Planning tips

Living room of a Manhattan co-op where a large rug covers most of the floor, with a wide-plank oak border showing around it

Can You Put Hardwood Floors in a NYC Co-op?

You buy an apartment with old wall-to-wall carpet, plan to pull it up and lay wide-plank oak, and then a line in the house rules stops you: 80 percent of the floor has to stay covered. Owners usually find that line after the closing, sometimes in a l

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Marble, tile, oak flooring, brass pull and cabinet door samples laid out on a marble kitchen island

What a Contractor Needs From You Before Giving a Real Price

You call three contractors about your kitchen and bathroom, and each one gives you a range rather than a number. It can feel like nobody wants to commit. Usually the reason is simpler: none of them has enough information yet to name a price they can

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Living room of a Manhattan apartment during a renovation, sofa wrapped in plastic and the doorway sealed with a taped plastic dust barrier

Can You Live in Your Apartment During a Renovation?

Almost every owner asks this before the contract is signed: can we just stay in the apartment while the work happens? In a house the answer usually depends on how many floors you have. In a Manhattan apartment it comes down to two rooms and one door.

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Walk-in shower in dark grey-green marble with a brass rain shower head and linear drain on the back wall, a low marble curb and a frameless glass panel held by black clamps

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

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Luxury bathroom with the marble complete, a dark green stone shower alcove and white Carrara walls, and bare brass supply stubs and waste outlets protruding where the sinks will go

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

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Empty freight elevator car seen from the corridor, its walls hung with quilted protective pads, with a worn steel floor and painted corridor walls on either side

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

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Stainless range hood mounted above a gas range, with the burners on both sides extending past the edges of the hood

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

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Compact Manhattan bathroom with a wall-hung toilet, a narrow oak vanity and a mirror above it

Bathroom Clearances: The Legal Minimum and What Works

Bathroom dimensions are one of the few parts of a renovation where the code gives you hard numbers rather than guidance. The numbers are also smaller than most people expect. A layout can satisfy every clearance in the book and still be a room you re

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Manhattan apartment mid renovation, electrical boxes mounted low on bare studs opposite a finished wall with a white outlet plate