built-in bookcases and painting

Try Gothic Cabinet on Bway/100th & 101st, (212) 678-4368. Ask for Tony. He has done lots of work for my friends.

You just spent a lot on an apartment and likely have quite a bit of coordinating to do before moving. I'd hire someone to paint if you can afford it. It's an annoying, time consuming task. Granted it has its rewards, but with packing everything else it isn't the easiest time to do this unless it is just a studio perhaps.

There are many other custom mill workers in NYC, too. Gothic is fine. Then you begin the upward creep in cost as you go higher end. For 100% custom work, I've found Wood Designe reasonable and high quality with very responsive customer service. They're located on W22 St b/w 6 and 7 Aves. I like them because they have their own mill just north of the city so there is no middle man and the product is 100% customizable. Prices are more than basic, but less than top end, although the work is equal to most top-end shops.

I like to paint myself. We're doing our entire apartment right now, and we did much of our upstate house ourselves. It takes about four days (very part-time) to paint a 14 x 16 room, only slightly longer for a larger room (the time is set more by taping routines and drying times than the actual act of painting.

it's crazy if it will drive you crazy. but if you like to crank some music and enjoy seeing yourself accomplishing something so basic yet relatively expensive, it's great. but i'm very cheap. my husband is a partner at a law firm and we don't have a housekeeper.

little wolf cabinet shop. 82nd and first. very nice work at a good price. they do not paint though.

You can certainly paint bookcases yourself if you want to go that route. I would recommend treating them as "trim" and painting them with a semi-gloss (we did this with our Murphy bed and it looks very nice) rather than treating them as "wall" and painting them with a flat or eggshell, but you can go either way.

I am a Benjamin Moore/Farrow & Ball girl. I like Pratt & Lambert colors, but find them a little "drippy."

You will need a ladder, music, several sizes of good brushes, and the patience to do 2 coats.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Agree that Little Wolf does very good, quality work.

Any idea on the pricing side? Are we talking $1k or $10k for decent work?

The cost would be helpful. I have heard rumors that it could cost 4k or 15k--big range for just bookcases.

Thanks all for the recommendations and advice.

ar--until i was 30, it never occurred to me that painting was done by anyone other than me. nor, for that matter, did it occur to me to hire anyone to do anything that i could possibly do myself. as a child (and I am not really that old) my father took me and a bucket of hot water with suds down to the street (now known as the upper east side) to wash his car. at the risk of sounding like an old fart, i think we all need to reconsider our approach.

cc - i agree. sometimes i feel like i'm from another world. on saturdays when i make everyone pick up a mop, man the vaccuum, or grab a sponge, i get some grumbles. but we crank some tunes, and after a couple of hours look around and feel good about what we have done. how can you teach children values if you don't live them? i'm not against hiring help, in the slightest, but i stay at home and have time on a daily basis to keep things relatively clean, so the weekly communal clean-up is minimal.

as a joke my husband tears off the phone numbers on the adverts for housekeepers and brings them to me. he keeps on reminding me that he bills out at upwards of $700 per hour. i tell him he's not worth it, but i do appreciate the fine job he does on the toilet bowl.

It's true; it's all too easy to get spoiled & then start thinking that we're "special". I tend to be a do-it -yourselfer, too, & it can be rewarding.

Just spoke with ppl at Home Depot. They quote us around $17/sq ft including floor, ripping up old floor, leveling sub-floor, installation of new floor. That seems quite high!!!!

One other thing I've read is installing floating hardwood floors over the existing parquet floors. Yes, all door heights need to be adjusted, but the place needs new doors anyways!!!!!! Thoughts on this money saving tactic??? The top layer of the floating floor is still hardwood, but the bottom layers are just plywood. I've also heard/read that the floating floors don't buckle or move as much w/ time and moisture b/c they are all anchored together.

I agree with the posters telling you to go the DIY route. My last project I finished was a 2400 sq ft house with two levels. I took it from a dated 60's era style interior and updated it to a modern design. It took me 5 weeks time....4 days a week and around $2000 in paint and materials to complete the entire house. This was with stripping miserable wall paper, tearing up dated old carpet (new flawless hardwoods underneath) priming all walls, sanding down pink ceramic tiles in the bathroom and kitchen and painting over it and finally painting the whole house with the highest level paint I could find.
In other words, set aside a few weekends and do some homework on the products you want to use, go online to DIY home improvement message boards (many pros do post their advice) and do it all yourself.
$4 - 15k for bookcases???? Are you kidding me????? For that amount I will come over and do it in a weekend!! Crazy.....
Strongly agree drddd, the end results are VERY rewarding especially if you are going to occupy the place for a few years....and you realize the $$$ that is still in your bank account.

We are going to paint ourselves because we want to add a personal touch and save money. The question was regarding ease of painting a prewar with great details, etc. The bookcases will be expensive and we are getting quotes later this week. Will let all know.

