Must Have Home Tech That’s Smart & Stylish

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Homes are getting smarter. From voice-activated lightswitches to alarm clocks that simulate circadian light functions, optimization is more accessible than ever. 

That being said, as two designers who have cultivated our personal and professional style around the charm and wonder of historic homes, we know that it can be difficult to find tech that feels timeless. 

Lucky for you, throughout our 27 full gut renovations of luxury historic homes, we’ve gathered intel on all the smartest devices that don’t compromise design, so your home can be both savvy & stylish.

THE FRAME TV

Nothing will ruin a beautiful room quite like a monstrous black box bulging off your pristinely painted or papered wall. We love the frame TV for its inconspicuous nature, but also because it offers ease in switching out your art. Wall art can be incredibly costly, and we’ve found in our own home over the years as our rugs, drapes, couches, and paint colors have cycled out, it’s been incredibly convenient to be able to switch out key art pieces with the touch of a button thanks to our Samsung Frame TV. 

Frame TV hung over marble fireplace with Van Gogh's daisies displayed

PHILLIPS HUE SMART BULBS

Mood lighting is integral to enjoying any room. If a major lighting overhaul isn’t first on your agenda, try swapping the bulbs in your current fixtures for these smart bulbs. They bluetooth to your phone where you can create and save different lighting “scenes” based on your preferences. You can even set a wind down and wake up time synced with red and yellow light to optimize your sleep patterns. 

Light ficture hanging in a room above fireplace with books and green floral wallpaper

ELECTRIC TEA KETTLE

We know for many, the idea of ditching a stovetop tea kettle seems sacrilegious. That being said, there are so many vintage-inspired electric tea kettles that pose less of a fire hazard and get your tea to your mug much quicker than your traditional stove top teapot.

Tea kettle sitting on top of stovetop, gray marble countertop and blue cabinets in a bright kitchen

BLUETOOTH RECORD PLAYER

If you love the sound of vinyl & the look of a record player but also need a bluetooth speaker to survive, this record player is for you. With both traditional vinyl & bluetooth capabilities, you can set the vibe with your favorite jazz record or blast Chappell Roan with ease.

Roceord player sitting on top of white cabinet with modern art hung above, a face with blue jacket and light wood accents

SMART OVEN AIR FRYER

We have a rule in our house that if something is going to take up counter space, it’s got to be aesthetically pleasing. Our air fryer is no exception! While there are plenty of vintage-inspired air fryers and toaster ovens out there, this one from Breville is not only the perfect size & shape, it’s also got 11 different cooking functions and an Element IQ system to direct heat where it’s needed, without overcooking areas where it’s not. 

Two open closets, one with coats (right) and (left) one with various kitchen accessories including a toaster oven.


Home optimization does not have to be synonymous with character sterilization! We hope you institute some of these smart and stylish hacks to keep your home up to date, without compromising on charm.


Adding Historic Charm at Carroll Jardin:

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Bringing Back Historic Touches and Adding Modern Details in a Brooklyn Brownstone

One interesting thing about older homes is that they often change a lot throughout their history. They undergo renovations and wear and tear from previous owners, along with changing tastes and sensibilities. 

Reviving Historic Elegance

At Carroll Jardin, we’ve lovingly restored some of the home’s most enchanting features that had been lost over the years. 

The marble fireplace mantel is a total standout piece, serving as a grand focal point in the kitchen. We decided to contrast this historic marble with some more modern marble in the countertops, hood cover, and backsplash. 

It was also important to us to bring back some character with ceiling mouldings. They add a touch of sophistication and draw the eye upwards. Many Brooklyn brownstones would have originally had ceiling moulding, inspired by Queen Anne and Victorian styles of the time. 

It’s such a pleasure to bring these details back to the space and work with some of our neighborhood’s most talented artisans who keep this craft alive. 

Modern Touches for Today’s Living

Balancing these historical elements are modern touches that ensure Carroll Jardin is not just a museum piece but a comfortable home for today (and the next 100 years!).

These sleek upholstered stools from Lulu & Georgia and dining chairs from CB2 bring a contemporary flair to the space. Their clean lines and neutral tones provide a perfect contrast to the ornate historical features.

Lighting is where we’ve truly married the old with the new. The Gubi Multi-Lite pendants, with their retro-inspired design, add a modern twist to the room, complementing the traditional elements beautifully. The Rosalie Aluminum sconces and further enhance this blend, casting a warm, inviting glow that ties the entire space together.

You may not even notice the final, extra-modern item we added to this historic home–the Frame TV from Samsung. We love using this TV in our projects because it fits in completely seamlessly. 

At Carroll Jardin, we believe in honoring the past while embracing the future. With thoughtful design choices, we’ve created a home that celebrates its heritage and is fully equipped for modern, Parisian-esque living. 

Follow along for more design inspiration and the stories behind our favorite pieces in Carroll Jardin! For a list of all the products used in this home, check out this blog. 

Our Secrets (don’t tell!) About the Costs of Renovating a Brownstone

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Living in a historic brownstone or townhouse in Brooklyn or Manhattan is a dream for many people. The original woodwork, beautiful plaster mouldings, grand staircases, and iconic stoops on tree-lined streets are too much to just to look onto from afar. You might have come to conclusion that the best path to have one of your own is to buy a fixer upper and build your dream home. Seeing the price tag of available listings is pretty straight forward, but what about the renovation? How much does it cost to restore those beautiful 100+ year old original features, build spaces for modern living, and repair the home to last another 100 years? It’s difficult to even understand if the purchase price you’re looking at is feasible for you without understanding the other side of the equation. If you’re ready to start searching for the right place, we can help! 

A good place to start is trying to get a handle on exactly how much work is needed. There are 2 basic things you’ll want to understand: What the condition of the place is and how much you’re changing the configuration. If you walk in to view a home, the kitchens and bathrooms are relatively where you want them and it appears to all have been modernized in the last couple of decades, you might be able to get away with a smaller scope cosmetic project. If you walk in and see aging mechanicals, deteriorating plaster, crooked floors, as well as a kitchen on the wrong floor and bathrooms in entirely wrong places, then the most likely scenario is that is that you’re going to be doing a fairly large scope gut renovation. That doesn’t at all mean that the historic features and charm would be removed, but it will take some work to restore it all and integrate it into the modern home with historic charm you’re dreaming of.

We have a secret to tell you. It might be the best piece of advice we have for anyone shopping for a fixer-upper brownstone. When you bounce around from open house to open house you’ll see places that you immediately know will be a huge project: plaster falling off the ceiling, carpet that reeks of cat urine, old dirty bathrooms, and ancient electrical panels. And you’ll see places that look entirely habitable: Freshly painted walls, historic charm in great shape, a kitchen that looks like it was installed within the decade (be it in the wrong place), and the electrical doesn’t look like a fire hazard. With the latter you might think you have hit the jackpot on a place that just needs some walls moved and some TLC. You might think, although the price tag is higher at least it is a smaller renovation. Our word of warning is the project size and cost may not be all that different between them. If your plan includes moving bathrooms, creating a big beautiful primary bathroom and closet, reconfiguring bedrooms, relocating the kitchen to the parlor floor where there is none, and adding a powder room – that is a major reconfiguration. After all of those walls are moved the floors and ceilings will need to be addressed, not to mention that crooked floors will look even more crooked next to all of the new features so those might need to be fixed too. You end up re-doing (or resurfacing) most of the walls, ceilings, and floors. Finally, once the plumber and electrician redo half of what’s there for the new layout, they’ll likely want (or need) to replace it all. There is code as recent as the 2,000’s that everything will need to be brought up to. Oh, and what about HVAC? The point is that although a building may initially look like less work since you feel you could move into it as-is if needed, it might very well be the same scope and cost to make it into your dream home as the place with carpet that reeks of cat urine, ancient electrical panels, and deteriorating plaster. So why pay more for the place that only appears to offer you a smaller scope project. 

Two men, known as The Brownstone Boys, stand outside on a sidewalk, each holding an old door with missing glass panels in front of a row of classic brownstone buildings.

Since a lot of things go into such a big project, we need a quick way to estimate costs and one of the quickest ways to get a general idea of budget is to use a price per square foot and apply it to the square footage of the home. A price per square foot for the entire house will give you a general idea of the total cost for a renovation and it takes into account that there is a new kitchen, a few bedrooms, several new bathrooms, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC…etc. While it’s not a bad way to generalize the cost of a complete home renovation, it’s really just to give you a quick idea so that you can have an estimation, for instance, if you’re trying to figure out if the fixer-upper you viewed fits your budget including the renovation.  Keep in mind that there may be a feature of your renovation that might push the costs up outside of the price per square foot, one big example of that would be adding an addition to the home which comes with many more costs than renovating within the home’s footprint. For something like that you might want to treat it as a separate line item. Ok! So you’ve got it and just want the numbers, we hear you, and we’re here to give them to you!

One last thing, you should know that we do renovations in New York City and the numbers in some of our examples might be more in line with renovating in New York or other big cities. We provided a range so that you can adjust if you live in a place with a lower cost of living. The low end of the range can be used for areas where the cost of living is less and the high end is for areas where the cost of living is higher. That’s true for contractor and labor expenses, but costs for finish items would likely be the same since we get those items from all over the country and world and many of the suppliers we purchase from are national. Ok ok… the numbers! 

Total home reno price per square foot budgeting:

• Budget conscious reno with low-cost finishes, little to no structural work, and limited to no configuration changes: $125-$175 psf

• Mid-range reno with mostly basic finishes, some upgrades, some structural work, and some configuration changes:  $175-$200 psf 

• Mid range reno with nice finishes, some splurges, a fair amount of structural work, and a lot of configuration changes:  $200-$275 psf

• High-end renovation with structural work, total configuration change, and high-end finishes: $300-$400 psf 

• Super high-end renovation with a name recognition architect, designer, and all high-end best-of-class finishes. $400+ psf

Hopefully you can find yourself in one of those buckets and you can generalize the cost of renovating your fixer upper or existing home! There are a lot of ranges there so if you’re having trouble landing in one, we would suggest that the once in a lifetime dream home you are envisioning is probably in the upper $200’s-lower $300s psf.

If you are adding an addition to the building since there is so much foundation, concrete, steel, and structural work we would estimate that line item at $700-750 psf. 

Now, that gives you the hard costs of the renovation but there are other expenses you should take into consideration as well. Depending on the size of your project you will likely need an architect, engineers, and city filings. Those costs can vary depending on the scope you have but you’ll want to budget $35,000-$60,000 (but it could be higher as well). If it’s a larger project and you won’t be living in the home during the process (we highly recommend that you don’t) you’ll want to include carrying costs like the cost of the mortgage, insurance, utility bills, and/or alternative accommodations while the work is being done. These are all soft costs. 

Finally, don’t forget to include a 10-15% contingency. There are almost always additional expenses that come up during the renovation. Once walls, floors, and ceilings are opened up it’s quite possible that some repairs may be needed that were not seen before. You also may have to or want to alter a design to account for conditions onsite. These items are called change orders. They can be stressful, so if you have a budget included for them it can make the process much smoother. 

Restoring and renovating a historic home can be a perfect path to owning a piece of history. It will have had many owners before you, some who may have arrived at its doorstep in horse and carriage, and it will likely have owners after you. These well-lived homes are often part of a thriving community that we hold dear and being a part of its significant life is something that’s just very special. Happy renovating!

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The Gates House – Reveal & House Tour!

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We are so thrilled and proud to share the Gates House with you. It has the more restored original features than any of our projects to date! Many many painstaking hours have gone into fully restoring them. It all takes time! This project has been over a year in the making! BUT it was worth the wait! We are excited for you to see the beautiful white oak floors with a Peruvian walnut inlay, the gorgeous woodwork and stained glass, the restored plaster tapestries, not to mention the custom painted kitchen cabinets and modern bathrooms. It’s truly one for the books! It takes a village to renovate in NYC and we’re very thankful for our wonderful partners, collaborators, and craftsmen who took part in this project. Most importantly, to homeowners Laura & Rebecca and their new born twin girls (yes our second set of twins if you’ve been following along) Welcome home!

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Managing Lead Time’s in a Renovation

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Lead times are one of the most important things to manage in your renovation. It’s one of the things that can affect your timeline the most that you also have the most control over. If the materials are not onsite on time to be installed it can create a delay. That delay can create delays in the installation of other items as well. Over the course of a months long renovation repeatedly losing time on things like this can drastically affect your timeline.

