Renovation: keeping a renovation "fresh"

what kind of counters and floor do you have in the kitchen?

CC: For simplicity, 1 type of floor throughout except baths - 5" oak plank, stained medium dark (but not that opaque look) which will lighten with time. Carrera & Calacutta marble countertops in kitchen & bath.

All bathrooms have hex 4" Carrera tiles except master bathroom. White bevelled subway tiles in all baths.

Master bathroom is a little bit of an ode to the rainforest, so that will not date as well.

A good paint job will last 5 to 10 yrs. (Ours is going on 7.) The best way to freshen a bathroom is to retile and grout. We did this after yr 6 and everyone thought the bathroom had been re-renovated.

you must not ever open the window...after two years, ours looks dirty...by four its disgusting.

Oops. I meant re-grout and re-caulk. (It took 2 men 3 hrs and we have tile from floor to ceiling.) Not retile.

Or have young children with grubby fingers.

yep...we did the same thing...huge difference...has lasted a long time...problem is that original tile is unfortunate color to match kind of orange pink fixtures---no doubt all the rage at the time but awful. it is actually a classic deco look but still to my eye awful.

rest assured that as those young children grow, they will still have grubby fingers.

CC: let me guess, orange with black edging tiles. Classic, IMO, but hard to love I suppose.

yes indeed...and i've seen them in quite a few places. hard to love doesn't begin to describe them. but the fixtures are even worse. but as you say "classic original detailing maintained in impeccable condition."

nyc10023: copied from other thread

And remember, renovations have a depreciation curve, it is not straight line. The curve is probably explained by the analogy of an automobiles depreciation schedule. First several years it depreciates pretty rapidly, then levels off. As a buyer do you care it if is a 15yr old renovation that needs work or a 30yr reno that needs work. Not your problem that owner wasted his money. The early part of the depreciation curve is recaptured through enjoyment of use, not expected future gain in sale.

"A brand new (as in never lived in) reno doesn't sell for appreciably more than that same reno, lived in for 2 years (assuming minimal wear/tear & classic lines)."

I didn't say this. That is the point, the cost born by the owner will be recaptured by the owner enjoyment, not monetary terms.

Biggest issue IMO is design. Bad or outdated design will date a reno faster than condition. You're going down the right track sticking to classic natural surfaces. Kitchens and baths are the biggest culprits.. run from anything advertised as the latest trend. Trim and finishing is also often overlooked. Trim needs to be maintained -if its installed new then painted it will need touch-up caulk and paint within a year or two. To use the car analogy, its sort of like detailing. For kItchen and bath cabinets, the simpler the better but use solid semi-custom or custom construction.

"Oops. I meant re-grout and re-caulk. (It took 2 men 3 hrs and we have tile from floor to ceiling.) Not retile."

When I saw the first statement, i said to myself "BS". "Re-tiling" is close to impossible, but people always seem to think they can do it: it's almost impossible to remove old tile without having to do the walls over again, and once you are putting in new walls.............

One thing we always did in our renovations was to try NOT to do what the current fad was. Most poeple now can walk into an apartment and almost immediately know what year the renovation was done simply by looking at the materials used. This is terrible for re-sale since even if it looks great, an awful lot of buyers will treat it as if it were a wreck because they don't want to live in a "dated" unit. Mostly what we do/did was to look at the vintage of the building and make sure to stay true to it. For example, our brand new prewar baths always were still white subway tiles with white hex floor tiles and all black borders, caps, bases, etc.

OK, now I'll open myself up to some real scrutiny: here's my personal apartment, guess what year the reno was done (sorry for the poor quality pics, they were just to throw of on a myspace page, not to "sell" the unit, so they aren't very carefully taken or professional)

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=43025726&albumId=2136125

1802?

very nice...makes your point perfectly.

it's true. you would never know what year from those pics. so even thought my guess was meant to say "ancient" you can also take it as "timeless"

do you have any before pics?

30 years/spinnaker -- completely agree that you need to stay true to the space and not graft incongruous elements into (onto?) spaces where they don't fit. 30 years, your home is lovely! I especially like the punch of red in the one hallway. nyc10023, I find that high traffic areas + light colored walls + young children --> more frequent repainting than every three years. We have a cream wall next to a stair case and it basically has to be repainted every year because I somehow cannot convince my children to heed my constant refrain to hold the rail and not the wall. Perhaps if I were a more attentive housekeeper and washed the walls more frequently, I could stretch out the schedule but that's a lost cause. My personal pet peeve in renovations is the lemming approach where it's like one from Column A (Wolf range, check, subzero, check, Miele dishwasher, check), one from Column B (waterworks in the bathroom, check), and it just adds up to a complete lack of character.

I call bullshit!

30yrs, I'll guess 1985, mostly based on the kitchen.

How frequently you need to repaint somewhat depends on the finish of your walls, but I did my flat-coat, light-colored walls 8 years ago and have not yet needed to redo. It must be said that I do touch-ups on marks and stains about 2-3 times a year, but as long as you are committed to regular maintenance, the structure of a good paint job should last upwards of 10 years. 10023, admittedly I don't have children, so maybe my perspective would change if I had lots of little hands around.

seriously...do you open the windows on a regular basis? the amount of dirt/soot that seems to accumulate is remarkable...i always try not to think about the inside of our lungs.

