Of course we all know what they say about the squeaky wheel. The couple went with Chelsea and went with new, buying a floor-through loft that Ms. Gottfried initially painted yellow from stem to stern. “It was a big deal that we were moving in together,” she said. “We were nervous. So I thought yellow for sunshine. I figured I’d do everything else later.”

Credit Benjamin Moore. It all worked out. They married in 2007 and had two children, Lily, now 7, and Max, now 5. Living with toddlers, “you don’t want to make things too nice, because they destroy everything,” said Ms. Gottfried, who waited and bided her time. Last year she prodded her husband: The loft really needed a face-lift. Six months ago, the couple got serious about decorating. That is, Ms. Gottfried got serious about decorating. And Mr. Gottfried, who shares George Carlin’s belief that home is just a place to keep your stuff, got out of the way.

“People move into places and tear down walls and they put the bathroom where the kitchen was and the bedroom where the living room was,” he said. “That stuff confuses me no end. To make two bedrooms out of one large bedroom, my wife said there was a place you could rent a wall. That sounded insane to me. I thought, ‘Are people going to break in here at some point and say, “We’re taking our wall back”? ’”

For the record, no walls were harmed in the remaking of this apartment, which combines warmth (a sectional upholstered in washable velvet; a wood dining table and buffet) and sleek functionality (polished chrome coffee table, reproduction Eames lounger), and mixes the classic (crown moldings) with the contemporary (an angular light fixture over the dining room table).

Certain practicalities did have to be taken into account. Mr. Gottfried is a hoarder of no mean talent. His collections include but are not limited to T-shirts from the first Reagan administration; travel-size deodorants and tubes of toothpaste from hotels around the world and bars of soap from several now defunct airlines. He does not take kindly to things being thrown out. Accordingly, Ms. Gottfried had a banquette built with storage underneath the benches. Spillover can be accommodated in the living room wall unit. For decades, a binder kept under the bed held Mr. Gottfried’s artwork: sheet after sheet filled with little faces. Ms. Gottfried had several of the pictures framed and fashioned a little gallery for them in the loft.