Fortunately, with a little planning you can avoid costly and frustrating delays. You can also avoid having to choose your finishes based on what you can get in time and not what you might really want. If you are starting your bathroom renovation in 2 weeks and you expect it to take 3 weeks, the custom tile that takes 6 weeks to arrive isn’t going to work! In a major renovation this can be compounded many times over. With every material choice you make the lead time is just as important as the price and other specifications you’ll be looking for.

Give yourself enough time before your renovation starts to choose the majority of your finish items, noting the lead time of each. Create a schedule for your project so that you have a general idea of when different kinds of work will happen. That way you can order items to arrive ahead of when that work will start. Give yourself enough time to receive the materials and ensure they arrived accurately and undamaged.

Custom tiles and appliances are items that we are seeing have the longest lead times during the pandemic

The opposite problem of having some items arrive too soon can also affect the speed of your project. You don’t want big bulky appliances sitting around on your job site before hardwood floors are installed. The construction crew will speed valuable time moving them around from room to room to get them out of the way.

Finally, for anything that has a long lead time get extra! If you run out of the custom tile that took 6 weeks to arrive because you ordered 10 square feet less than you were supposed to, guess how long your tile job will sit unfinished while you wait for more, 6 more weeks!

A note about Covid…

Covid has been having a severe effect on lead times and availability of materials. Manufacturing has been affected, supply has been affected, and it has been changing rapidly. Even if you thought you knew the lead time for some materials it’s worth checking back in. We have seen things go from days to weeks, and weeks to months long waits. We have had to pivot to alternative materials or pay more for items that were less only weeks ago. Things like plumbing fixtures, hardwood floors, and appliances have been severely affected. Double check and keep and eye on how things are evolving to avoid delays.

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Building Custom Shelves and Cabinets- A Year in the Making

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Anyone who has gone through a major renovation might relate to having a project or 2 (…3 ‍♂️) saved after it’s finished. Our biggest saved project is the big empty blank wall across from our kitchen. We planned on installing cabinets on that wall but the old fireplace bump out complicates it. We didn’t want two disconnected cabinet units on both sides and felt we needed a design that minimizes the effect of the bump out. Over a year later we have finally tackled this project!

The Wish List

We desperately needed storage! We didn’t build a single closet on the parlor floor of our house. That left nowhere for the broom, vacuum, and or even Zuko’s enormous bag of food! We knew we needed some deep (ish) and tall cabinets.

We also didn’t have a place for our bar and ended up with bottles on temporary racks so that was important as well. Not too mention we haven’t even invested in nice wine glasses because we don’t have a place to store them.

Finally, we only have one upper cabinet dedicated for dry food storage and really just needed additional pantry space.

The Design

This was the hard part. We stared at the blank wall for more than a year before we figured it out. We made many sketches. We consulted designer friends. And we went through a lot of ideas.

The fireplace bump out and a radiator on the left side made it a difficult space.

These features always dictated the design. What helped us to figure it out was to ignore the bump out and radiator completely. Functionally we couldn’t ignore it but from a design perspective it solved the problem. We decided we would design as if it was a flat wall and then work it around the difficult features.

Overall the key elements of the design are a Scandinavian feel with flat front cabinets in a white oak veneer. There are tall 90” cabinets on the deep side, and cabinets & opens shelves spanning the middle and opposite side. The shelves and cabinets inconspicuously step back in depth over the fireplace bump out and seamlessly hide the radiator. It’s simple, but it accomplishes all of our goals. It gets us tall storage, gives us a place for a bar, provides ample pantry space, and minimizes the effect of the bump out. It’s a nice contrast to our grey shaker kitchen cabinets and white walls.

The Build

The entire wall including the fireplace bump out is all original masonry and has been plastered over many times through the years. As you can imagine that leaves the walls very out of plumb. We took a lot of measurements but also knew it was going to take a lot of tweaking during installation.

The cabinet construction is melamine interior boxes (to save a bit) and white oak veneer fronts, panels, and shelves. The hinges and push openers are from IKEA (also to keep the costs down, but we have used their hardware many times and trust the quality). We finished the white oak veneer with an extra matte clear polyurethane. The radiator has a grill at the bottom and the top for air flow.

So our vacuum and broom now have a home, our whiskey collection has room to grow, and Zuko even has his own shelf for treats! Equally as important we love the design and the way it integrates into the rest of our house. Now that this project is crossed off the list that only leaves a couple (…3…is the list growing?!) more!

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Renovation Budget Planning: Change Orders

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There will always be surprise costs during a renovation once floors and walls are open

Budget planning is one of the most important parts of a renovation, at least for most of us! Costs can easily get out of control. Even if you get your contractor quote set and finishes all spec-ed, many renovators go into it trying to guess what might come up during the process. Will there be surprises hiding behind the walls or under the floors? Or will you have a change of heart in the design? Or what about adding things to the scope of the project? How much should you plan for and where are the common expenses?

We always recommend planning for all of these categories. Unexpected expenses are coming and chances are that no matter how strong your resolve to not make design changes or add additional scope of work, most people do. You’ll become very familiar with the term: Change Order.

A common additional cost in older homes is replacing or sistering joists cut by plumbers

Common Surprise Expenses

Once the walls are open, the joists are exposed, the wiring is in view, and the plumbing can be seen. You can expect something will need to be unexpectedly repaired.

Most renovations don’t include replacing floor joists in their bathroom renovation, but here in Brooklyn we don’t remember a bathroom floor that didn’t need joist repair or replacement. In a 100+ year old building no doubt it has gone through many renovations over the years. Plumbers are notorious for chopping straight through joists to run pipes, weakening the much needed structural features and causing sagging in the floor. If your building has multiple bathrooms it will compound the expenses.

Some renovators buy a property and on visual inspection the electrical might appear updated, only to open the walls and see it connected to ancient wires. In fact, depending on how big your renovation is most electricians will want to replace everything to pass inspection.

Termite damage, moisture issues, plaster repair…etc there is a lot of opportunity for unexpected expenses. You’ll want to go in with a budget ready to go. It will make finding them a little less stressful.

Most renovators change design choices during the course of renovation

Design Changes

No matter how much you think you won’t want to make changes in your design choices, you can bet that you will. There are things you can do to avoid it. Make sure you look at all of your finishes and design choices together. Gather samples and take them over to your space to view them in the exact location. If you can’t get a physical sample (or even if you can), put together a lookbook with photos of the finishes all on one page. It will give you a great idea how everything will go together. You’ll reduce the chance that something might not be right once it’s onsite and installed.

Once things are built and finishes are in place it’s inevitable that a few things might not be what you expected. Your reasoning might be that this is your chance to get it right and you’d rather spend the extra money now to not have to redo it later.

Adding Scope of Work

Once your renovation starts you’re going to be very aware of all things designed around you. At a restaurant you might love the tile or lighting, or you might see a reclaimed wood floor in a magazine that catches your eye. You might stay at a hotel that has an indoor/outdoor patio with a large glass slider that you now must have. Most renovations increase scope of work during the project. So it’s best to give yourself a bit of room to work in some of these changes.

Example of a spreadsheet we use with estimated costs, quoted costs, and added change order costs

How Much to Plan for?

Change orders are going to happen. If you go into your renovation with no room for them in your budget, you can bet you’ll be going over. We recommend planning a contingency for change orders of 15% of your renovation budget. You’ll want that available for those unexpected expenses, and if you don’t need it you’ll be able include some of your design and scope of work changes! When your contractor issues a change order expense you’ll know what to expect.

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Trim & Mouldings: A Quick Guide to the Finishing Details

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Trim and moulding isn’t just the icing on the cake it’s an important architectural feature of your home and can serve to protect the walls from damage. Mouldings can bring an unfinished renovation to an almost complete space. They can also do an important job of covering the guts of doors and windows after they are installed. 

It can be a confusing puzzle to put together especially if you have original wood or plaster  mouldings. We thought we would share our tips and tricks to putting together a moulding plan that will bring your renovation from incomplete to polished. 

An example of a project where we matched original plaster mouldings with new crown mouldings

Moulding or Molding

First of all we need to discuss something that might be bothering you. Is it spelled moulding or molding? Unfortunately and confusingly the answer is…both! You may have guessed that the old word and original way to spell it is “moulding” but here in the US many words that had that pesky “U” have had it removed over the years. Both spellings are accepted, but some professionals and suppliers choose to go with the old world spelling rather than the modernized US version. Since we love old houses and most of what we write is related to them, we have chosen to stick with the old and more nostalgic spelling. Now, let’s talk a about mouldings! 

Crown 

The original reason for most mouldings was to cover up gaps where building materials come together. Over time they became more ornate, but their original purpose still holds true. Crown mouldings can bring a feeling of elegance to a room. It can be a simple feature or an ornate focal point. There are many styles but we like to use a cove that can round out the transition where the wall meets the ceiling with additional features above and below it. Some crown mouldings consist of multiple pieces built up to achieve a larger and more ornate look. The height of the ceiling and proportions of the room usually determines how big to go. Many crown mouldings were traditionally made of plaster, and many still are, but it’s an expensive (but beautiful) option. A similar look can usually be accomplished with wood. More on that below. 

Baseboard

Baseboards are installed partly for aesthetic reasons, just as crown moulding hides the area where walls meet the ceiling, baseboards hide the joint where walls meet the floor, which might otherwise be unsightly. But baseboards also serve a very necessary function in protecting plaster walls from getting kicked or scuffed. They come in varying heights and details. Baseboard trim is usually much less ornate than crown molding, though in modern houses both can be starkly simple. Baseboard comes with a large variety of styles, such as smooth, beaded, ornate, and many more styles. Many traditional baseboards consist of multiple pieces. A flat board, sometimes with beading, and a base cap on top that is usually more ornate. Simple modern baseboards may even just stop at the flat board. The height usually depends on the height of the ceilings. We like to do baseboards in the 3”-5” range for low to medium height ceilings and 7-9” range for high ceilings (and more ornate details). 

Picture Frame & Rail

Picture frame moulding can instantly and inexpensively up the character factor in a room. It adds an touch of elegance to a space. The picture rail is a nod to tradition and history and was used to hang wall decor to avoid creating holes in plaster walls. This type of moulding will always curb a modern style to traditional. We like to use a low profile wall moulding to bring in some character but not make things too bulky. 

Door & Window Casing 

Like other types of moulding, casings were originally used to cover the gaps between the plaster wall and the door or window. It’s still used for that, but now to most people a home just wouldn’t be complete without them. Again, you need to consider the rooms proportions to chose the size abs style. You’ll also need to consider how much space there is around your doors and windows. In New York, space is tight and they may end up close to one another or a wall. You should consider the space required for the moulding to understand how big you can go. Usually the door trim will extend all the way around the door and to the floor. Sometimes a plinth is used as a base to the casing at the floor. The baseboard will then a terminate at the casings or plinth. At the top corners, and sometimes even on the sides, a decorative rosette can be used. 

Matching Original Moulding

One of the things that usually draws people to historic homes are their original mouldings. Rather than rip it all out and replace it, to keep its original charm you will want to restore it. But if some are damaged or if you move a wall or 2, you may need more.

Depending on which moulding you need to replicate with determine what to do. Your original baseboards and door & window casings are wood. It will likely be impossible for find your original moulding off the shelf. You can find a close approximation if it, or you can chose to have a millworker recreate the originals. This is not that much more expensive if you go to the right place. Many of the wood product shops in New York even have the knives (the tool used to give a piece of wood the exact feature of your moulding) on hand to match the more popular styles in local homes. If they don’t they can make it for a small fee. Then it’s just a matter of paying for the wood to be cut. 

Your original crown moulding is likely made of plaster. Fixing damaged sections or recreating it will require a skilled plaster craftsman to come into your home to spend many hours working to restore them. It can be expensive work, but the result will be beautiful. Once completed you will look at it everyday and will be glad you did it!

Finally, something to consider is that all the trim in a room should be part of the same family, with similar detail and proportions. If you have elaborate crown molding and very simple door casings, for example, it’s not going to feel right. All mouldings should be in proportion to the room size and each other.

Trim and mouldings serve an important purpose and are part of the architectural detail of your home. They hide the unsightly gaps between buildings materials and protect walls and plaster from damage, all while adding character and elegance to a room. Whether you are creating your moulding plan from scratch or restoring originals you’ll appreciate putting some thought into the plan! 

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Renovation Do’s and Don’ts

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Now that Phase 1 is complete in our renovation, we can look back and wonder what we would have done a little differently. It also helps clarify a list of “do’s and don’ts” that can ensure a smooth renovation. Truthfully, since our brownstone was built in 1890 there will always be a project to work on. It’s just as much a hobby as a home. So this might be more of a look back in the middle of the process rather than the end. We hope our Do’s/Don’ts list is a helpful resource for anyone pondering a renovation. Let us know if you have any to add!

