The more rooms the interior designer Alyssa Kapito imagines, the choosier she is about the contents inside. Her edited interiors tend to leave space around furniture and accessories that allow pieces to be admired individually rather than burying them in too much decorative fluff.
“I think I’ve isolated what my passions are,” said Ms. Kapito, 38. “I love collecting. I love auctions. And I love furniture as art.”
That interest culminated in Galerie Alyssa Kapito, an arm of her studio she launched in 2023 to sell vintage furniture and limited-edition products she designs such as glass vases for the Venetian company Laguna~B.
Ms. Kapito also recently spent a year-and-a-half creating a new home for her family on Manhattan’s Upper East Side by gut renovating a 1920s apartment that was in estate condition. The resulting space is a serene retreat that celebrates her artful finds, even with three young children running about.
The primary bedroom is arguably the most escapist space of all. “The bedroom is a lot of people’s escape, but I spend an inordinate amount of time in my bedroom,” she said, where she catches up on work, relaxes with her husband and sleeps. “So I wanted something very calming and soothing.”
Ms. Kapito recently shared a few of the pieces that help make her bedroom one of her favorite spaces.
Easy Upgrade
Memo Box, $188 at Alissa Bell
Ms. Kapito has a few of these metal boxes with notecards placed throughout her apartment, so she can jot down reminders and ideas when they come to her. “I have one in my living room, one in my kitchen, and put them on desks everywhere,” she said, noting that in her bedroom, she keeps a memo box with a brass finish on her night stand.
“I have a lot going on in my life between my kids and my job,” she said. “Often, I’ll think of an idea or something I forgot, and I’ll just jot it down on these note cards.” She could use a notebook or scraps of paper instead, she allowed, but she appreciates how tidy the dedicated box is.
“You’re not seeing ripped pages, which would bother me,” she said. “And I can easily take a card with me to work.”
The product looks good and works well, she noted, which is what design is all about. “I love little details that elevate everyday experiences,” she said.
Splurge
Bronze Chair, $10,000 at Diego Villarreal Vagujhelyi
Ms. Kapito discovered the work of the Spanish-born New York-based designer Diego Villarreal, and his studio Vagujhelyi, while shopping at the Row in Paris. Specifically, she fell for a bronze shoehorn he designed with an organic shape that almost recalls an animal bone.
When she returned home, she reached out to Mr. Villarreal on Instagram and learned that he was working on his first few pieces of furniture. “I got this piece immediately, because I think it’s amazing,” Ms. Kapito said.
“He molds a lot of the pieces to his hands, so it’s very ergonomic,” she said. “This chair has three holes in the armrest where your fingers go, so you can literally wear the chair. It’s an accent chair, not one that’s meant for relaxing, but it happens to be quite comfortable because your arm rests in it.”
In her bedroom, it’s not so much about having an additional place to sit as it is about having an art piece she enjoys seeing every day. “It’s super beautiful,” Ms. Kapito said.
One of a Kind
Silver Shell Bowls
These small, silver, shell-shaped bowls were the items Ms. Kapito wanted most when her mother was moving out of the home on Long Island where she grew up. “They look very chic, but they’re from my childhood,” Ms. Kapito said. “She used to have her jewelry in them, but I would always play with them as a child.”
Ms. Kapito noted that she rarely holds on to objects for sentimental value. “But I loved these,” she said, “and I grabbed them when my mom was selling her house.”
Now, she keeps the vessels — three small bowls and one larger one — on the desk in her bedroom. “I use them for paper clips, hair clips, that sort of thing,” she said.
She has also noticed that her own children seem to like them just as much as she did when she was younger. “I’ll sometimes find funny little things in them, like a Barbie shoe,” she said.
So, in a few decades, she hopes to pass them down as family heirlooms once more. “They remind me of my mom,” she said, and she hopes they’ll eventually do the same for their next owners.
The post A Designer Places Furniture in Her Bedroom as Pieces of Art appeared first on New York Times.
