Dogs, Kids, and a Couple Fill This Earthy Financial District Loft

Welcome to House Calls, a new feature in which Curbed tours New Yorkers' lovely, offbeat, or otherwise awesome homes. Think your space should be featured next? Drop us a line.

Andi and Mike Costa moved from Tribeca to the Financial District in 2012 for one main reason: more space. They have two young daughters, and wanted to stay downtown so that they didn't have to switch schools. They happened upon a two-bed, two-bath loft on Fulton Street, with west-facing windows looking towards what is now a full-grown One World Trade Center and completed Fulton Center. What it lacked, though, was an open kitchen for entertaining, separate rooms for the girls (now 7 and 11), and a quintessentially natural vibe that Andi craved. So the couple enlisted Studio DB to help realize their vision. "I asked [Studio DB principals] Britt and Damian to give me driftwood," Andi said. (They did, and it's on the floor.) "I wanted a wood wall somewhere, and they made the closet, with reclaimed barn wood from the Midwest."

Before, there was a large column where the slimmer one stands (pictured below), and no room for a window seat with storage under it that's there now. That was part of the renovation. And yes, the cushions topping the window seat look like stones (but luckily don't feel that way) and had to be special-ordered. The hide is from a springbok, while the oversized skull on the wall of the living room is a kind of antelope called a gemsbok. It hails, not originally, from the Brooklyn Flea.

In front of the reclaimed-wood-covered closet by the front entrance stands a small table. On it is a glass case, containing items collected from the family's travels, especially from the beach in Montauk.

Part of the renovation included taking the loft's second bedroom and dividing it into two mirror-image sections, with a lofted bed on each side. A sliding door creates two narrow rooms when each soccer-playing, musically-inclined girl wants her privacy, but also allows for a combined space when they're hanging out together.

"Andi and Mike also wanted the girls to be able to personalize their space and have private areas for sleeping and homework," said Britt Zunino of Studio DB. "It was important to keep things open and light, so we elevated the beds and used natural-colored nautical rope to enclose the loft. We tucked a desk and open bookshelves below. The girls helped pick out wallpaper from two of our favorite New York companies, Flat Vernacular and Flavor Paper, who did a custom color run for us. The climbing rope lighting and cabinetry pulls were designed and made in our office, too." (The girls like to rock-climb, Andi said.)

As for the canines that inspired the loft's earthy color palette, full of soft beiges and learthery browns? Meet eight-year-old Fudge...

... and two-year-old Shorty.

Now onto the rest of the tour.

· House Calls archive [Curbed]