The Daniel/Daniel Project: Daniel Vosovic’s Studio

As a general rule, I’m not in the habit of approaching people I recognize from television or the movies when I see them on the street. Mostly, this is because I’m the sort of idiot who tends to confuse my television friends and my real friends, and before I realize what an ass I’m making of myself, Anderson Cooper gets an enthusiastic wave on 6th Avenue. Adrian Grenier once received a friendly “how are you?” at Ray’s Pizza at 3 a.m., and I may or may not have smiled broadly at the eldest Jonas Brother before I remembered that I did not know him and if I did, I never would have smiled.

So when I spotted one of my favorite Project Runway contestants, Daniel Vosovic, walking through the High Line Park, I knew to keep my distance. I would not embarrass myself. I would neither speak nor gesture. I had seen him, and that was enough to make my sister sufficiently jealous.

Photo from Terrific Magazine

At the end of the High Line was an odd parking lot estate sale, evidently the result of a wealthy nightclub owner’s passing and some young, annoying entrepreneurs trying to make a buck off of his crazy-ass furniture. Prices were outrageous, but I found myself drawn in because it never hurts to look. Suddenly Daniel and I were inspecting the same piece of furniture and “areyouDanielVosovicfromProjectRunway?” just kind of slipped out. Almost as if I were an anxious creep.

Daniel asked if I was “in design.” By this, I gleaned, he did not mean the Adobe computer program, but instead whether I worked in the design field.  I immediately responded “no,” but sheepishly added: “well, I have this…blog.” When it turned out Daniel had actually read my blog, I might have let out a little whimper of excitement. I might not have. I don’t know.

As per his suggestion, I went home and hopped on the internet  to catch up on what he’d been up to in the years since Runway. Turns out, he’s been one busy bee—writing a book, staring his own line, and putting out gorgeous collections for the past several seasons. So I did what any nerd would do and sent him an email praising his work. Then he sent one back praising mine and asked if I might be interested in coming over to his new work studio to bounce around ideas.

So that’s how I ended up standing around in Daniel Vosovic’s sweet studio, droning on about painting walls and building things and pushing his desk back ten feet. Some of which we’ve spent a lot of time doing in the time since. I’m blogging a bit on delay with this whole business, but I’m psyched to show you guys some stuff we’ve been up to. For now, check out these before pictures of the space. Note: these pictures were taken for my own reference and were not intended for blog use. That’s why they are so terrible and at night. Sorry.

This is the main work area in the studio, where Daniel and his staff design and cut and sew and all that jazz. The windows are awesomely huge, and Daniel painted the window trim black before I got there. Black paint, I like him already. One of the big problems in here we need to address is lighting over the worktables. The wiring and lighting situation is one insane crazy hot mess up in this place.

Across from the window is this corner. Sweet inspiration board and sewing machines and stuff.

On the opposite side is this wall, which is huge. One of the big challenges in this space is a lack of usable or attractive storage and no nice place for the interns to work. We’re going to change that, I swear.

Walking from the front of the studio to the back, you pass Daniel’s workspace. Part of the fun and the challenge of this space is the need to create different “zones” within a very open floor plan while still keeping things flexible and uncrowded. Not only does the apartment need to accommodate Daniel and his staff, it also needs to be a place where he can do model fittings and hold meetings and events. All that fun stuff.

Daniel had painted the front door and doorframe black before I came over, and I liked the idea of continuing the black to the adjacent walls, which were a weird architectural eyesore before. We have plans for this area, too, but I think painting it all black was a good start.

This is from the back of the studio, looking towards the front. Those bookshelves have since collapsed in what sounds like a terrifying and chaotic episode, so imagine that big black wall blank. Eventually this area will hold more permanent and substantial seating and new book storage.

Here’s the entrance to the bathroom, which is what’s inside those black walls. It’s a weird renovation with 7.5′ ceilings and general strangeness. It needs some storage and some beautification.

And the other part of the bathroom. Next time you see this, it will look better.

And here’s the kitchen. We have some plans, but they aren’t the highest priority right now. But we’re working on it.

If you watched the show, you’ll know what I mean when I say Daniel is really just like you’d expect him to be. Super hardworking, really creative, and a genuinely nice person. He also gives me a lot of creative freedom with the space and is great at picturing what I mean when I try to sketch ideas, a skill I perform with all the advanced technique of a drunken toddler. I like that. He’s been a great person to work with and is now a good friend, too.

I’m excited to show you what we’ve been up to! Hooray for fun new projects!

The Daniel/Daniel Project: The Colossus

There comes a moment in every DIY-er’s life, no matter how sure of their abilities or cavalier they’ve been in the past, when they spit out a project idea in a fit of over-confidence. They then spend every second until its completion shitting their pants over whether they had been fools, anticipating the moment when the crushing wave of reality would swiftly render them and their undertaking a failure. Not that this happened to me or anything.