Do:

Make sure you have the right team. (contractor, architect, specialists). It’s one of the first things you’ll do. You’ll obviously be spending a lot of time with these people. Make sure they understand the project, have the skills needed, have a good track record, and are easy to communicate with.

Make sure you have the right floor plan/layout that works. Spend time making sure the new floor plan works well for you and your family. It’s a lot hard work to switch things around mid renovation.

Get together a solid budget and leave room for contingency. There are a lot of surprise expenses that can blindside a renovator. And we’re not just talking about the surprises when you open up the walls. Some decisions you make in the design phase can dramatically impact the budget. Making large structural changes can require the need for a structural engineer and may further require a construction superintendent. HVAC plans may call for a mechanical engineer. And of course construction expenses can add up very quickly. Be prepared to set your priorities and create a budget that leaves room for the inevitable surprises. Depending on the size of your renovation 10-20% contingency.

Make sure your architect really knows your budget. Sounds like a given but we have seen architects get carried away. They can make amazing suggestions and plans for things that are just way out of scope.

Get 3-5 quotes from contractors. You’ll learn something with every walkthrough you have with a contractor. Quotes can vary greatly. Some contractors have crews of their own rather than subs for certain things which can lower costs. Some have more experience in areas that might especially help in your project. You could easily see some quotes come in double from others. Getting 3-5 quotes will help you understand the full range and put you in the best position to choose the quote that works for your project the most (hint: that is often not the cheapest one)

Plan on lots of things taking longer than you expect. City approvals, landmarks approvals, plumbing inspections, finishes selection, material delivery…etc. Things along the way will create delays. If you expect them and build in extra time it will be a much less stressful.

Find some projects that can be started before demo begins- get the specialists in before. The 2-3 month design and approval stage can be a frustrating wait of inactivity. It’s also time that can be used to get a head start. Wood stripping, stain glass restoration, roof repair, brick repointing…etc there are some projects you can get a head start on before permits. (Obviously consult your architect and contractor to be sure)

Put some thought into the electrical plans (lighting, switches, and outlets). This is one of the areas you may inevitably end up wishing you made some changes. Are all of the switches in places that make the most sense for you. Are there outlets exactly where you need them?

Organize your inspiration photos so you have a good sense of what you want. For many people, going through a renovation will require making more decisions in a short period of time than any other time in their life! It will take time and you’ll want to think things over as much as possible. Start organizing your thoughts early so that you know what you want later.

Have at least weekly meetings with contractor team but remember they need their space to work. Hopefully you selected a contractor team that is easy to communicate with and responsible enough to provide some autonomy. You likely won’t be onsite daily, but it’s a good idea to set a weekly walkthrough to review what has been done the previous week, what issues have come up, and what will be done over the following week. At the same time, it’s probably not the best idea to micromanage your contractor on a daily basis. You want them to work smartly and efficiently and should be able to trust them to get the job done. If you don’t then you might not have the right team.

Order finishes with proper lead times and the right quantities.
Some finishes have longer lead times than others. If you don’t other enough of that custom tile to finish your bathroom you might have a 6-8 week wait for more (whoops!)

Make sure all holes are sealed when walls are open. It’s NYC!
Ok the one place we will micromanage our contractor. We need to see that all holes are sealed tight before cabinetry is installed and around plumbing. It’s New York City and something will find its way in if there are any gaps.

Go on a vacation to escape for a couple days. We recommend somewhere tropical.

Don’t:

Don’t live in a construction zone. We know it’s tempting. Budget is tight and a months long camping trip in your own house might sound fun, but the process can be stressful and this can easily cause it to spill over into unmanageable.

Don’t have a hard deadline to finish. Lease expiring, previous home sold, baby arriving…etc. if you give yourself a hard deadline to have to finish the project with no back up plan you’re level of stress and relationship with your contractor (and probably your spouse!) will be pushed to it’s limits. It will likely be worth the expense to have some lease overlap…etc so that you have some breathing room.

Don’t get too many subcontractors involved. Try to find a contractor that can do as many thins as possible to avoid having to coordinate with too many other service providers.

Don’t use all “off-the-shelf” finishes. Get something unique in the space. To control budget and timing there are a lot of standard finish items that are great, but make sure you get creative with some custom or just upgraded pieces to give your renovation some interest.

Don’t change your mind and your plan throughout the process. It’s one of the biggest causes of delays. Changing finishes, configuration, and plans mid renovation will slow things down to a crawl. Make decisions early so that you have time to let them sink in so that any changes are made well before what phase starts.

Don’t put off work that can easily be done while walls are open and unpainted. Budget might require you to push some items to future projects, but make sure it’s things that make sense to do once the main renovation is complete. Some common bad examples are adding AC or moving walis. You will destroy a lot of recently finished walls and floors. If your walls are opened, this is the time to hide the wiring/cables. Before the floors are finished it is the time to move walls. Before the walls are closed up it’s the time to put in new plumbing. Maybe some better things to put off adding new windows or putting on that steel deck. Those are things that likely won’t require you to undo what’s already been done.

Wow that is a lot! But there is always more! going through a renovation can be a rewarding experience but we can also be difficult and stressful. Fortunately there are many things you can be aware of before the process starts to make it go as smoothly as possible. We hope this helped!

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Hot and Cold: AC and Heat Options To Consider When Renovating

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We grew up in Las Vegas and New Orleans (Happy Mardi Gras!) Although we’ve both been in Brooklyn for decades now, we grew up with very different types of heating and cooling systems that usually focus more on cooling a space rather than heating it. Here in New York it’s often the opposite but they are both important. Traditionally these old buildings focused on heating, and they relied on the masonry walls, tree-lined streets, and tall windows to cool it. But today you’d be pressed to find someone renovating one and not putting in a AC system. The question that has come up for us: does putting in a cooling system change the thought process on how to heat your home?

If your place hasn’t been renovated in a while you likely have a steam, hydronic, or forced air boiler to heat your home. All three are tried, tested, and effective for heat even in very low temps. New construction or older buildings that have been gut renovated may have a central HVAC system delivering both heating and cooling through ducts. In our case we had a hydronic boiler delivering heat through baseboard radiators. We didn’t like the look of them and wanted more traditional exposed radiators. So we changed all of the radiators and piping that delivered hot water to them. But that didn’t help us cool the place! For that we installed a mini split system throughout the house. We didn’t want to run the bulky ducts necessary for central AC or a Unico system.

We went with an LG mini split system that also has a heat pump for heating. We have the radiator system running to heat the place regularly, but occasionally if we want to speed up the process or just make it even cozier we’ll turn on the mini split in heat mode. In not a very long time at all it is so warm that we forget it’s even winter outside.

It’s raises the question, could we just heat our home with the mini split units? Many people have asked and the consensus has been that you could use a mini split system to supplement but not necessarily as a primary heat source with the low temperatures we can get in the northeast.  Our mini split system specs say that it has 100% heating capacity to 5 degrees and “continuous heating operation down to -13 degrees”. That leads us to believe that our mini split system will not effectively heat when it is below -13 degrees. Nevertheless, some people are doing it. And we have heard no complaints from those that we know that only have a mini split system to heat their home. Apparently the technology is getting better for heating so that in the near future, if not now, heating with a mini split system will be a safe choice.

How much does a mini split system cost to install? It can vary depending on what brand you go with and some installation details but a 4-5 unit system might run you $4,000-$7,000 and installation could run $12,000-$18,000. Keep in mind costs for additional electrical work and drywall/plaster repair where the lines are run.

We’ve also seen a lot of places with a ducted forced air heating system. You may have seen the old grates on walls and floors that carry the warm air to each room. For AC, rather than install a mini split system you can just add an AC coil to use the existing ducts for cool air. That option is likely a lot cheaper than installing mini split units which will need electricity and drainage run to them with a lot of drywall and plaster repair once they are installed. To add an AC coil to forced air heating system it can run $10,000-$12,000.

The last option that we have seen recently is installing hydronic radiant floor heat with a mini split system for AC. It’s seems like a combination that will deliver a comfortable feel but not necessarily be budget saver to install.

Anyone have any experience with heating exclusively with a mini split system? Or do you have any other ideas on the best way to configure an HVAC system?

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Pros and Cons of Wall Mounted Toilets

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As you scroll through beautiful bathroom design inspiration photos you might notice a recurring theme. What is it that makes these pictures of bathrooms of your dreams so clean, modern, and sleek? As you look closer you might notice that rather than the sometimes bulky, space-eating floor mounted toilets there is a space-saving modern beauty mounted to the wall! Popular in Europe for their space saving qualities, the wall mounted toilet first made its way to restaurants, bars, and public bathrooms in the US and have recently become more popular if not the latest trend in bathroom design for homes. We considered it for our renovation and have spoken to many other renovators who are doing the same. So what’s the pros and cons? And how do you go about getting one of your own?

Some visual reference for wall mounted toilets. We LOVE the simplicity and visuals for build out. Left photo: Toto Middle photo:Drench.co.uk Right photo: Comparison photo- Kohler

PROS

Modern and Space-Saving

As we mentioned, wall hung toilets have a very streamlined, modern look. The main reason is that the large and bulky tank of a floor mounted toilet is hidden in the wall. The gives you the ability to eliminate the space required for the tank and even the several inches of space behind the toilet, resulting in up to 10”-12” of additional floor space in the bathroom. 

Custom Heights

There is not much you can do to customize the height of a floor mounted toilet. They do come in a couple of different options: standard  height and comfort height (which is a few inches higher). A wall mounted toilet can provide greater flexibility since it can be mounted at whatever height you would like. 

Easy to Clean

Since a wall minted toilet sits above the floor clean up is a breeze. With no difficult or impossible to reach spaces you can more quickly and thoroughly clean. 

CONS
More expensive 
The biggest con to a wall mounted toilet is the cost and effort they take to buy and install. Many times the tank and wall mounting assembly is sold separately from the actual toilet which will also run more than a floor mounted toilet. Steel is usually used to mount and provide the strength necessary to support the weight. This might not be as big of a concern when you are building the a entire bathroom but when you’re retrofitting it can be a very intrusive renovation. The water and waste lines will have to be relocated, the wall will need to be opened up considerably, the studs might even need to be relocated (especially in older homes), and the floor will need to be repaired where the toilet sat. You’ll also need to know if you have 2×4 or 2×6 studs before ordering the equipment since the sizing will be different. 

Harder to Fix
There‘s no opening the lid to jiggle the mechanicals or easily replace a part. The tank is sealed up in the wall. If something goes wrong the trouble and expense to fix a wall mounted toilet could be much more.

Less Options
Since wall mounted toilets are still gaining in popularity in the US there are much fewer options. Only a few companies are selling them and the ones that do only have one or a few models. We checked out the Kohler, Duravit, and Toto versions. 

Ultimately we decided to go with a more streamlined version of floor mounted toilets. We fell in love with the simple, clean and streamlined Miseno high efficiency two-piece elongated chair height toilet with the slow-close seat. We weren’t going for too much of a modern sleek aesthetic in our place, and as you might know we were on a pretty tight budget. Our floor mounted toilets fit in well with our design. But our research will not be wasted as we’re pretty sure one day when we are designing and renovating a future space we have the opportunity to sleek it up with a wall mounted toilet. Are you in the market for one now? Have you installed one and have any feedback?

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Top 5 Hacks For An Inexpensive Kitchen Renovation

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Our budget was maxed out just on the construction expense for our renovation so we had to get creative when buying finishes. We managed to put together the look that we wanted on a much lower budget than anyone said we needed. The kitchen was an area where were able to save a lot so we thought we would share our top 5 inexpensive kitchen reno hacks!

Reproduce An Inspiration

Having a designer was definitely not in our budget (although we did have designer friends stop by for some friendly advice along the way). We found a kitchen design early on that we loved and planed to take a lot of inspiration from. You might have a few saved on Pinterest already, choose one or a few! No doubt your inspiration picture will be a kitchen with more expensive finishes. For instance, we loved the exact pendants in our inspiration picture, so we researched and found them. Unfortunately, we needed three and at $1,200 each they were way out of our budget (more about that below). We set out to accomplish a similar look and feel as our inspiration photo at a much lower cost. We did all of the design ourselves and felt confident with our inspiration photo as a guide. 

