Industrial Revolution

With confidence, a strong sense of design, and open-minded clients, Todd Haley has introduced unexpected industrial materials seamlessly into dramatic, elegant interiors. We asked Haley to share some of his offbeat sources and quirky tips with us.

 

Haley toughened up the decor of an urban loft by introducing institutional sinks in the kitchen and bathrooms. The lustrous satin finish of the steel sink in the master bath belies the fact that it was designed for washing up in hospitals and factories.

Blanket Statement
When Haley noticed quilted moving blankets in a high-rise service elevator, his mind started racing with ideas. He found black vinyl acoustical blankets with the same textural quality and experimented with them as unorthodox wall treatments. Developed to soak up sound in recording studios and other noisy venues, the panels give walls a sexy urban edge. In the living room of this condo, Haley used them to delineate a banquette seating area; in the bedroom, he padded the wall behind his bed from top to bottom, creating a very large headboard.

The panels not only look cool, but they'll also absorb any next-door late night partying! Haley suggests commercial moving blankets as an affordable alternative. You can buy them in big sizes and mount them with drapery hooks on a curtain rod for a similar look.

Twin Set
Adding industrial flair to your home doesn't have to mean Googling the nearest foundry. Haley assembled a dramatic banquette with his own two hands, using two steel twin-bed frames. "I'm not mechanical and I got these together with just a screwdriver and bolts with no problems," he says. "I like to take parts of retail furniture and use them out of context."

 

 

Table Tips
For a versatile and dramatic yet bare-bones table, Haley used a simple steel base and a black plastic laminate top of his own design. The scale of the table makes it a piece of architecture itself, and the casters that he ordered with the legs allow it to be rolled to the banquette. It comfortably seats 12.

On the one wall he uses sleek ledges of steel with an upturned lip to steady the pictures, which lean against the wall in ever-changing arrangements. Today a bullet-blasted metal piece balances a rusty barbed-wire folk art sculpture.

 

 

todd haley - chicago home magazine