But first in came architect Andreas Charalambous, head of the District’s Forma Design studio.
“When Marc called me last April,” the architect recalls, “he said, ‘Do you remember me?’ Of course, I did.”
Twelve years ago, Charalambous turned the plain bathroom in the bachelor’s one-bed, one-bath Tysons Corner area condo into a space with a velvety concrete countertop, large-scale ceramic-tile floor and walls clad in limestone and mirror. The redone bathroom still looks as though it is all of 10 minutes old. But as so often happens, when one room gets a face-lift, the rest of the place winds up looking tired. As he was about to retire from his job in the federal criminal justice system and begin a “much more fun period” of his life, the 60-year-old Bransky wanted to streamline his surroundings.
What emerged is a 900-square-foot home that, while compact, is soothing and complete. “I have everything I need,” says Bransky of the place where he has lived for about 20 years, “but I feel lighter.”
The walls forming the perimeter of the place are painted a deep, moody charcoal gray, interrupted one recent day only by the sunny views from the apartment’s west-facing balcony. In the center of the apartment, in effect separating living room from bedroom, is a gleaming white “cube.”
The living-room wall of the cube is a long horizontal sweep of custom cabinetry with a white lacquer finish, a combination of storage cabinets and shelves. A flat-screen TV is installed in the center; speakers are hardly visible behind white screening at the top corners of the unit. Tucked inside one lower cabinet is a DVD player and the Sonos music system, which lets Bransky browse libraries of music. (Even the DVD player’s days may be numbered given that he can stream movies from Netflix.) The custom installation replaces a dark, freestanding wall unit that was loaded with a TV, stereo amplifier and receiver, and a few yards of books.
The inside of the cube is a minimalist’s dream kitchen, much of it from Ikea. Long counters of white Silestone quartz stretch along both sides of the galley-style space, topping stainless-steel base cabinets. Upper cabinets have frosted-glass fronts in simple aluminum frames. The backsplash on both sides is glass painted white on the back, so the color has a cool depth to it. Door and drawer pulls are mere stainless-steel suggestions. The front-hall doorway at one end of the 12-foot-long kitchen and the doorway that connects to the dining area at the other end were widened by Charalambous and project architect Juan Martin Gutierrez, giving the narrow room breathing space and allowing its “glow” to spill into the surrounding areas.
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