DIY Pendants and Lighting 

As we mentioned above the pendants in our kitchen inspiration photo were out of budget and we just didn’t see anything that we liked in our price range. Everything seemed a little too generic and we wanted something a bit more unique. So we decided to make our own pendants from parts we bought from a lighting parts wholesaler. If you’ve never wired a light before, you’re not the only one! We haven’t either, but there is a wealth of knowledge online and we were able to get it done. We love the way it turned out. The other lighting upgrade we were able to DIY was our under cabinet led lighting. Inexpensive and easy to install!

Easy Built-In Open Shelving 

We really wanted to incorporate some built-in open shelving. Custom millwork was just not in the cards for us. We went with all standard cabinetry. To accomplish and open cabinet look we got a cabinet finished on the inside, turned it on it’s side, and left the doors off. We built in a shelf and love the way it turned out. It looks built-in but for a fraction of the cost. We wanted a natural wood element as well so we left room for one floating wooden shelf as well.

Less Expensive Upgrade For Your Cabinets 

We used pre-finished and pre-assembled cabinets. Our cabinets are real wood but we got them inexpensively. We used the RTA Cabinet Store. We elevated them by upgrading the hardware. The hardware we went adds something bling and we also mixed and matched styles on different cabinets for more interest. It’s also possible to get lower priced cabinet boxes without doors from IKEA and upgrading the doors from a company like Semihandmade.

Counter Remnants 

One of the other big expenses in the kitchen can be counters. It’s also where you can really establish a higher end look. While we worked with an amazing stone company for our kitchen counters, we learned that going to a local stone fabricator and browsing through the remnants they have from other jobs is a great way to save. We did that for every other piece of stone in our place and can easily see it paying off big in the kitchen. You can get a really high-end marble, quartz, or other natural stone for a fraction of the cost. If the remnant isn’t large enough for all of your counters consider doing something different on an island.

There are ways to save on almost everything you’ll need for any renovation. These are just some things we thought of to drastically reduce the cost of finishes in a kitchen reno. Let us know if you have any other ideas!

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You Know Those Annoying Old Fireplace Bump-outs That Make Furniture Placement a Nightmare?

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We’ve spent the last year designing and restoring our brownstone. Most of the work is complete and we are going through inspections. That means we can finally kick the contractors out, but the work of making it our own has only just begun. We’ve been working on finishing the spaces and have enough projects left to keep us busy for another year!

Over the past few weeks we have been focusing on our master bedroom. In our original plan for the room we had to solve the problem anyone who has lived in this type of building might be familiar with.

Our place has old fireplaces that have long been bricked up. We would have loved to restore them but it just wasn’t in the budget. It also wasn’t in the budget to remove the bump-out that the old chimneys created. Not too mention that the mechanicals in the basement are using one of the old flu’s for ventilation pipes to the roof, very common in these buildings, but also not our scope to alter. The problem that this caused, as you might be familiar, is that the bump-out can create headaches for furniture placement. In our master bedroom the best wall to have the bed on also had an old fireplace bump-out that ended up not being centered in the room, and was not as wide as our bed. If we would have put the bed centered on that wall there would have been a weird space behind it on one side. No other wall made sense for the bed. We decided if we couldn’t easily remove the bump-out maybe it would be easier to extend it. So we designed a 48” wide wall to extend the 8” deep bump-out. We centered it in the room, which made it the backdrop for our bed. It extends about 2 feet on each side of the bed, which leaves room for nightstands.

This room had original plaster molding that we wanted to keep, so we had the molding recreated and run around the new section of wall. It helped integrate it into the room

So that it feels like it belongs there. We also painted the entire bump-out a contrasting color, a dark blue (Many people ask for the color: it’s Goodnight Moon from Clare).

One of the finishing pieces was something that we planned from the beginning and it’s what really prompted this post since we just completed it. We came across a photo a year ago from a designer friend of ours, Liz Lipkin, showing some custom shelves in a niche next to a bed. The new section of wall we built created about a 28” wide niche similar to the one in Liz’s design and we thought custom shelves would be a great way to use that space and create a feature.

We took our Ikea Wood table and transformed into wood shelves.

Custom floating shelves can be expensive and after a year long renovation we were keen to save a few bucks. While looking though our basement with a fellow renovator friend, Pierre, we came across an old IKEA table top. The wood was unfinished but was pretty nice. There was enough to make the shelves we needed and we thought with a bit of stain it could work. So we measured, stained, and with the craftsmanship skills of Pierre our built-in shelves project is complete!

We finished the area off with a brass mirror, sconces, and nightstands. We feel that we turned what created a puzzle of furniture placement into one of the main features of the room. The bump-out, painted a dark blue, creates a backdrop for our bed and is a great contrast with the light grey bedding and warm leather headboard. The entire wall has a ton of character and although we took the less expensive way out we wouldn’t prefer it any other way.

If we don’t get in touch before next week, we hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

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Is It A Good Idea To Build A Bedroom With No Window?

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There are some givens in the design of a 19th century Brooklyn brownstone. With very few exceptions they are narrow and long. You will almost always open the door to a vestibule, then a foyer, and then a staircase going up the side wall. You’ll have 3 windows across the upper floors and on the parlor floor you’ll have the stoop with front door, and 2 windows. All of these very common layout features create a similar situation that anyone renovating one of these old buildings has thought through. If you want 3 bedrooms on an upper floor how do you fit them in so that they have windows and are a useable size?

We all know the little 5-6 feet wide rooms that end up in front and behind the stairs. They don’t really pass the usable size test. First thought might be to move the wall over to create two more equal sized rooms, but there are 2 problems. That wall is almost always load bearing and how do you handle the 3 equally spaced windows? Even just moving that wall a foot is going to put it right up next to the middle window, and is it really worth the expense of moving a load bearing wall a foot? One creative solution we’ve seen is to create a zig-zagged wall that creates a narrower room by the windows but just over time create more space for the rest of the room.

Sometimes the best place to put a third bedroom is in the middle! Far from the windows at the front and back. Many people wonder if this is legal and how to get it approved, or even how they will like a room with no window. In our case, we planned for a skylight that met the the city’s requirements for light and ventilation. Typically they will require a openable window that is 10% of the square footage of the room. Our middle bedroom is about 9.5X12 so this created quite a large skylight! Everyone who comes into the place during the day comments on it. It really is now the brightest room in the house.

So our middle bedroom is a great size and has lots of light, but the one thing it was missing is a view. No matter how much light our skylight is letting in you still can’t see the trees. So we decided to create our own view.

An amazing artist )and good friend of ours), Lauren Kaelin, painted a giant mural on an entire wall that brings the outdoors in. For inspiration, we sent her vintage botanical prints of vegetable, fruits, and flowers.

We were blown away when she sketched the entire mural out in less than an hour. Then the greens went up. Various shades of leaves and stems. Next came the color. Red tomatoes, yellow lemons, and purple flowers. Finally a wood stain wash over the entire wall gave it a vintage quality we were looking for.

We can’t even explain how this mural changed the feel of this room. All of our guests comment on how they can’t wait to wake up under the skylight and next to that mural. The room with no window is one of the most popular in the house. One unexpected benefit is the glimpse you get of the mural as you walk up the stairs and onto the top floor.

We were as worried as you might be to build a house with a bedroom with no window. But it gave us the opportunity to creatively solve the problem. The skylight makes the room brighter than any other and the mural gives it one of the best views in the house. We ended up with a room that has a personality of its own that makes us glad it doesn’t have a traditional window. Guests welcome!

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Let’s get Lit- Blending Modern Lighting With 130 Year Old Details

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In the 1880’s when our place was built it was most likely lit at night by kerosene lamps, candles, and possibly even gas lamps. We sometimes lose sight of that picture of what took place on these streets and between these walls so long ago: Roaring fires in the wood burning fireplaces, horse & carriages clacking down the cobble stone streets outside, and the flicker of gas lamps and candle light. Fast forward 130 years and our modern light fixtures are hanging from the same medallions (or at least in a similar spot) that those original fixtures hang. 

With that in mind we really had no intention of veering far from the original plan and adding recessed lighting to our place. We have original plaster moldings and ceilings in most rooms and we were happy to have regular light fixtures with no need or desire to have recessed lights that would require altering them. 

On the other hand, there are a couple of areas that in any restoration most people would want to modernize: Kitchens and bathrooms. So if we were going to entertain recessed lighting anywhere those would be the places. 

In the kitchen we made a game-time decision to drop the ceiling a few inches to solve a plumbing issue in the bathroom upstairs. We also installed an LVL beam in this area for support where a bearing wall was removed. The beam was drywalled and visible, so it separates the area where the ceiling would be lowered and makes it easily unnoticed. Even though our house was built in the 1880’s we wanted the kitchen to feel modern, inviting, and yes, well-lit. The lowered ceiling would give us the opportunity to add some recessed lights. Since we were already altering the ceiling and it is in an area that is being modernized we decided to add the recessed lights.  Just three, and we wanted to make sure they were as streamlined and low profile as possible. 

The ceiling only needed to be dropped a few inches and we didn’t want to go any further than that. We found some great 4” LED low profile lights from Nadair.  They can be installed with very little room and are only about a half inch thick. They are also sit flush to the ceiling so we liked how they would blend into the room. 

The other area that we wanted to be modern is our master bath (our guest bath has a vintage feel). We redid the ceiling to level it off because the ceiling that was there (not original) was noticeably slanted. The shower of our dreams that we built has modern charcoal hex tile and is glassed up with a frameless enclosure. We needed modern and low profile lighting as well. We installed one 6” Nadair LED slim recessed light in the center. It really completes the shower and bathroom. 

Even though we went out of our way to restore as much of the original features that we could, we modernized the places we needed to. Although recessed lighting doesn’t always fit into a Brooklyn brownstone, we felt it was a good opportunity to bring the place up to a modern standard of lighting.  We have nothing but respect for anyone who restores a 100+ year old building with attention to historical detail in every place, but for us restoring our place was also about making it comfortable and livable. So we are really happy with the modern feel of the kitchen and master bath, and creating a modern lighting plan there was an important as well.  

In other kitchen lighting news, some of the last things to be installed in our house are finally up. We couldn’t find the right pendants for our kitchen island that were in our price range, so we decided to build them ourselves! For these lights we didn’t want them to have too much of a modern feel. We wanted them to blend the modern kitchen with the historic mouldings and details. We bought each individual piece of the pendants, wired them, assembled the fixtures, and hung them. Our secret weapon was Antique Lamp Supply. They have thousands of different lamp and light fixtures pieces that can create pretty much any look. They also have some great how-to guides to help with the process. 

Finally, the last part of our kitchen lighting plan are some simple under cabinet lights from Nadair. They are low profile and easy to install. They complete the modern and comfortable feel of the kitchen.

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Keep It Glassy! Shower & Tub Enclosures

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If you are building a new bathroom, especially if you have a nice walk-in shower, you will probably want to have a glass enclosure. Ours was just installed and we couldn’t be more thrilled about it! So we thought we would talk a bit about the process, options, and pricing. 

A glass enclosure to a shower or tub will instantly transform the way your bathroom looks. It will create a nice open and airy feel, provide for a comfortable if not luxurious experience, and show off your beautiful tile or stone you spent so much time picking out! 

So here are some options & tips we learned along the way…

Frame or Frameless

If you have ever wondered what makes the glass in one bathroom look modern and attractive and another not so much, it might be the lack of a frame around it. It makes a big difference in creating an open and modern space.

Having the frame around the glass is going to add strength. The frameless will be fixed to the wall and floor, so the corner there will be very sturdy. The opposite corner at the top will be floating pretty far from where the glass is fixed so it will have some play. It’s possible, though unlikely, that a hard fall against it can take the whole thing down. So it’s just something to be aware of, but mostly likely not something to be concerned about. There is also a semi-frameless options which improves the look, but still adds strength. 

One way to get a lot of strength and still keep a modern look is with a grid enclosure. They have a bit of an industrial feel and could really fit in nicely in a modern loft type space. Or if that is just the look you’re going for. 

Clips or Channels 

The way your glass is fixed to the wall can also make a difference in the finished product. You can have 2 or 3 clips securing it to the wall, or it can sit in one long channel that is fixed to the wall. We feel like we see more clips these days but we also like the clean look of the channel.

Doors

There are several options when it comes to the doors. The door can not only adds to the look that you’re going for but has some functional implications as well. Here are some of the options:

Hinged Door

Your shower glass will consist of one or more fixed panels and a door. The door can be hinged to a fixed glass panel or to the wall. It provides a modern look and easy access in and out of the shower. The shower door has to swing out (in case someone falls inside to provide access) so you will get some drips from the door on the floor when it opens. You also need to make sure you have space for the door to swing, which is always a consideration in NYC. 

