A Gift For Thri

If Benjamin Franklin was right thrifty Ben was the first to say that a penny saved is a penny earned then tiffany pendant N. Shade is on his way to becoming a very rich man. Pennies become dollars, and Shade has learned how to stretch them until they screech. When he rented a dilapidated Harlem apartment four years ago, he not only saved himself money in the renovation, but he also demonstrated how much a designer could do with how little. How cheaply, he asked himself, could he turn his one-bedroom Cinderella into a princess?

What started off as an intellectual challenge soon turned into an obsession, and Shade ventured where few designers have dared to go: Home Depot, Salvation Army thrift shops and flea markets in New York and Connecticut. He even found useful items three tables and two slipper chairs that are now in his living room, for example in the rich lode of trash New Yorkers put on the curb every day. Inexpensive is good. Free is better.

Shade had previously lived on Manhattan's Upper East tiffany necklace (see ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, September 2004). But he had often worked in Harlem, and he liked what he calls the area's uptown vibe. It has a huge creative community, and it's friendly, he says. When he heard that there was an apartment for rent on one of Harlem's most coveted streets, Shade grabbed it.

For a time it may have seemed as if it had grabbed him. The apartment, just 550 square feet, was, to use his word, a mess. It had been horribly neglected and was crying for help, he says. There was not even a finished floor in the hallway and bedroom. But the apartment's dreary condition made his challenge all the more exciting. If he could make something glamorous out of that unpromising material, he would prove his point that anybody can afford good design.

The most important space, he decided, was not the living room or bedroom; it was the hallway. I thought the hallway could be a teaser, he says, the introduction to the rest of the apartment. I wanted it to stand out to pop! He put down inexpensive hardwood flooring, then overlaid the newly painted khaki-colored walls with bold vertical tiffany bracelet. Eight Chinese lanterns, purchased for six dollars apiece, were installed to make the once dim corridor as bright as a Broadway stage. All it needs now is a chorus line.