New York designer Magdalena Keck says that pieds-à-terre are her dream projects: “You get to know people from across the globe and work with them to realize their vision.” In the case of her most recent overhaul, Keck’s client was a São Paulo businessman who needed a toehold in New York and fell for a small one-bedroom TriBeCa loft. Though it needed light and storage, among other things, Keck’s client didn’t want to let go of the charming roughness that had wooed him in the first place.
His programmatic needs were simple: He travels to NYC every two to three months for business and pleasure, sometimes just for a day en route to Europe, other times joined by his family for a stay of several weeks. In response, Keck saw to it that the living room quickly converts into a sleeping space, and introduced a second bath plus washer and dryer to accommodate family and guests. As for costs, the majority of project dollars went toward swapping existing living room windows for French doors that lead to small steel balconies; relocating the kitchen to join the living room in one open space; and adding the second bath. To keep budget in check, Keck salvaged the existing wood floor, used no-frills lighting wherever possible, and specified simple, reasonably priced fixtures for the bath. Take a look at her results.
Photography by Jeff Cate.

Above: The first and most dramatic order of business was to replace the existing living room windows with balcony d...