Sliding Door(s)

You can have double or single sliding doors. This can be good if you want access from multiple sides or if you don’t have the space for a door to swing out. It also keeps everything pretty tidy with no drips on the floor as a hinged door will. It sometimes has connotations of older sliding shower doors and will be framed since the doors will need a track or mechanism to slide on.

Bi-Fold Door 

It’s not the most popular option but you can also have a bi-fold door on your shower. It might be useful if you don’t have a lot of room for a full swing door, but you still want to go frameless.

Splash Panel

You could even go doorless! A splash panel is a single pane of glass that will keep (most of) the water in the shower but the entrance will be open. It creates an even greater open and airy feel. The drawback might be that depending on the configuration of the shower and glass you could end up with a few splashes outside.

Glass Options

Now that you have decided what the configuration and door access will be, you have lots of options on the glass itself. There are options to include textured, opaque, or specialty glass. No doubt the vast majority of us will go with a clear glass, but you even have a couple of options there. Plain clear glass is just great for the most of us, but if you want to upgrade you can go with Starphire glass. Sometimes called “low-iron glass” because it contains only ten percent of the iron regular glass contains. Starphire is ultra-clear and brilliant in a way regular glass is not. During the manufacturing process, the green hue is removed that is normally visible at the edges.

Process

Once your shower or tub has tile and/or stone installed you can have a shower glass company come out to measure and walk you through your options. We worked with Mirage Shower Doors. The team was great! We knew exactly what we wanted, so they came by for measurements and only 7-8 days later the glass was installed. It is spot on what we wanted.

We went with a frameless shower glass in regular clear glass. We did a hinged door with one fixed panel of glass. We have clips securing the glass to the tile and a handle in a matte black finish. Very happy Boys! 

Pricing

It could vary depending on your choices, but we would recommend budgeting $2,000-$3,000 for your shower glass. 

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Central Air Conditioning VS. Ductless Mini Split

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We’re having some warm autumn weather. It’s been so nice we even sneaked away to go to the beach last weekend. With the late summer we’re having, since we moved upstairs we also have needed AC. Our place didn’t have an AC system when we moved in so it’s something we added to the project early on.

There’s a few options when renovating and adding a new AC system. The scope of your renovation might help you figure out which system is best for you- a central AC system or a ductless mini split system. 

Central AC Ducted System
Central AC systems consist of an outdoor compressor/condenser and a single indoor unit that pushes air through a series of ducts to vents throughout your home to keep it cool. Temperature is controlled by a single thermostat and heating & cooling typically share the same ducts. 

Pros
If you are completely gutting a place and the original features, plaster, and mouldings aren’t something that you’re keeping you might want to build in a ducted central AC system. The advantages are that you have control over the temperature of the entire home and it’s usually distributed evenly and comfortably. The upfront cost can also be a bit lower. 

Cons
It can be difficult to run the ducts throughout your home if you aren’t gutting the entire place. It can also be less efficient because the ducts can leak over time. 

Mini Split system 
A ductless mini split system also consists of an outdoor compressor/condenser but instead of connecting to a single unit that pushes air through ducts it connects to indoor units in each room that distribute heat or AC throughout a home. Each room’s temperature can be controlled individually, which makes mini splits an attractive option for those who want flexible control and all-around comfort.

Pros 
Mini split systems are becoming more and more popular in New York. They are great for adding a system where one doesn’t exist because they are not as intrusive to install as a ducted central AC system. If you are doing a restoration (say a Brownstone ;)) and the thought of cutting through original features, plaster, and mouldings makes your heart hurt a bit this might be the option for you. Rather than large ducts carrying cool air though the ceiling and walls, there are small tubes carrying refrigerant and a small drainage tubes. We found it very easy to hide them in the walls without disturbing one plaster moulding or anything else important to us. In addition, since mini split systems are controlled in individual rooms, they can help save money by cooling or heating rooms on an as-needed basis.

Cons
The main disadvantage of buying a mini split system is the cost. Although mini split systems are more expensive than other systems to install, they offer significant savings in the long run. Because they do not rely on ducts to operate, mini splits eliminate the surprise costs that come with leaky or uninsulated ducts.

Window Units
Can’t forget about these! They might not be on your radar if you are going through a renovation, but in New York they are impossible to ignore. You’re probably familiar. It’s by far the cheapest, loudest, easiest, and least attractive option. They do a bad job of distributing the cool air evenly, but they do cool well. They are quick and easy to install and the least intrusive option since you just pop them into the window with no ducts or pipes that need to be run. Although, I guess the big box staring at you from the windows could be considered instructive.

Our Pick….
We decided on a mini split system for our place and it’s going online this week. Just in time for an almost 90 degree October day. We worked with our friends at AJ Madison and went with an LG system. So far we love the size and shape of the units. They are slim and attractive. Later this week when they are on we’ll let you know how they’re cooling!

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Sorting Through Kitchen Counters Options

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The kitchen is the heart of the house, they say. For us (and many folks) our kitchen is a big feature of our renovation. We wanted it to be big and open. We even sacrificed a powder room to get it. We wanted something that would be seen as a major feature. We also wanted a big island with seating because no matter how large or small it ends up being it is where everyone ends up hanging out. One of the most important features of a big and open kitchen are the counters and we wanted to get it right.

There are a lot of options out there for kitchen counters. We have experience we a few of them and we’ve researched and spoke to professionals about many of them. Depending on your design aesthetic, the durability you need, and the price point you’re targeting there is something out there for you. But how do you sort it all out? Here are some of our thoughts on some of the most popular options out there.

Marble 

Pros

We love a Carrara marble counter. From a purely aesthetic perspective it’s the top for us. Every time we see a big slab of Carrara in a house, restaurant, cafe…etc we melt a little. We used it in one of our prior renovations and for looks it did not disappoint. 

Cons

Marble can be susceptible to etching and staining. We wrote off the warnings that we heard when we chose it last time, and we shouldn’t have. So many glasses that were left on it left etched rings and even the smallest drops wine left stains. Lemon juice, tomato…I don’t think any liquid was safe. Maybe if we were harder on it or waited a few years it might have all evened out but we ended up selling it after only 2 years and had to have it re-honed and sealed before we did. …but it’s looks great! 

Quartz 

Pros

Quartz offers the beauty of a natural stone but since it’s engineered it is much more durable. It is resistant to staining, etching, heat, and scratching. It’s available in a wide variety of colors. These days the quartz that is made to resemble a natural stone does a great job of it. Even the cararra marble versions achieve a very close look to the real thing. 

Cons 

Although they are getting better and better most still have an artificial look. Marbling just isn’t the same as the real thing, although it’s developing a following of its own and the intention isn’t always to mimic the natural stuff. It’s also a little pricey, but with the increased durability- it can be worth it. 

Concrete

Pros 

Concrete counters can give an industrial look to your kitchen. They are edgy and have a crafted feel. They are versatile and can be created in any shape. They are durable and with the best of us can even develop a bit more character as they get older. 

Cons 

Concrete needs to be sealed regularly so there is some maintenance. As you can imagine, it’s also heavier than other options so additional support is sometimes needed. Also, because it is hand crafted, with a multi-step process, it can be a bit more expensive than other options.

Granite

Pros

Granite is a popular option. It comes in a wide variety of colors and patterns. It’s durable and stands up well to wear and tear. 

Cons 

It’s popularity is a turn-off for a lot of people. For some it conjures up images of the suburbs. It also should be sealed regularly to resist staining so there is some maintenance. 

Stainless Steel

Pros

Stainless steel is an interesting option. It definitely creates a distinct look and has a commercial kitchen feel. It’s very durable and resists staining, scratching, and heat wear. 

Cons

It’s an expensive option. It also has the unfortunate side effect of creating a noisy kitchen. You’ve probably heard the sound as you dined in a candle lit hushed restaurant and the kitchen door swings open allowing the distinctive metallic clanging of pots and pans banging around on it!

There are others to check out too: Soapstone, butchers block, solid surface and some others are worth considering.

Our decision

As much as we love it, after our last experience with Carrara marble we wanted something a bit more durable with a bit less maintenance. But we didn’t want to sacrifice the look. Plain white counters just didn’t have enough character. So we found an amazing Quartz that reminds us of our favorite marble…. but we might actually like it better! We went with HanStone Quartz in the Montauk color. For us the key to the right quartz is finding one that does a good job with the engineered marbling. The one we chose has the soft grey undertones of Carrara, but still bright enough to contrast with our grey cabinets. Since it’s quartz it will be very durable so that we aren’t running around grabbing our guests drinks as they sit them on the counter. 

Our counters were just installed and our jaws hit the floor. They exceeded our expectations by miles. Unfortunately they are covered now for the next few weeks while we are finishing up the project. It’s one more thing (a big one) that we’re so excited about putting to use in just a matter of weeks now! 

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Walking On New Ground

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There has been a couple of things that have been a long timing coming but are things that we’ve been very much anticipating. Even though they are relatively small developments they are a big step (pun intended) forward to completing the project. And we just plain feel good about them getting done. 

Refinishing Stairs

If you’ve read some of our other posts you probably know that we have been busy restoring the the original bannister and newel post. It all looks amazing, but this entire time there has been ugly old carpet layered on top of linoleum or some kind of vinyl on the stairs and risers. It has been something we looked at and sighed almost everyday. Well the carpet, vinyl, linoleum, and the glue that held is all together is now off! 

The stairs are original so they definitely don’t look new, but we’re happy with the shape they are in. Sure, they have holes were other surfaces have been installed, scars, a couple of gauges, and a charming squeak with every step that will definitely wake us up in the morning as we stumble downstairs for coffee. They’ve seen a lot over their 130 year old lives! We’re going to extend it a little more and strip, sand, and refinish them. We’ll take the squeaks and scars as a bit of character. 

Deck Surface 

So maybe this one isn’t such a small development. You probably know that one of the things we (as we’re sure anyone else would be) are most excited about is our new deck! Well this week we can walk on it for the first time! The steel has been steadily going in over the past few weeks (with a minor set back to fix a footing) and now the deck surface and stairs are in! We need railings and a bit of finishing and we are 100% done with it! 

We did something a little different for our deck surface. It’s common to pour cement and then lay tile on top. It’s not a bad solution because it gives you an outdoor room kind of feel. But our renovation is being done on a tight budget and tiling adds a chunk of money on top of what is already a big expense. We decided to pour the concrete all the way to the top and have a concrete surface at no additional cost. We plan on painting it with a concrete paint that will give it a clean and smooth (ish) finish. 

These are small developments but big steps for us. They are still a work in progress so we’ll keep you updated.

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Finishing and Protecting 130 Year Old Wood

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A few months ago we wrote a post about the process stripping layers upon layers of paint off of our 130 year old woodwork. The bannister, door & window casings, and shutters are all original and were caked in paint. Poorly painted we might add. Drips and globs everywhere. We had it all stripped hoping we could at least get it to a point that it could be repainted without the many layers, drips, and globs. We thought if we were lucky we could possibly leave some of it natural. Well we were lucky! Or we just had a very good paint stripper. We were shocked when we saw the beautiful wood under all that paint. It hasn’t seen the light of day in decades and now it’s beauty is out in the open for all to see. Now it’s time to continue the restoration process to repair and bring the wood back to life. 

After seeing how great the wood looked natural there is no way we are going to repaint it. That left us with a little bit of a problem. There are some places where we needed to repair or replace some part of it. That means we needed to find or make matching pieces and match the wood color the best we could. 

The first thing we wanted to address was the newel post. It unfortunately had some bad repair jobs over the years. Some pieces of moulding were missing or damaged. The entire thing also had a reddish tint either from a bad paint or stain job over the years, or because it looks to be a different type of wood from the mahogany bannister and someone might have been trying to match it. We had a very diligent and skilled specialist that worked on it methodically for a couple of weeks. He reproduced smaller pieces of moulding, tediously sanded out the red color, and carefully stained the new wood to match the existing. It looks great! We can only imagine how many people this newel post greeted as they came through the front door over the 130 years it was there. It’s amazing to see it shine again. 

About 50% of our place has the original baseboards. They are in two pieces. A lower 8” board with an decorative set of groves running down it, and an upper rail. We were faced with the difficult choice of taking out what was there and replacing it all with something new. We just really didn’t want to do that. Our goal has always been to restore as much as we could. Taking out so much original detail to replace it just wasn’t going to work. So we started looking around to see if we could have the original baseboards reproduced. We went over to Adriatic Wood in East New York, Brooklyn with a couple of samples of our baseboard. We don’t think it’s very unique. It’s probably very similar to many other Brooklyn houses built around the same time. They searched what they had in stock and unfortunately they didn’t have it. We were left with only one option, having them reproduced to match. Adriatic has many “knives” on hand that can cut new pieces. If they didn’t have the knife for our moulding already they would need to make one. For this to be an affordable option we needed them to have it. We left our samples there for them to search for a match. A couple of days later we got a call and they had it! Very affordably we were able to have our original baseboards recreated!