One of the first things Daniel Vosovic (read more about this here) wanted to address in his studio was this wall. He wanted tons of storage space for all the fun accoutrements that come along with a growing company and a nice place for the interns to work and prosper.

This wall is about 17 feet long. It is also 10 feet high. It is huge. It is brick.

Daniel had mentioned loving the industrial-ish feeling of the pipe and wood bookshelf I made for my bedroom. Having only built a teensy little wall-mounted version of the ridiculously awesome and legendary Ace Hotel-inspired shelves that Morgan made at The Brick House, I might have been undermining my better judgment when I pompously suggested that we do something like that here. Except bigger. Lots bigger. Oh, and we had about three weeks to design and build the whole thing.

I thought it could be done in a weekend. I was wrong. I am obviously not right in the head.

But we did it. Oh, did we ever feel manly. Weighing in at a mammoth 15.5 feet long by 9 feet high, this shit ain’t playing around. Here, let me tell you about our struggles.

First we had to buy all of our 1/2″ black pipe. Because I designed the unit around the different functions Daniel and I had discussed, we needed pretty specific lengths of pipe for everything to come together correctly. I thought this would be easy, seeing as Home Depot sells a nice selection of pre-cut pipe (they call them “nipples,” but I refuse to) and can cut and thread pipes to size as if by magic upon request.

Of course I was wrong about this, because Home Depot stores in NYC are ten kinds of useless. Turns out that while other parts of the country might be more privileged, Home Depot in good old New York can’t cut a pipe for you. They can’t cut a piece of wood for you. They can’t tell you where to find anything or help you in any way. They are evil hellholes.

After calling about 30 different hardware and plumbing supply places, I finally found a shop in Brooklyn that was willing and able to cut pipes. It was called TMB plumbing. It was charmingly sketchy and the employees were endearingly frightening, but they did the job.

After washing all the pipes down in some soapy water, we went about spray painting them on the roof like a bunch of rowdy rebellious teenagers except with less vandalism. Ignore those lights, they’re for something else. We used matte black Rustoleum, about three cans all told.

Next we got all of the wood cut and delivered by Prince Lumber. Even though I had drawn the thing so many times and checked and rechecked the measurements, a continuous 11-foot board of pine is still terrifying when you’re actually faced with it and compelled to think about suspending it eight feet in the air on top of something you built.

We decided to go with 1.25″ thick x 12″ wide boards, which keeps the whole thing looking and feeling pretty substantial since the thicker boards allow the shelves to span for longer distances without bowing.

Since the shelves are knotty pine and the desktop is made of Canadian birch plywood (the lumber yard didn’t have pine in wide enough boards for a desktop),  it took some fiddling to get the stains to match. Eventually it was decided that all the pipe would be stained in Minwax “Dark Walnut” and the birch ply would be a mix of “Dark Walnut” and “Yellow Pine.”

Even with 2-3 people, staining all that wood took several days and a generous helping of boredom. Here, Daniel presides over our setup and clutches the playbill of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, wistfully recalling Daniel Radcliffe’s performance.

After we’d done all of the prep work of sourcing the pipe and wood, spray painting, sanding, staining, and pre-drilling all the holes, the actual construction really only took a couple hours and the helpful hands of four people. Here, Daniel double-checks measurements while his lovely and incessantly-harrassed interns provide physical and emotional support.

A good time was had by all. The top of the unit is attached to the wall with some super heavy duty metal masonry anchors and screws. It’s not going anywhere, don’t worry. But still knock on wood for me, cool?

The whole thing ended up taking about three weeks and many many hours. But it’s kind of awesome, am I right? Check out that floating 7 feet of desktop! The back of the desk is held on with short pipes and endcaps, keeping it from tipping forward, and it’s supported underneath by a couple of 14″ cheap wall brackets in the middle that keep it from bowing. Intern workspace, check!

So shelfy!

What’s that, you say? Cute industrial drawers that hold a bunch of magical fashion-building supplies? Daniel picked these up for a song at a flea market right before we built this thing, so the width of the central section of the unit was dictated by fitting these snuggly into it. All custom n’ stuff.

The left side of the unit was all about creating a manageable storage situation for bolts of fabric, so the shelves are more narrowly spaced and exactly 60″ long (the length of the longest bolts). In case, er, you couldn’t see that.

There she is. Take it in.

In other news, I’ve finished my sophomore year of college! Huzzah! Posting on the ole bloggity can now resume to a more frequent rate. Thank you for your patience and distressed comments and emails over the last few weeks regarding whether or not I had died. Your concern flatters me more than I should probably admit.

By the way, new featured blogs in the sidebar! They’re super cool this time around, I swear, so you’d better go check them out.