Interior design ideas: New York storeys – in pictures

Lauren Moffatt has longish brown hair and two children. So it seems reasonable to assume that the picture above the mantelpiece in her dining room – of a woman with longish brown hair, a pregnant belly and no clothes – must be her. It still feels rude to ask. She laughs. 'People always think it’s me, and I’m embarrassed. It’s not!' Like much of her artwork, she found the painting in a thrift shop, admired it for being 'totally paint-overable', took it home and set about it with her brushes (hence the uncanny way it chimes with the green candlesticks). → Photograph: Winnie Au

Painting over old art is an interesting technique, not least because Moffatt once surprised her parents by recolouring a work they had given her, only to discover that it had been of some value. But also because, as a fashion designer, Moffatt is known for her use of colour. Curiously, then, when looking at her catwalk designs or the interior of her home on New York’s Upper East Side, colour is never the first thing you see. Instead, it is a subtle hint of humour. For instance: the walls of her duplex are white, the fireplace is white, the ceiling is white and so is the upholstery of the chairs and even the coffee mug. But on the bright white tabletop are fluorescent yellow condiment pots. →
Photograph: Winnie Au

Moffatt has lived in this apartment for 13 years, and it has been a fruitful home. Her family has grown in it and the apartment has grown with them. She and her husband Josh lived here for eight years before the children came along, first Stella, five, then Lucy, one. When Stella was born, the three of them were penned into a one-bed flat. They partitioned the lounge to make a bedroom for the baby. → Photograph: Winnie Au

'It wasn’t ideal,' Moffatt says, 'but in New York you have to put up with these things.' Besides, she used to live on a sailing boat on the Hudson, so she was already practised at small spaces. They were in the process of 'casually looking' for somewhere larger when the flat beneath theirs came on the market. 'We purchased it and turned it into a duplex.' That gave the family three bedrooms on the lower floor, and living space on the upper floor, amounting to around 1,400 sq ft. →
Photograph: Winnie Au

That is a lot of space, but even so, where is all the unruly colour and junked-up clutter that children trail around a home? A charming little table and chairs set aside, there is almost no sign of children here. Moffatt says the larger toys are in the basement, and some hardcore tidying has clearly gone on. 'I don’t want to remove all traces of them,' she says. 'As much as I like it when it looks really neat, I have come to the conclusion that it won’t look like that until they are older.' →
Photograph: Winnie Au

To keep things clean, 'I just don’t have a lot of stuff', Moffatt says. That may sound funless, but it really isn’t. Shelves set into the stairwell, obviously curated, include single shoes from her husband’s sneaker collection. She says she doesn’t even notice them any more. That seems a shame. 'No! For me, that’s when I know something is good.'
Photograph: Winnie Au