We had a new problem. We now have brand new wood baseboards to install next to 130 year old baseboard. The wood would always be a different color. We are also aware of the amount of natural wood we were now going to have and didn’t want it to over power the

place. We decided that we would paint all of the baseboards white while leaving the banister, original vestibule door, window casings and shutters, and door casings natural. 

We were also missing a few spindles from the bannister. They were hilariously replaced with much smaller and completely different store bought versions. We knew there was a small chance we could find some matching ones that were ripped out of some other poor Brownstone at a salvage store, but Adriatic was able to spin us up some new ones on matching mahogany for a very reasonable price. We’re happy to say our bannister is now complete!

Our next step is to protect the wood that we’re leaving exposed. We don’t want to put something on it that would change the color or make it shiny. Several people recommended Tung oil as the best option. After the paint stripping process it left the wood needing a light sanding. We sanded one of the window casings and tested the tung oil to see how it affected the wood. It came out great! It gave the wood a bit more depth but didn’t change the color (or sheen). 

The next step will be for us to sand the rest of the window casings, door casings, and window shutters. Then oil them all to protect and bring it all back to life. Our work is cut out for us.

The entire process took a lot of money, time, and effort but we already see it paying off. The original wood is now one of the best features at our place. We’re so happy to see it out from under all of that paint and we know that it’s going to look beautiful for years to come. The natural way.

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Choosing The Right General Contractor For Your Renovation.

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As we have gone through our renovation, and spoken to many other people who are in the process, it’s clear to us that one of the most important decisions you can make in your entire renovation is choosing the right general contractor. It can be a very frustrating situation if you make the wrong choice. It isn’t just about finding a great general contractor but finding the right general contractor for your project.

Different GC’s have different strengths. There are contractors that are really good with gutting and modernizing a space and there are contractors that are good at restoring and bringing back the history in a place. Sure one can get the work done in the opposite scenario but it doesn’t make them the best for the job.

Is your renovation ultra modern with glass railings and concrete floors or are you restoring a 150 year old bannister and original parquet floors? You’ll want someone who will be able to offer you the most support and expertise for your job. 

Do you want a contractor who also has a lot of mill work skills?  Not all of them do, they might sub contract it out. That’s not always a bad thing, but if your project has central features that involve mill work it could be an important consideration. Are you fixing an apartment that was flooded from your upstairs neighbors broken pipe? You will save yourself some stressful moments if you find the right person. 

What about budget? If you have a more limited budget there are some contractors who will be better and more willing to work with it. It doesn’t always mean you need to accept lower quality work. No more than paying much more always mean higher quality work. It just depends on where you put the money you have and potentially finding less expensive ways of doing things. There are several places in our renovation where we had the same work done by changing the plan a bit to find a cost savings, without sacrificing on the quality.

Finding the right person can be a challenge. Our advice is to take your time. Interview several GC’s. Ask them questions about not only what type of work they have done, but what time of jobs they enjoy. A contractor that is passionate about restoring historic properties might be the person to go through your historic renovation with. 

Ask around for recommendations. If you know someone who did a similar job and had a great experience that is a good place to start, but be careful not making it the most important consideration. 

We’re big fans of forums like Brownstoner and have been introduced to several GC’s and service providers that way. You might not always know someone personally who can give the right recommendation so it is a good way to connect with people who can. Designers, architects, and other professionals in the industry you might be working with will also have great recommendations.  Don’t take these lightly, but do your own homework and ask your own questions as well. 

You and your contractor are going to go through a lot together. GC’s kind of become your family throughout the process. There will be good moments and there will be some not so good moments. There is no question about it. Make sure it is someone you feel comfortable with. You need to know that they will be honest with you and you can be honest with them. Other than a matching skill set, great communication is high on our list for a must-have traits. You’ll want to communicate often and effectively with your GC. If you don’t feel that way in the interview process it certainly isn’t going to get better once the project starts. Make sure they have the communication skills you are looking for.

Going through a renovation can be a stressful process. Make sure you have a partner in a GC that you’ll want to work with throughout the whole renovation.

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Moving Up!

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We kicked off our renovation in January 2019. Seven months later and we are weeks away of having some rooms finished. But don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere! There is plenty more work to do and more projects coming. 

For the past 10 months we’ve been living in the garden apartment. Fortunately it’s a completely separate space free of construction dust and has given us the ability to keep a close eye on the construction upstairs. 

Not even a month in, we wrote about how to finish your renovation project on time…or close to it. Ordering materials on-time,  meeting with your contractor regularly, limiting mid-project changes, and making fast decisions were among some of the things we wrote about and tried our best to do. In these final weeks our communication and direction with our contractor is higher than ever. 

With the major part of the renovation getting close to being done. It’s time for us to start some projects in the garden rental and move upstairs. Fortunately the 3rd floor bedrooms and bathrooms are just about done! Our plan will be to move up to the 3rd floor while we are finishing up the parlor level. We would be the first to warn any renovators not to move into an unfinished space, but we are so close to being done! There won’t be any construction on the floor we will live on and we’ll be past the dusty stuff on the parlor level as well. To make this happen we will be working though a long list over the next few weeks. We are reviewing a list of items that we need completed at the start of each with our contractor, and then meeting again at the end of the week to make sure it all got accomplished. 

There are 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on the 3rd floor so let’s take a look at where we are. 


Guest Bath
The guest bath is about a day of work from being finished. The sink needs to be installed, claw foot tub shower curtain ring needs to go in, and a few bits and pieces need to be completed like grouting some tile that needed to be removed for the tub installation. We also need to install a vintage door and prep it for glass installation next week. 

Front Bedroom
Once the walls were up in this room not much else needed to be done. Once the the closet door and trim are installed and the  baseboards are completed we’ll be ready to paint

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Middle Bedroom
The room with no window ironically is now the brightest room in the house with the 40”x40” skylight installed and finished. We need a few pieces of baseboard installed and the closet door put in and we’re good to go!

Master Bedroom
This week there will be a lot going on in the master bedroom. We needed to replicate and replace sections of the plaster moulding in this room where walls were removed. We’re right in the middle of that. It’s a process and will take a few more days, but after that we’ll be ready to install the rest of the baseboards, closet doors, and trim to finish the room. 

Master Bath 
Truth be told we might be using the guest bath for the first week or 2. There is a good bit of work to do and one of the reasons is because we didn’t follow our own advice! The beautiful tile in our master bath is hand made from Fireclay. We thought we ordered enough but we didn’t account for as many cuts as we needed and ran out. Ordering more had a long lead time since it’s handmade. So we have been at a standstill for 5 weeks. The tile is finally in and so we can finish it up next week! The custom vanity is onsite and ready for sinks and stone. The shower and door saddled are measured and being cut. The last thing that will go in is the shower glass. It’s doubtful this will get installed before we move in, but it won’t be long after.

Finally, we need to remove the ugly carpet that has been protecting the stairs through the renovation, sand, and refinish. We’re also plan on installing a runner. We’re not expecting the stairs to be in the best condition and we have an 80 pound lab that will slip and slide down the stairs without it! 

It’s hard to believe we are crossing the last items off the list for the 3rd floor. Timing is so crucial right now that it’s even more stressful than usual, but we are encouraged by the amount of progress we’re making every day.

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Let’s Talk Money- Budget for a Renovation Project

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One of the most stressful parts of a home renovation are the finances. Costs can add up quick, especially when you’re renovating a historic property. Many people go into it with either no idea or the wrong idea of what they are going to spend. While the costs can vary depending on the scope of the work and finishes, we thought we would share at least our experience with how much is needed, what some of the biggest ticket items are, and where some savings can be found. 

We’re renovating two floors of a three story 1880’s Brownstone. We demolished several walls, moved the kitchen, added a bathroom, added a deck, and redid most of the electrical and plumbing. Most of the walls (and plaster on them) are staying so it certainly isn’t a full gut, but it’s a lot of work and probably a common scope for many other historic home buyers.

The rule of thumb we’ve heard from several people when considering a property is $100,000 per floor. It might be possible to get the job done with that budget but we think a better rule of thumb would be $125,000-150,000 per floor for a typical Brownstone that is about 20×40 (or $175-$200 per square foot). 

One of the first things you’ll do (read about how to get a project started here) is find an architect to draw up the plans and handle the filings. The city has made it increasingly difficult and as of July 2019 just added new regulation that requires the plumbing drawings to be filed separately from the architectural drawings. So now additional drawings need to be done. While this is probably a great thing to regulate large builders and big construction projects, this increases the costs and time it takes to get through the process for 1 or 2 family home owners. (There may be exception that will be in place at some point but right now there is a lot of ambiguity around it). Expect your architectural fees to be between $10,000-$20,000 and timing of 45-90 days depending on if you are filing an alt-1 or an alt-2. 

Hopefully by the time you have your plans approved you also have a General Contractor lined up and ready to start. This will obviously be your biggest expense. It will include demo, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, plaster, and paint…among many other things. Generally you can expect to get done what you need within the $175-$200 per square foot range. We aren’t talking about finishes yet because that won’t be included in your GC quote. Building materials and labor will be included and this is where a lot of your money will go: 

Demo: $10,000

Demo is expensive in New York. Everything has to be hauled out of your beautiful tree-lined Brownstone street without a disturbance to your neighbors. You can plan on at least $10k of demo. Possibly more if you are removing all of the flooring. 

Electrical: $20,000-$35,000

It’s very likely that some or all of your electrical will need to be replaced. This could even include upgrading the amperage or even the main connection to the house. Adding electrical plugs, fixtures, switches…etc.  

Plumbing: $20,000-$30,000. 

Hopefully you’ll have the ability to keep your kitchens and bathrooms on existing wet walls. If so, that will help keep the expenses down a lot. 

General Carpentry: $100,000-$125,000.

Building walls, adding structural beams, fixing/rebuilding stairs, framing, door & moulding installation, drywall, flooring refinishing/installation, plaster and paint.

Kitchens: $20,000-$25,000.

If you’re buying a house in Brooklyn like we did, chances are it’s at least a 2-family. So you’ll need at least two kitchens! Installing cabinets, tiling, and installing counters. (This is just the construction costs and not finishes.)

Bathrooms: $30,000-$40,000.

As with kitchens, you’re likely to have at least 3 if not 4. You’ll need to build showers, add tubs, toilets, vanities, and lots of tiling. (construction costs)

Other stuff: Stripping paint off original woodwork? Adding in plaster moldings? Restoring original woodwork? There are a lot of specialists you’ll have come in for work you probably don’t want your contractor doing. This is where we added the most expense above our initial budget. These are tough jobs that require a lot of skill and patience, so they aren’t cheap. Wood stripping $10-12,000, plaster moldings $10-15,000, wood restoration $5-8,000. 

Adding a deck seems to be on most people’s list of priorities and we don’t blame them. If the duplex is upper you’ll want access to the backyard. Also, adding a deck and outdoor space adds a ton of value! There are a lot of Department of Buildings regulations (read about all things NYC deck’s here) and you might know that a legal deck in NYC needs to be non-combustible, which makes it considerably more expensive than building a deck in the suburbs. Although there are many ways to increase the costs, you should be able to add a deck for around $25,000. 

Roof – A new roof could cost you $13,000-$15,000 or you could get away with adding another layer on top of the existing for $5-$7,000. You wouldn’t want to skip this while adding new drywall, plaster, and beautiful finishes that will be damaged by a leaky roof. 

Windows – Are you replacing windows? If so plan on spending $13,000-16,000. 

Floor leveling – If your very lucky you’ll find one of the few historical buildings that still have perfectly level floors after 100 years of settling. Since that is unlikely, your next decision will be deciding if you are ok with it or if you want to level them. It’s a big job. All joists will be exposed and they will sister in at a slightly higher level to even out the floors. It’s possible to level certain spots but this can get complicated. It also creates work in other areas that you might not have been planning on like baseboards and more plasterwork. We would expect it to cost $10-12,000 per floor. It could be worth it. It just depends on how uneven they are and what you’re willing to live with. 

Finishes – The fun part! The stuff you’ll see. Kitchen cabinets, flooring, tile, vanities, plumbing fixtures, doors, and light fixtures. Prices can vary greatly. But if you break it down into 3 levels: cheap, mid, lux we would say to plan for $50k, $100k, $150k respectively. 