I'll be the contrarian here - we had cleaning help as a kid and I vowed to study hard, make enough money so I could afford the same for myself when I grew up. I hate cleaning!

I'm with you 23.... I once tried to paint my apartment... lots of old moldings painted over, some sanding work needed, etc., etc. I spent weeks and weeks on it (probably 75 hours total) and paying some guys a few bucks, they made it look 100x better.

I figure my time is worth much more making money than saving on manual labor.

i had a friend who had a floating floor put down over existing parquet and he hates it...he said you can feel the difference when walking on it.

we're pretty good painters. i'll use the money for the tickets to Turkey this summer.

i didn't mean to go all preachy, sorry. i'm just a bit bemused by this realignment, at least for now, of priorities that seems to be taking place. it's not that we've never had a housekeeper. when our daughter had active asthma (with allergies to dust and dust mites) i wisely realized that my efforts at cleaning would not be sufficient to keep her healthy.

it would be just lovely, though, if we all had a bit more time to tend to the mundane, whether that's having your shins banged up at Fairway instead of ordering from Fresh Direct, hunting in little stores in the East Village for pretty things instead of buying on the internet, etc. things have been so crazy.

The walls have been skim coated already and the moldings/trim are all perfect. We are painting the walls only just to change the color. We are allowing two to three weeks to complete the painting. Do people recommend Benjamin and Moore? They seem to get good reviews and have fair pricing.

johnjim, Benjamin Moore is fine. I like the quality of Behr slightly more, but I always find that the colors match the paint chips much better with Benjamin Moore. I am currently repainting a Behr wall because the blue wasn't as deep as the color chip. The BM paint looks lovely.

Painting tip: You will want to buy blue tape ("painter's tape") to mark out your rough edge around doors and ceilings.

For anyplace that you need a perfect edge -- hold a piece of cardboard at a tilted angle and paint up to it. Old business cards work fine for this, although they get paint on them so you use a lot on any one edge. Don't use magazine blow-in cards, they're too thin.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Kylewest, do you have a number for Wood Designe (sp?). Nothing comes up on the internet. Thanks.

Thanks for the tips.

Daniel-Wood Designe, 136 West 22nd Street, 212.229.0536, www.woodesign.com

Thanks John.

as a joke my husband tears off the phone numbers on the adverts for housekeepers and brings them to me. he keeps on reminding me that he bills out at upwards of $700 per hour. i tell him he's not worth it, but i do appreciate the fine job he does on the toilet bowl.

"until i was 30, it never occurred to me that painting was done by anyone other than me. nor, for that matter, did it occur to me to hire anyone to do anything that i could possibly do myself."

Good for you.

But painting is one of those things that while just about anyone CAN do, most can't do WELL. And since it's in your home -- EVERYWHERE -- there's no getting around staring at either an amateurish or professional paint job for the next decade.

And for the job to be done properly, you need the right tools (including ladders, extension poles, etc.), which most of us do not have, are not willing to buy for a one-time use, and frankly don't have the room in our apartments to store after the job is finished anyway.

Then there's the time factor. A professional painter can knock out an entire Classic Six in two days and it'll look spectacular. For the rest of us, it'll take a month and a half of pissing around in the evenings and the weekends, with our home in disarray, and an end result that at best would look just "good."

What's your time worth? There are certain things that I CAN do that are more cost-effective for me to outsource, including painting, repairs, and changing the oil in my car.

No one, however, has been able to come close to my standard of cleaning, so I continue to do that myself, which I actually find therapeutic.

The answer to the imperfect paint job is dim lighting. I recently repainted my bedroom myself because I was too lazy to get someone in to do just one room. I did it in 3 afternoons over a month. It's mostly the corners that don't look perfect, but I can't see them from my bed or walking around (high ceilings) so whatever.

the other answer is a good use of painter's tape. we have painted numerous rooms. we have had painters as well. not very much difference. particularly with neutral colors, but even with the vivids. painting the outside of a house? we've done that as well to good effect, over a holiday weekend, for a friend's family. it's not everyone's idea of a good time, but it certainly need not take more than a couple of weeks to paint a living room and have it look great.

A classic six in two days, that made me laugh, thank you

please, we painted the entire exterior of a modest two story house over a long weekend. there are degrees of perfection, but really.

oh please

but really

"The answer to the imperfect paint job is dim lighting."

Unless, of course, you happen to enjoy brightly-lit rooms.

I was being facetious. I have a southern-facing bedroom that gets lots of light, and even in the middle of the day, the light doesn't illuminate the corners. Short of strong, OR-room type lighting, I don't see how slightly imperfect corners and edges (btw, I use lots of blue tape) are a big deal. By dim lighting, I mean I don't have the kind of lighting that would be any stronger than sunlight filtering into a room. I don't know if it would make a difference to be in a more standard-ht room without mouldings (I have 5"ish mouldings).

I painted the room F&B "Green Ground" which probably also helps with the edges, being IMO a soft-almost-celadon-green-and-yellow shade.