partner ended, and she found herself with funds set aside for a trip they’d planned to take together. The money was as good as spent, she reasoned, so she decided to see how far it would stretch.

"I grew up in the middle of nowhere in a really old house that my parents were always fixing up," she says. "We were always working on a different part of the house and I would help, which is how I got to be so handy."

"I definitely learned that a coat of paint does a lot," she says with a laugh. Her parents’ house had plywood flooring, and her mother, a children’s book illustrator, painted a beautiful checkerboard pattern across it with flying chickens, and a painted rug too. "It was a really fun living space that was always changing a little bit," Catherine says, "and very personal."