You’ll want a contingency of about 10%. Hopefully you won’t need it, or better yet maybe you’ll get to use it on something fun rather than burying it in the walls to fix cut structural joists like we did. In any case, if you are buying an over 100 year old building save yourself the stress and expect to find a few additional items not on the initial list. 

Where to save: Has anyone skipped down to this section? We have been fortunate to pay the low end of each of the ranges we provided. First and foremost, find the right contractor. Shop around and know how much things should cost (see above!). Also consider a project manager. It might seem like an additional expense but it doesn’t have to be. Many times they can find efficiencies, make sure you’re not overpaying for things, and save money by preventing delays and trouble shooting as you go. We are managing our own project and spend quite a bit of time on it. 

Here’s some other best practices we’ve found: 

  • Make sure your materials and finishes are ordered on time when your contractor is ready. 
  • Don’t overspend for things like cabinets and tile. You can achieve a high end look with low cost materials. 
  • Set priorities. We could have doubled our budget. For instance, instead of opening up a huge glass slider to the deck, we’re just putting in a door where a window was. 
  • Keep some of the character! Old wood work and things with some flaws give the place some cred. We chose not to level all of our floors and just took care of the worst parts. 
  • Keep kitchens and bathrooms relatively in the same place. We kept them as close to the wet walls as possible (but we were even able to add a bathroom where one didn’t exist). 
  • Don’t do everything now. We’re living with the 5-7 year old windows, but might change them in a couple years. Shop around! We shopped around like crazy. We sometimes got quotes twice as high as we ended up paying for things. 

So many people reach out to us weekly and we’re happy to help! If you have any questions about your project or just don’t know how to get started shoot us an email and we’ll point you in the right direction. If you have any cost saving tips we missed key us know!

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Thanks for reading!

Kitchen Week!

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The past 2 weeks have been all about the kitchen. We removed walls and had the space prepped months ago so it’s really nice to see the finishes going in. 

The Plan

Our place had a a bathroom and bedroom across the back of the building where we wanted to put the kitchen. We removed several walls to open up the space, one of which required a 14 foot beam since it was a structural wall. The space is now open from the front of the building all the way to the back and across either side. The kitchen is 14 feet wide with a 7.5 foot island. 

Cabinets

We’ve had white cabinets in all of our previous apartments. They’re great and can make your kitchen bright and airy, but we wanted to do something a little different this time. It was an easy decision for us to chose a grey shaker style cabinet and we are so happy we did! They are all installed and look so nice! We got them from the RTA Store in upstate New York. They offer a wide range of options for not much more than IKEA kitchen prices especially you catch one of their sales. We went with a solid wood preassembled cabinet.  They were delivered with a few scratches but so far have been great to work with to get that resolved. 

We saved a bit by designing and measuring everything out ourselves rather than having a cabinet company come out to do it. Assembling cabinets is always a challenging job but we got them in pretty easy. The fridge panel was sent out too deep and too short (we got the tallest one and it was still too short). We got a little creative, cut a couple and it looks great. 

Appliances 

We could not be more excited about our Fisher & Paykel appliances arriving this week! We love their clean lines , flat panels and handles, and streamlined look. Having appliances delivered definitely means we are in the final stages of the project! We already know they are going to be beautiful.

Pantry & Storage

We have a lot of beautiful cabinets but we are still lacking storage. We always planned on building in additional storage on the wall opposite the kitchen, but the plan has changed several times. Right now it’s a blank canvas, but it’s challenging because there is an old fireplace bump out right in the middle, and a radiator on one side. Our first plan was to build a wall of cabinets and open shelves, but one of the things we needed the most is tall storage.  We’ve reconfigured it a few times, but the plan now is to move in and decide how to build this out as a future project. In the meantime, we’re looking for inspiration! Let us know if you have any!

Lighting 

Our kitchen lighting is already taking shape we installed some ultra thin recessed lighting over the kitchen from Nadair. We love it because it sits very flush with the ceiling. It blends in and very low profile and dimmable! We’re also putting in 3 pendants over the island that we’re assembling ourselves with with parts from Antique Lamp Supply. 

Counters and Backsplash

The stone slabs are ordered and template is being taken this week! We’re going with a light marbled quartz from HanStone Quartz called Montauk. The backsplash will be a white 2×6 handmade tile from Fireclay in a herringbone pattern.

We’ll finish it all off with a farm apron sink from Nantucket Sinks and hardware from Rejuvenation. We’ll update you once we make more progress on that. We can’t wait!  Subscribe below for updates and follow us on Instagram (@brownstoneboys)! 

Getting A Renovation Project Started.

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We’ve spoken with a lot of new home owners who close on their place and then look at one another and think, “now what?!” How do we find a contractor? Do we need an architect? Where do we start? All questions we get weekly. Understanding even a little bit of the process can help relieve some of the stress of starting a new renovation. 

It may seem obvious but the first thing we would suggest is to make a list of what you want to do. How many bedrooms do you need? Do you want to increase the square footage and build an extension? Are you moving the kitchen or the bathrooms? Are you opening up any walls? You’ll need to at least have a basic list of the scope of the work as you move forward and have other conversations. 

Another thing we usually suggest thinking about first is if you will need a project manager. We’re managing our own project and I would say we’re spending 7-10 hours a week on it, if not more some weeks. There is so much to do even if you have a GC doing the heavy lifting. Some people just do not have the capacity (or possibly the knowledge) to manage their own project. That is where a project manager can come in. It’s good to make this decision first because they can also bring in a team (architect, GC, designers, other skilled tradesman) which can help as you will spend a lot of time trying to find the right people. 

Whether or not you use a PM the next step would normally be to start interviewing architects and general contractors. Ask around for recommendations! Choosing the right GC might be the most important decision you make. If you can find someone who you know has done good work it can relieve a lot of stress and potentially avoid some frustrating problems. If you are using a PM they may have one or several GC’s to work with. 

Your meetings with general contractors will give you a lot of info about what you’re doing. For instance, if you’re removing walls what structural changes you need to make?  Do you need new electrical and what is the status of the plumbing? If you are adding bathrooms, moving kitchens, building an addition or new level what will be the structural implications? 

Before you choose a GC, you’ll also want to consult with an architect. If you’re moving any walls or changing the configuration you will most likely need to file with the department of buildings. In any case, an architect can offer some great advice on what needs to be done and what the costs will be. The architect will draw up the plans, facilitate the city filing, and can work directly with your GC. The architect and GC (and project manager if you are using one) are usually the first members of the team. 

Are you confident in your design skills? If so, it is certainly possible to make all of your own design decisions. If not, you might want to consult with an Interior Designer. Remember there are so many little details to bring together that you might not think about yourself. An interior designer can help you realize your vision and will have ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of. 

Keep in mind that you might need to pull in other skilled tradesman along the way. In our renovation, we had to find someone who specializes in plaster moldings, wood stripping, and custom woodwork. It was just outside of the scope of what our GC would be able to do. Before we’re finished I’m sure we’ll need to find some other specialists. 

Once you have the GC chosen and the architect working on the drawings, it is very important to get a good understanding of the timing of your project. You’ll need to consider where you’re going to live while it’s in progress. Anyone who has moved into a place before the renovation was complete would probably recommend against it. You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you are stressing about rushing the finish. You will have delays. Plan for them, expect them, and they won’t cause as much stress.

We’re sure you started discussing budget from the very beginning, but based on the quotes you received from your GC and architect you can start fine tuning it. Keep in mind that the quote from your contractor will most likely not include the finishes. Cabinets, counters, tile, light fixtures, doors, bath fixtures, and many many more things will need to be purchased. A project manager or an interior designer may be able to help with this part.  We ordered everything ourselves and it took a considerable amount of time. 

Give a lot of thought to your floor plan before you have the architect draw up the plans. Every change will cost money. Once the plan is approved with a DOB an expensive amendment would need to be filed. 

Speaking of the DOB, this is one of the biggest headaches for renovators. Plan on the filing process taking a least 2 months (if handled properly). We recommend working with an architect who will personally go to the meeting with the plan examiner. In our situation, we think that saved a lot of back an forth and also may have avoided some objections. 

In the few months that it will take to work with your architect and file with the city, start choosing your finishes. This will take a lot of time. Go to showrooms, start a few Pinterest boards, go to open houses, do whatever you can to try to understand what you like. This is where many people see delays in their project. Not from the city, or the contractor, but in making their own decisions. Remember that there will be a lead time for many items. Once you chose that tile you want it could take a month or even 2 to get it. If you don’t order it on time, or if you don’t order enough, that is where the delays can start adding up. 

Having the opportunity to create your own space can be rewarding. We are constantly reminding ourselves that we will only have this opportunity once (or maybe twice…3 times ;)) in a lifetime. It can be stressful and it is a lot of work, but remember as often as you can to enjoy the process and have fun with it! We’re about a month out from finishing the ground work (fingers crossed!) and using this time to reflect on our first home together. We’re very excited!

Getting the Grout Right

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We spent a lot of time picking out tile for the bathrooms. We visited several tile stores, saved lots of photos on Pinterest, and listened to advice of designer friends. We chose tiles that would compliment the place and each other as well as work toward the master design plan. But other than the hours we spent choosing tile there is another decision to be made to make it look it’s best that’s not to be underestimated: Grout joints and color. 

The grout color can bring the tile color out, show off or hide the pattern, and with to minimize dirt showing. Matching the grout color to the tile will blend in for a more uniform look and a contrasting grout color will highlight the shape and pattern of the tile. We also had to decide how wide the grout joints would be. Sometimes a wider grout joint can be as much as a feature as the tile itself. 

The tiled areas are in our place are two bathrooms and the kitchen backsplash. Our choices are mostly classic with a few modern touches. 

Guest Bathroom

In the guest bathroom we chose a classic hex floret for the floor and a classic subway tile for the walls. All of the tile is in a matte finish. We wanted the grout to contrast the tile and show the patterns, but we didn’t want stark a contrast with too dark of a grout color. Darker grout also has an advantage of not instantly looking dirty like a light color grout can (although we’ve been warned against too dark of a grout in a shower because the soap can leave a white residue – can’t win!) We went with a medium grey grout to contrast the white subway and hex tile as well as the black hex tile since it’s lighter. We love the way it looks and think it’s a perfect happy medium.

Master Bathroom

For the master bathroom we went with something a little bit more modern. We got beautiful handmade tile from Fireclay Tile. The floor will be a charcoal grey 4” hex and the wall will be 6” square matte tile. Since the tile is handmade it has an amazing variation in size, shape, and color. The 4” hex creates a great pattern that we love, but the room is not huge and we don’t want it to take over. We went with a grey color that would show the nice variation in the overall make the tile look lighter but not contrast too much. It’s slightly lighter than the tile itself. Now that it’s grouted the pattern can be seen but it is not overbearing. Since there is so much pattern in the floor we are going with a very light grey grout color to blend with the white wall tile. They are in a matte finish which can be prone to staining if we use too much of a contrasting color. We’ll be using grout release even though it’s a lighter grout. It really is amazing to see how the grout color transformed the look of the 4” hex tile in the master bathroom. The slightly lighter grey brought together the various shades in the different tiles and made the varying sizes and shapes more cohesive. 

Kitchen Backsplash 

The kitchen backsplash is all about the pattern. We got a white 2×6 handmade tile from Fireclay that will be installed in a herringbone pattern. We definitely want to show off the pattern with a contrasting grout so we’re going to do a darker charcoal color. The tile has a bit of gloss so we aren’t too worried about staining but we’re still going to use grout release. 

So far the full guest bathroom and the master bathroom floor are grouted! We’ll update you once the master bathroom walls and kitchen backsplash are done!

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New Life for our Hardwood Floors

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The hardwood flooring is one of the things that is the most important for us to get right. It’s one of the largest surfaces in the house and it can really change the look of every room.

The existing flooring was laid about 5 years ago. The original planks are under it, but they are unfortunately not in the best shape to expose. The new flooring is 3 1/4” solid white oak hardwood with a white wash finish. The finish makes it almost look like it’s not real wood. It’s one of the things we immediately knew we wanted to change. At first we thought we would get all new floors. We spent a lot of time looking at different options, some of which got very expensive. Eventually we realized that the existing flooring is actually in good condition and we could just get more if it to fill in the gaps very inexpensively. Of course it would be in the horrible white wash finish so we would sand and refinish it. This saved us thousands of dollars. Since we would keep much of the existing floor we only needed to purchase about 400 additional square feet (the place is about 1600 square feet total).

