After moving to Williamsburg in February, the French couple Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial quickly became the kind of Brooklynites who take pride in grocery shopping at their neighborhood co-op, bicycling everywhere (Ducas: “weather permitting!”), and adopting a tortoiseshell cat named Simone from a shelter. The pair, both of whom received master’s degrees from ENSCI, the Paris industrial-design institute, applied the same ethos (they’re devoted followers of the “live slow” approach) to creating their 840-square-foot loft, located within a quintessential artists’ building at 475 Kent Avenue. Working on site with just a circular saw, a jigsaw, a cheap table saw, and a wealth of salvaged materials—primarily wood scraps left behind by a previous tenant (an architect, as luck would have it, with a fierce love of shelves)—they transformed a raw, open space into a European twentysomething’s version of This Old House. Besides building much of the furniture themselves, Ducas and Abrial, a textile designer at Lori Weitzner Design and an industrial designer at Amy Lau Design, respectively, also fashioned a freestanding structure to function as a bedroom. “We imagined it as a small house standing in the middle of the space,” says Ducas, likening the floating, narrow-windowed shed to a “kid’s drawing on white paper.”
Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial at home in Williamsburg. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
The view of the Williamsburg Bridge from inside the bed shed. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
The chandelier is by designer Ron Gilad, a friend, former boss (Abrial did an internship at Gilad’s studio two years ago), and neighbor who lives on the eighth floor of the building. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
To maintain a view of the city from within their freestanding bedroom, they raised the structure and installed a salvaged window found at Build It Green! NYC in Astoria. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
The couple painted a wall behind the bedshed in blackboard paint, so they could jot down dreams and design inspirations. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
They installed a new vanity light and added blue-green paint to invigorate the bathroom. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
Abrial constructed this towering, eight-foot-tall chair “to remind us imagination is endless. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
Incredible views of Manhattan and the Williamsburg Bridge from their outside deck, furnished with a table of recycled wood pieces. Photo: Audrey Ducas and Grégoire Abrial
