The Wiring You Inherited With the Apartment
You bought the apartment with a finished kitchen, extra outlets along the counter and a row of recessed lights in the living room. Two years later you decide to redo the bathroom, and the electrician you hired opens the wall behind the vanity. Inside
Cabinet Hardware Sizing Starts With the Door
Cabinet hardware is bought last and installed last, usually after the cabinets are hung and everyone is tired. Then the installer holds a pull against a door, and it does not sit flat. The base of the pull is wider than the flat face of the stile, so
The Quarter Inch That Decides Whether Your Shower Has a Curb
On the drawings a new bathroom usually looks like this: one stone floor runs from the vanity straight into the shower, nothing to step over, a thin slot against the far wall to take the water. It looks like a styling decision. On site it is a height
The Permit Notice Is the Best Test of a Contractor
Most owners check a contractor the way they check a restaurant: reviews, photographs, a few phone calls. The license number gets looked up once, it comes back active, and the question feels closed. Then the architect starts preparing the filing and a
What Your Building Asks of a Contractor, Beyond the License
Anyone who has renovated a New York apartment knows the moment: before a single wall is touched, the managing agent sends back a list. Proof of insurance, with the building named on it. The contractor’s license and registration. Plumber’s
Two Pieces of Paper Decide What Your Renovation Costs
Two owners on the same line of the same building spend $150,000 on the same kitchen. One of them never signs a one-page state form, so the contractor adds sales tax to every invoice and the checks total $163,312. When the job ends, that owner also th
Why Repainting the Trim Is Not a Weekend in a Pre-War Building
The call arrives in the same shape every time. Trim in two rooms has yellowed, a window sash sticks, and the plan is a week of painting while the family is away. In a pre-war building it takes longer, and the reason is the paint. Nothing is wrong wit
What Happens to Your Deposit Before the Work Starts
The first payment on a renovation is the strangest one you will ever make. Every other check you write in your life buys something that exists. This one buys a start date, a place in someone else’s schedule, and a crew that has not shown up yet
Why the Bathroom Is Always Finished Last
Somewhere near the end of an apartment renovation there is a week when the bathroom looks finished and cannot be used. The tile is on the wall. The fixtures are in the hallway in their boxes. Nobody is working in there, and nothing is wrong. The room
What Fits in the Elevator Decides the Kitchen
A countertop that stops at the last turn in the corridor is a routine failure in this city, familiar to any fabricator working in pre-war buildings. Nothing about the stone is wrong when it happens. The route is wrong, and the route was never measure