Now that the second story floor is sanded we can see what it will look like and we are very happy with it! Once the white wash finish was removed, the beautiful white oak wood shows through. The next step will be to refinish it. We have the option to choose any color and any sheen level that we would like. We spent the last couple of weeks thinking it over. Seeing what the wood looks like under the finish really helped!

We want the place to look light and airy while staying true to its history. So we don’t want to a dark stain on the wood. We love the way it looks now so we are going to keep it natural and just put a finish on that will protect it and bring out the color and grain of the wood.

The next step is to chose what sheen level we want. We’re using Bona waterbourne finish and it comes in four different levels of sheen: (least shiny to most shiny) extra matte, satin, semi-gloss, and gloss. We personally never liked the look of super glossy hardwood floors. They were more common a decade ago and we associate it with cheaply remodeled New York apartments after seeing it in so many of them. Recently the trend seems to be a more matte finish. Any house, hotel, restaurant, bar, or cafe I’ve walked into and salivated over the floors they were matte to the point of reflecting almost no light. It may not be for everyone but we’re going with the extra matte! The most popular finish is satin but even that reflects light at about a 40%. The wood will have a natural sheen on its own so we will count on the wood to do its thing and will use the least shiny finish.

Bona says that the sheen level doesn’t affect durability but we’ve heard that a matte finish doesn’t show dust and scratches as much as glossier floors. Since we have a 90 pound lab who loves to run and slide on the floors we’ll need all the help we can get! We’re going to use Bona Traffic HD, which will provide commercial levels of protection.

If the floors just looked they way they do since they were sanded we would be completely happy! We’ll be putting the coats of finish on this week so we’ll keep you posted on how it looks!

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Woodwork Plans

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We’re at a very exciting point in the project! Over the next couple of weeks we’re going to make some serious progress on finishes that we’re actually going to see rather than pipes and electrical that will be behind the walls. Bathroom tile, flooring, and woodwork will start going in! We’re currently trying to decide how much of the original baseboard we should keep and how much will need to be replaced.

Right now the place has about 30% of the original baseboard in place. Really just in the foyer up the stairs and also below and between the windows. Much of it is missing for various reasons (kitchens & bathrooms being moved…etc). We hoped that a local lumber supplier known for stocking typical Brooklyn wood molding supplies would have it. Our woodwork is all very common and typical in old Brooklyn houses. We also have a couple of missing spindles on our staircase railing that we hoped to find there too. Unfortunately we struck out on all of them. But we have a plan!

We were told about a carpenter that can make us new spindles by copying one of the existing ones. The cost is about $100 each so an acceptable fix since we’re only missing two. We think they are mahogany, and we just match the wood as best as we can. We think two new spindles will look beautiful matching the existing ones and certainly much better than the completely mismatched ones that are there now.

The baseboards are a different story. Since they no longer stock our baseboard (although the gentleman at the store said that people have come in looking for it hundreds of times) our only option would be to have it custom made. We only have about 30% of the original baseboard so that means we would be making quite a lot of it. Probably 250 feet. It will cost thousands of dollars. Alternatively, we could buy all new solid oak baseboards for a few hundred dollars. We have made our best effort every step of the way to retain original features even when it was considerably more expensive than replacing it. This time though we are leaning toward the latter. Since there is so little of the original baseboard left, and the cost is so much more to reproduce the missing sections, it just seems to make more sense to replace it all.

Right now we are thinking that there are a couple of places where we’ll keep the original. Especially up the staircase. We’re going to wait until the new baseboard is in to make the call when we see what it looks like with the original next to it.

The good news is that no matter what we decide to do with the baseboards we’re absolutely keeping all of the window casings, door frames, shutters, and the OG banister! They are still in the process of being stripped and coming out beautifully!

It’s hard to believe that finishes are being installed and it’s making us really excited that we are so close to the end!

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Deck Designing: Part One

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One of the things we are the most excited about for our renovation project is adding the deck! Outdoor space is such a rare and precious benefit in New York and we can’t wait to have this as part of our space. We’re happy to say that as of this week it’s designed and currently in production! This was always going to be one of the last parts of the project so it’s a big milestone.

Quite a bit of preparation has gone into the site. We demolished a small mudroom extension off the back of the building to make room for the deck (among other things). That’s gone and a fence is up along the neighbors yard in its place. We still need to work out how to finished the slab where the mudroom was that will be under the deck for our tenants patio. Most likely we’re going to have to remove some strange cement features so that we can grade the slab and let it drain into the soil.

Designing the deck with our contractor was quick because we had a really good idea of what we wanted. NYC allows decks to extend 8 feet from the back of the building and can be the width of the building as long as it’s not combustible. So the dimensions were pretty easy. We also wanted horizontal railings because we like the modern and more high-end look it gives it. So those decisions were made.

The floor of the deck was one thing we weren’t sure what to do with. We’ve seen a lot of decks in Brooklyn (mostly in developer reno’s) with tile on it. It makes for a nice outdoor living room feel. Typically it requires concrete to be laid as the base for the tile. That also adds a lot of weight and requires larger iron beams. Another option was to just leave it as diamond cut steel, but that seemed unfinished. We decided to go with a aluminum decking with a composite boards screwed in on top. We decided on Trex as we have heard great things about it. It didn’t add any additional expense to building the deck and we feel it will be a durable and attractive surface.

We also need to build access from the parlor level out to the deck. Currently there are 3 windows along the back of the building. We opted for the less expensive option of just demolishing some of the masonry below a window and putting in a glass door. We’re excited about that going in over the next few weeks.

The final part of the design is the lighting. In addition to some overhead string lights we have also added some electrical work to the backside of the Brownstone. We’re going to put have one industrial gooseneck light from Schoolhouse next to the door that should light up the whole deck space. We think this light will add the perfect balance of design and making sure the space can be accessible in the night.

Apparently it’s going to take a few weeks to fabricate offsite and then very little time to assemble onsite. Our deck is part of our overall project with our contractor and that line item is just under $25,000 including the steel fabrication, install, and decking. So this is only part ONE of our deck story! We’ll keep you posted as it starts going in!

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How To Finish Your Renovation Project On Time…or close to it!

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Now that we are 2 weeks in and pretty much done with demo, we are figuring out the art of renovation timing. Everything has a lead time and and it’s a lot of work having to make major decisions on finishes, configuration, fixtures, and everything else that comes along with it. One of the things that can hold up a renovation the most is having difficultly making design decisions or not doing it early enough to account for lead time. If the contractor is ready for tile and we don’t have it on site yet, it can cause a significant delay. Do that with several things and you can easily find yourself doubling the length of your renovation. Fortunately, we have been saving things we like and making decisions even before we closed! There is always more though and we are scrambling right now to make the final selections to make sure we’re on track.

Our renovation, which we would describe as a partial gut, is quoted at 4-6 months. Although that could easily be doubled. There are plenty of projects that take 9 months, a year, or more. In fact, most probably do. I met with our contractor once after he came from another client who was crying in his truck about it! That is always running through my mind so in addition to generally managing the process, we’re trying to do our part by making sure that all materials are onsite when the contractor is ready for them. Even though we just finished demo, and their is plenty of building to do before any of the finishes go in, we are scrambling to make all bath fixture purchases so that the plumbing can be built. We might be a week behind and if we’re this far behind on all of our other areas that will definitely start adding up.

We’re learning lessons and trying to stay on track as we go. Here’s some tips we’ve found so far. Let us know if there is anything that held up your project we might need to consider.

Talk to your contractor about a timeline of when things will be needed.

You might think you have more time than you do to make decisions. Sit down with your contractor and go through a general timeline so that you know the order of when your finishes will be needed. Keep in mind something take longer than others, and you’ll want to give everything the proper amount of thought before living with it for years to come.

Start getting an understanding of what you want very early.

You will find that you need to make A LOT of decisions. It can be overwhelming. You’ll need fixtures, finishes, and flooring. Configuration for multiple bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, outdoor space…and more. Each room takes considerable research and prepare to be torn between several options. Also be prepared to change your mind on some things a few times.

Don’t try to make all decisions at once.

You will get overwhelmed very fast if you try to take on everything on at once. We make decisions pretty quick and tend to be on the same page and it’s still a lot! Tackle one room at a time, but keep an eye out for things you like for other areas. Whether or not you’re a pinterest person, start an account and start savings things there. When you get to the kitchen is will be very helpful to have a nice kitchen folder of pictures saved already!

Understand your lead times.

Some things have a lead time of days and other things have a lead time of months. Will there be any custom pieces (we couldn’t find the bathroom vanity we envisioned so we are having it built)? Kitchen cabinets can have a month or 2 lead time. Some flooring can as well. The last thing you want is to sit around for 2 months waiting for something to arrive when it could have been prevented with a little research. This also comes into the picture when you figure out the quantity you’ll need. If your tile has a month and half lead time and you don’t get enough that can delay other parts of your project.

Schedule a weekly meeting with your contractor

Meet weekly with your contractor to talk about what was done the week prior and what will be done the following week. You can learn about anything unexpected that came up, what you might need to make a decision on, and of course hold him accountable in case he falls behind. If things start slipping it’s much easier to catch up on small scale than when you’re weeks behind.

To make things even more complex you’ll want to be aware of the reverse as well! If you don’t have somewhere to store cabinets and appliances you might not want them to arrive before you’re flooring is in or it will be in the way. I think we would recommend being on the side of having things early, but speak with your contractor about what would be a big mistake to arrive before they are ready.

Time is money! The longer our renovation goes the longer we’re paying a mortgage without living in our place or renting out our garden unit. We’re going to be moving as fast as possible, but we have to expect some unforeseen things to hold us up.

Contractor Shopping: How to choose the right one.

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Our renovation project is approved, our neighbors are notified (DOB requirement), and we are ready to get a contractor in the building. We provided the architect’s detailed drawings to the contractors that we were considering so that they can build out their quotes. If you’ve followed along you know we have a tight budget. We had to adjust our project several times to make sure that we stay on budget. We hoped we were going to spend about $200,000 on the labor and rough materials (so basically the contractors proposal not including finishes). However we knew that was going to be a stretch. Our first choice for a contractor was one that we worked with on a past project. We’re familiar with his work but we know that he can be a bit more expensive. His proposal came back at $270,000. We thought about continuing to cut down our project, but we are down to the necessities. So, we decided to bid out the job. The process got us thinking about what our shopping list for choosing a contractor should be. Price is important but there are so many horror stories we’ve heard from bad contractor experiences. How do we put ourselves in the best position to avoid that?

1. Price – Most contractors figure out their pricing based on cost of materials, labor, insurance, complexity of the project…etc. So when they run the numbers they shouldn’t be too far off. However there can be some key differences in figuring out the price. Do they sub work out? Or do they have crews that do all trades? We need to be able to pay for our project, so either we need to reduce the scope or go with a contractor that bids within budget.

2. Communication – Most of the horror stories I’ve heard are around contractors not showing up, falling far behind schedule, not returning calls, and generally not being available. The communication before starting is a good indication of the kind of communication you’ll get during the project.

3. Reviews – Any experienced contractor should have tons of reviews out there. There are websites like Brownstoner, Houzz, HomeAdvisor, Angies List, and others. Surprisingly one of the ones I felt the most comfortable with was Google. You have the ability to click on the reviewer and see other places they left reviews. It was pretty clear that they were real people (you never know). 

4. Past work/referrals – Most contractors have websites (although I don’t necessarily think a basic or low-fi website in the construction industry to should be looked down upon too much) with photos of past work. You can also ask for referrals to speak with before moving forward. 

5. In person meeting – I know that we are going to spend a lot of time with our contractor throughout the project.  There will be stressful situations and lots of decisions to make. I want to make sure that the person can explain things clearly, make recommendations, and be generally easy to work with. The in person meeting helps with getting an understanding of how the person communicates and how those stressful conversations might go. 

6. Knowledge – At this point in our project, we’re very familiar with every part of it. As we walked around with our contractors and talked about each area it’s very easy to understand how much knowledge and experience they have. I had a few questions ready to ask for each area to see how they respond. 

7. Licensing and Insurance – Most general contractors are, but obviously it’s important to confirm. 

We’re not professionals, but those are the things that we thought were important. If there are things that you would consider let us know! For now, we have selected a contractor based on the items above. We found someone that is not only very close to our budget, but he has been excellent at communication, has great reviews and prior work, our in-person meeting went great, he seems very knowledgable on every area of our project, and has already been very helpful. Since we are skipping working with the contractor we have worked with in the past we tried to be as diligent as possible. There is a bit of unknown nerves working with someone new, but we feel that it was more important for us to not have to cut more from the project. 

After months of planning we finally have a demo start date of Tuesday, January 22! Subscribe below for our weekly project update!

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