WHAT'S IN THE MIX?

Rayman Boozer brings his mastery of color and pattern to the renovation of a Harlem duplex for a young family.

- Diana Budds

Rayman Boozer believes that a home can't only look ravishing. It also has to feel friendly. "I know friendly doesn't sound like a design word," says the ELLE DECOR A-List designer. "But it's really important to me that when people walk into a home, it feels like they're welcome. Things should be pretty but still feel like, Oh wow, a nice person lives here. Or at least that a nice person decorated."

That sentiment is immediately apparent in a Harlem apartment that the Indiana-born, Manhattan-based principal of design firm Apartment 48 renovated for a family of four. The space is textured and unexpected. The living room, painted in a soothing light blue, features a piano bench upholstered in a purple zebra print, French landscape paintings, gauzy curtains in a blush-pink and lime-green marbled pattern, and antique Chinese pottery. While the combination keeps the eye engaged, the overall ambience is comforting, like a full-body exhale.

In some ways, the project was decades in the making. Boozer's client, a self-described "major Rayman groupie," first met the designer at his cult Chelsea boutique, also called Apartment 48 (since closed), which was furnished like a real home. "I would go in and visit some of my favorite items and pretend it was my own apartment," she says.