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The article focuses on the interior decoration of the Manhattan, New York City apartment of Jen Bekman, who owns an art and photography gallery. Bekman has also created a Web site for fine arts and photography that has become influential in the art community. Her apartment is furnished and decorated with an eclectic assortment of objects Bekman acquired as a young woman.

HOLDING open the door to her fourth-floor loft in SoHo, the choreographer and dancer Elizabeth Streb tried not to laugh at the sounds of exertion as a visitor struggled up the last steep flight of stairs. ''I can't say I don't enjoy it,'' she said mischievously, acknowledging the perverse delight she takes in hearing guests gasp for breath as they clomp up the stairs to reach the place she has called home for the last 34 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN honor of President's Day last month, Deb Winsor, a carpenter with a workshop in Brooklyn, led a crew in the construction of an 8-foot-wide model of the White House, complete with north and south porticos and two dozen hand-painted windows. After reviewing the plans with the workers, Ms. Winsor, 50, supervised them as they laid out two-by-fours for the front and back walls and then hammered the studs and plates together with three-inch nails. Next, she watched as some of them raised the walls and sheathed them in plywood while others used an electric jigsaw to cut bases for the portico columns. Finally, one of the carpenters used a screw gun to attach a flagpole to the roof and secure the pediment to the freshly painted facade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For years, discerning flower buyers throughout New York City have turned to Amy Gardella at Seaport Flowers in Brooklyn Heights for her sophisticated, modern arrangements. Now that she has moved into a larger space off Atlantic Avenue, Ms. Gardella has expanded her offerings to include an array of home decor, including porcelain vases, lamps, botanic prints and vintage furniture. The store, which also has seasonal items like glittered deer figurines (from $25) and felt ball garlands ($40 for a six-foot strand), is as elegant as her arrangements. But the floral designer is quick to clarify that her taste is as much about durability as looks. ''Everything in here, the rule is, it has to survive us,'' she said, referring to fellow designers. ''We like things that are sturdy but beautiful.'' The selection of winter greens and giant pine cones ($5 to $7 each) on display in the back garden also meets Ms. Gardella's criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WHEN Rachel Hudgins decided to turn a longtime hobby of photographing friends' children into a career, she left Los Angeles and her job in the film industry and moved East, to be closer to the photography world in New York City. She knew that trading her 2,000-square-foot Hollywood home for an apartment would mean paring down her belongings, and she had no problem with that. Getting rid of furnishings and objects she no longer loved was easy: ''What was me at one point was not me today,'' said Ms. Hudgins, 44, who moved into an 800-square-foot rental in Jersey City, for which she pays $1,800 a month, in 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WHEN Chris Buck broached the idea of starting a family several years ago, his wife, Michelle Golden, responded with a question that will be familiar to many New Yorkers: Where would we put the baby? The couple owned a two-bedroom apartment in Chinatown, but the second bedroom served as an office and archive for Mr. Buck, 45, a celebrity portrait photographer for advertising agencies and magazines (including The New York Times Magazine). He worked there with an intern, and sometimes an assistant, booking appointments and arranging shoot logistics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WHEN butterflies began appearing on home furnishings recently, the fashion designer Anna Sui wasn't surprised. Ms. Sui has been using them in her work since 1992, when she opened her first boutique in SoHo. ''I didn't have much of a budget to decorate,'' she said. ''So I found plastic butterflies at flea markets and spray-painted them black. They became such a great graphic on the purple walls. People would come in and want to buy them.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fans of the Conran Shop, which for more than a decade resided in the distinctive -- but painfully inconvenient -- space underneath the Queensboro Bridge on East 59th Street, have every reason to be excited about the store's relocation to the lower level of ABC Carpet & Home. Although the official opening isn't until May 14 (when Sir Terence Conran will attend a party open to the public from 7 to 9 p.m.), an early peek revealed the same kind of easy-to-navigate shopping environment and clever assortment of classic housewares that made the old store worth visiting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

LIKE many newlyweds, Elizabeth and Andrew Wooten eagerly anticipated making a home together. The couple, who met when he moved to her West Village neighborhood in 2006, were married in her hometown of St. Francisville, La., last May. But they began hunting for the right apartment in Manhattan several months before the big day. After touring more than 70 places -- ''We drove our broker crazy,'' Ms. Wooten said -- they eventually found it: an 850-square-foot, one-bedroom rental on the ground floor of a stately town house off Washington Square Park, ''one of those houses you walk past and stare at.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WHEN Suzi Jones and her husband purchased an apartment on the fourth floor of a brownstone in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, two years ago, Ms. Jones, a freelance art director from Atlanta, thought what she would like most would be the hardwood floors, the tin ceilings and the renovated kitchen and bathroom. Soon after moving in, however, she discovered what she has come to think of as the apartment's best feature: its view into the neighbors' private lives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TOMORROW, the seventh annual show of designs created in Brooklyn -- Bklyn Designs -- will open in Dumbo, drawing renewed attention to this neighborhood of former factories and warehouses, and its vibrant design scene. Over the last six years, the juried show, which features contemporary furnishings, lighting and accessories designed, and in most cases made, in Brooklyn, has grown from a Chamber of Commerce exercise in borough boosterism into a high-profile event and an effective springboard for local designers. This year, it has 45 exhibitors and is attracting attendees from as far away as Milan, the Netherlands and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Soon, New York City residents in need of a new sofa or Swedish meatballs won't have to visit Long Island or New Jersey to get an Ikea fix. Ikea Brooklyn is to open June 18 at 1 Beard Street on the Erie Basin in Red Hook. Although the new location will sell the same products as the 34 other Ikea stores in the United States, it will have a cafeteria with views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, and a 6 1/2-acre waterfront esplanade that will be open to the public. Transportation options include free shuttles every 15 minutes from three Brooklyn subway stations -- the Smith and Ninth stop on the F and G line, the Fourth and Ninth stop on the R, and Borough Hall -- between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily; the B61 and B77 bus lines; and a free water taxi from Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan, running every 40 minutes daily from 10 a.m. to 8:20 p.m. The store will deliver furniture in stock and will have a courier service for small items ($39 in Brooklyn or $49 within 70 miles of the store, for a 3-by-3-foot box, filled with as much or as little as you want). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

More than a century and a half before Greenwich Village became one of New York's most desirable neighborhoods, the architectural bones were laid by the newly prosperous merchant class. ''The Houses of Greenwich Village'' (Abrams, $45), a new book by Kevin D. Murphy, takes readers inside 20 homes to show how the interiors evolved over time with the residents' needs. A modest row house from 1827, for example, was renovated in 1893 to transform it into a space appropriate for Robert Blum, a celebrated artist interested in ''Japonisme.'' And in 2003, an 1801 town house was renovated by Ben Cherner and Emma O'Neill, architects who turned it into four Modernist apartments with a penthouse that blurs the boundaries between indoor and outdoor space. Don't look for celebrity homes; Mr. Murphy omitted homeowners' names to protect their privacy. But photographs by Paul Rocheleau provide plenty of insider access. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]