BUILDING A HOME

INTERIOR DESIGN

BY YELENA DZHANOVA

She didn’t know it then, but nine years ago, Samantha Bond moved into a half-finished apartment.

It took years for her to turn it into something she loves.

Over the years, Bond brought in several key pieces from her family’s history and reworked bland furniture into functional items that better reflect her personality. She repurposed each room after her roommates moved out, transforming the place into a space she finds entirely comfortable and to her liking. The main door of her Astoria apartment leads into the kitchen and what has now become the dining room. The dining room used to be the living room back when Bond, who works in entertainment but also does interior design on the side, lived with roommates.

On the opposite side of the apartment are her bedroom and what is now a cozy walk-in closet, lined floor-to-ceiling with decorative gold pipes on which hang all her clothes. The pipes, one of Bond’s several DIY projects, replaced large dressers that occupied massive chunks of the room.

INTERIOR DESIGN INTERIOR DESIGN

“I hated how much space they took up in such a small room,” Bond said. “So I went looking on Pinterest and I saw this idea of using water pipes as part of shelving and for clothing racks. I've had them for like five years now and they're really sturdy.”

She installed the lights in her house with instruction from YouTube videos, replacing the standard "boob lights" found in most Queens apartments. A boob light usually comes in the form of a plastic sphere that envelopes one or more lightbulbs.

“Once I did the dining room one, which was the hardest, then it felt so easy to do all the rest of them,” Bond said. “The wiring in this building is still a hundred years old so it's terrifying, but I watched the YouTube video ... and I did it by myself.”

In the kitchen is an inoperative dumbwaiter that no longer moves from floor to floor, Bond said; a single family had lived in the apartment building for decades until they started renovating and renting out floors of it 10 years ago. Now, Bond uses it as a tool shed.

But even though Bond refurbished signature pieces in the apartment, she’s no stranger to keeping to tradition.

There are artifacts in her home that belonged to her father and grandparents. A defunct rotary phone that belonged to her grandfather hangs on a living room wall.

“He mailed it to me with a note that I have framed above it where he wrote his little poem about it,” she said.

The living room beams with vintage relics: a typewriter stationed on a coffee table along with books whose spines face the wall, an old radio and cameras from nearly 90 years ago (both her grandfather’s), a replica of the iconic French print Monica Geller from “Friends” had in her apartment.

Her grandparents live in West Virginia, and Bond visits them regularly, often taking with her items that she needs to put in

storage and bringing back items she wants to adorn her house with.

“There are only two closets in this whole apartment, so there's not enough space,” she said, adding that she brings stuff to her uncle’s house to store in his garage as well.

Scattered throughout the house are porcelain Buddhas that are meant to pay tribute to Bond’s father, an Eastern culture enthusiast.

A globe on the dining table reminds Bond of her dad, who gave her one when she was younger. Bond isn’t sure where that globe went, but the one on the dining table was gifted to her by her best friend and former roommate.

“He knows how much I like globes,” she said. “I also love to travel so it's kind of like a tiny reminder of that.”

Also scattered are terrariums of varying sizes, each one assembled by Bond. Plus, there are vinyl records of Aretha Franklin and Barbra Streisand, which Bond played over the course of my visit.

“I've been a Barbra Streisand fan since like middle school or high school,” Bond said. “In storage somewhere at my uncle's house I have every single album she's ever made.”

Streisand also makes an appearance in the walk-in closet. Near the ceiling on the opposite side of the pipes are images of what Bond called “badass women.”

“We’ve got Meryl Streep, Miranda Lambert, and this sexy model girl,” she said. “I just love having [these images] in this boudoir hyper-feminine space. I wanted some chicks that inspired me and are kind of badass. Barbra Streisand is also up there.”

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