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
Why the Hood Over Your Range Does Nothing
Fish on Thursday, and on Friday morning the hallway still knows about it. The film on the cabinet doors beside the range comes back a week after it is wiped off. Meanwhile the hood cost more than the dishwasher, its spec sheet promised a number nobod
Why Cabinets Never Sit Flush Against a Pre-War Wall
The kitchen arrives on a Tuesday. The boxes come up in the service elevator, the crew sets the base cabinets along the wall, and by lunchtime the run is standing. Then the owner walks in, looks at the far end, and sees a gap between the side of the l
Kitchen Work Aisles and Clearances: Which Numbers Are Actually Required
The number everyone repeats for a kitchen aisle is 42 inches, and in New York City that is not the minimum. The minimum is 36, it sits in the Building Code, and an inspector can hold you to it. The 6 inches between those two figures separate a kitche