A Fitting Solution
How a creative approach to downsizing saved a sofa.

[The condominium described in this article and in the pictures was designed by Juliette.]

By Dale Koppel

When the movers suggested she cut her beloved sofas into pieces, the homeowner was shocked. Moving from an apartment with almost 5,000 square feet of living space to a new, 2,000-square-foot Beacon Hill condominium was problem enough, but discovering that the two sofas were so big they wouldn't fit into the freight elevator, so big they couldn't be hoisted through a window, was more than she and her husband had bargained for.

But part with them? She wouldn't consider it. Cut them into pieces? After the initial astonishment, she realized it wasn't such a bad idea. In fact, it was the only idea.

The smaller of the sofas needed only one end removed. "Once it was inside the den, I watched with utter amazement as the upholsterer attached the pieces with a hook-and-eye gizmo," she says. She had a slipcover made "that absolutely hid the surgical scars. It looked exactly as it had always looked, as long as you didn't look underneath the skirt, of course."

Plus, the new chintz slipcover - a dark coral with a print of white-and-cream dogwood blossoms - brightened up the room perfectly.

The other sofa, elegant and curved, was so large that it required "triple bypass surgery." When the owner saw the three pieces tied together as a sectional in her new living room, she wasn't pleased. It may have physically fit into the condo, but visually it was all wrong. After some trial and error, she reconfigured the sections so that the two end pieces cam together as a smaller sofa and the middle piece was placed separately as an armless chair. For a perfect finish, the three pieces were reupholstered in their pre-op shimmery apple-green velvet.

Color is important to this homeowner; green is one of her favorite hues. So are blue, coral, and cream. "I use those colors everywhere," she says. "Once, I noticed that all of my painting have those colors in them. So do my Oriental rugs. But I don't think I was really conscious of it. It isn't like I buy a painting because it matches the sofa."

Indeed, as much as she loves her furniture, it's really just a foil for the artwork. Paintings are ranged in tiers up the walls, some levels reaching nearly to the ceiling.

The condo is in a newly converted late-19th-century brick building. The architecture, inside and out, is staid and traditional, and the rooms were dark despite their good-sized windows.

"I wanted to make the place look lively," says the homeowner. "So I bought chrome lamps for the living room - lamps with halogen bulbs, so it looks like the sun is shining."

At a bath shop, she found a chrome cabinet - "more shine" - in the perfect size for a small wall space in the living room. It's a great place for more objets d'art, though she balks at the notion of accessorizing, which sounds too planned for what she describes as "stuff that we pick up here and there that we love to look at." That includes everything from gourds acquired on a Cuba trip to contemporary Nantucket baskets made by a South Shore friend to an oversized and rather gaudy lobster-shaped gold pin, studded with faux rubies and diamonds, that she bought in Miami Beach. "It was going on a black dress," she says. "But then I saw the perfect spot for it on the coffee table in the living room, and I thought, 'I'll get to enjoy it a lot more when it's on the table.' Plus, I can always borrow it for the dress."

Despite the profusion, she's found a place for just about everything. "I like to think that no painting is too big, no matter how small the apartment," says the homeowner.

There is one large work, 5 feet by 6 feet, that has yet to find a home. Yes, there is a wall that could accommodate it, but as with the sofa, it's all about aesthetics. And once again, there's a surprising solution: "I'm going to get someone to make two little feet for it, and I'll use it as a Chinese screen. It'll look perfect."