The couple’s daughters prefer to share a bedroom, left. The entrance hall door, open, reveals part of a mural by Moosh, right.
While this may have been an early indication that there
were rewards to be reaped in the design sphere, Brennen
ended up going to law school and becoming an attorney.
Even so, her true passion managed to permeate.
“I remember when I started law school, I went to buy a
couch — it was seafoam green velvet. I was so proud. No
more futons,” she says, adding that she’s never regretted
leaving behind the law to pursue a full-time design
career. Now an interior designer with Homepolish, she
does wish she still had that couch, though.
Brennan is a deliberate buyer of things. Unlike many
who recoil at clutter, she does not subscribe to the Marie
Kondo mentality, constantly sifting out possessions that
no longer suit her. If she picks something, it’s because she
really likes it. And she’s going to keep it for a while.
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“I get kind of attached. When it comes to changing
things up, I might take two pillows off the couch, but
that’s about the extent of it,” she says. When she and her
family moved out of their house in Harlem, she reupholstered
their orange and brown couch in gray velvet. It
fits perfectly in the front window of their current townhouse,
which they moved into two years ago after an
extensive renovation.
Their timing was lucky. After a decade in their Harlem
house — located on the very quaint and historic Sylvan
Terrace — they were ready for a change when Brennen’s
aunt, who had lived in the Clinton Hill townhouse for
decades, decided she no longer wanted to be in New
York City year round. They remodeled the garden level
into a one-bedroom apartment where she stays when she
comes to the city.