A New York Couple's Living Room, Reimagined Every Weekend

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Most apartment dwellers leave their furniture precisely where the movers placed it—and there it remains until the lease expires. For startup growth lead Nick Lowry and menswear designer Anne Li, however, each weekend resets the spatial composition. A Craigslist-sourced Italian leather sofa, a set of cantilever dining chairs, and a wood coffee table engage in an ongoing game of spatial Tetris within their Long Island City one-bedroom, each arrangement calibrated to the couple's immediate needs. Sunset viewing from south-facing windows? The sofa pivots. A workout session? The chairs exit entirely.

Each rearrangement is met with genuine enthusiasm ("We get to move the couch again!"). "We signed the lease during the peak of New York's lockdown, and rearranging everything gave us a sense of newness when we were stuck inside," says Li. "Two years later, we haven't stopped." Below, five configurations that Lowry and Li return to with consistency.

The most frequent arrangement positions the sofa along the back wall with their signature Wassily armchair beside the bookcase. This orientation maximizes the perceived volume of the 19-foot-wide apartment—already generous by New York standards—and optimizes natural light penetration. "It's what drew us to the apartment in the first place," notes Lowry. "There's no taller building to block it."

As a clothing designer for Kith, Li frequently brings projects home from the studio on Fridays. "I'll text Nick, and he'll swing the couch over to the side so I can have as much hard-floor space as possible to sew," she explains.

Lowry and Li aren't frequent television viewers, but an occasional binge-watch warrants its own configuration. The sofa rotates to face the wall, and a portable projector casts beneath the two art prints—deliberately hung higher than standard at 49 inches from the floor to accommodate this dual purpose.

For video game sessions—the couple are devoted Nintendo Switch players—the sofa maintains its wall-facing orientation while a pop-up projector screen emerges from the closet. "It creates a little gaming nook that's fun to have when friends are over," says Lowry. Floor cushions replace the dining chairs, and everyone gathers on the rug.

"We call it our mid-century intervention doctor's office," jokes Li of this arrangement. A row of dining chairs faces the sofa, and the coffee table yields to IKEA stools. Despite the whimsical reference, the configuration genuinely fosters the ideal intimate atmosphere for meaningful conversations with friends or an end-of-day debrief.

Lowry and Li prefer to seat guests—and themselves—with a direct line of sight to whoever is cooking. The sofa and rug reposition beneath the windows alongside the bookshelves. "No one feels excluded," explains Lowry. The entire group occupies a shared space, free from shouting across rooms or awkward neck-craning.

Kate McGregor covers everything related to the home, from design inspiration to IKEA hacks. She has been the market assistant at ELLE Decor where she focused on curating product for the print magazine's market pages.

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