The kitchen puts it within the last 20 years, 30 yrs.

My walls are light-colored (mostly BM's Creme Fraiche). Woodwork is just BM white - there are probably more complementary whites but I got lazy with that design choice. The paint in the master bedroom hallway is pristine, as is the paint in the master br. Kids' wing - not so much. I just had my daughter's room painted pink.

Baseboards will probably need repainting in 12 months (so 3+ years).

As for appliances, I hate stainless steel refrigerators or any kind of obvious appliances, so I picked appliances that could be hidden. 3 years ago, that meant Subz refrigerators and either Miele or Bosch dws. I tried FP dishdrawers but found them wildly impractical. These days, Liebherr makes a nice counter-depth integrated refrigerator.

30yrs - maybe it was your specific taste in the "all new prewar reno" that lead to high prices for your team. I have a good feel of what high-end/classic renos will fetch.

P09 - I don't misunderstand you. What I'm saying is if your total cost on your space (reno + basis) is less than comparable "mint" condition apts on the market, then you haven't lost anything on your renovation even if you sell fairly soon after the renovation. What gets people in trouble is 1) overpaying for space that needs work and 2) overpaying for the work done and 3) poor design choice.

CC: depends on which direction the windows face. Our street-facing rooms get much more dust than the rear-facing ones.

I would beg to differ with those who think that renovation of an estate apartment can be done with less than a "gut". Maybe true for higher end building with truly classic details that were built to premium standards but my mothers apartment had NEVER been renovated since the building was constructed in 1926 (rewiring for DC current was as good as it got). The kitchen appliances had been replaced but few would choose to live with the "new" (circa 1961 or maybe it was 64) metal kitchen cabinet with formica (yes, shiny yellow) top. Yes the bathrooms had original subway tile but I'll take the "retro look" subway tile in my totally renovated bathroom any day over the original. The floors could be saved with lots of love but the molding needed replacing and "built ins" my parents had added over their 65 year residency (my Mom, my Dad only made it to 50 years in the same apartment) needed to be eliminated...lifestyles have changed since the 1940s or even the 1960s. Oh and the walls were cracked despite regular plaster jobs....
After my mother passed away I considered doing the renovation and moving in but the top line estimates I got were around $300K for under 1100 sq without going high end. And the joy of selling an apartment in estate condition....no staging required. You are selling raw space warts and all since the buyers will know they will paying to correct the warts.

30yrs, very nice. Is that a lateral apt? Looks as if it's the full depth of one house plus some/all of adjoining house.

btw, 30 yers your place is GORGEOUS.

"do you have any before pics? "

It's TOTAL gut reno, so the "before" pics are essentially either meaningless because it was all ripped out if you want to consider that the "before", or bare joists of both the floor and ceiling.

"30yrs, very nice. Is that a lateral apt? Looks as if it's the full depth of one house plus some/all of adjoining house."

Townhouse floor-thru, 1 full floor (except, obviously, for the common hallway/stairway) original structure 1850's Italianate Renwick copy.

"30yrs, I'll guess 1985, mostly based on the kitchen."

ouch.

Ah OK, thought maybe sideways floor-and-a-half like the one for sale upstairs.

"My personal pet peeve in renovations is the lemming approach where it's like one from Column A (Wolf range, check, subzero, check, Miele dishwasher, check), one from Column B (waterworks in the bathroom, check), and it just adds up to a complete lack of character."

agreed

"I would beg to differ with those who think that renovation of an estate apartment can be done with less than a "gut". "

Maybe we need to define what we are calling "gut". My definition of gut is that everything goes including all walls, floors, ceilings, etc. including all electrical, plumbing, etc, I honestly don't think most estate sales need that. And I've renovated a number of prewar apartments that had never had any substantive work done to them (aside from ripping some things out) and not done anywhere near what I consider a gut (left all walls except dicked around a little with the layout with a few changes in door placement and the like). And the result has been units which people seem to have liked an awful lot more than gut renos.

There was a unit I did at 885 West End which, aside from my personal apartment, was my best work. We stripped all the doors, moldings, floors, etc. new electric, left the original tubs but redid the rest of the baths as close as possible to the originals. I have custom made moldings fabricated to match the originals where we needed to replace door casings or where we added new doorways (no one seemed to be able to tell the difference between the origianls and the new one's (and they were stained, not painted), same for baseboards. At one point the reno was taking what the board thought was too long so they were wondering if we were doing something different than we had told them, so they had the super let them into the unit one night. I got a call from a board member the next day gushing about how they couldn't believe how nice we made the apartment look. it was also the best re-working of a layout i did or in the building: turned a classic 6 where you had to go thru the kitchen to get to the maids room into a "real" 3 br (br was small, but it's own entrance and one the "bedroom hallway" and with a real closet). If you can find a floorplan of a B line, you may be able to figure out what we did. After I did that, 2 others in the line 9that i know of) copied my layout alteration.

BTW We got $1,200,000 Spring of 2001.

"Ah OK, thought maybe sideways floor-and-a-half like the one for sale upstairs."

You mean the one that's 2 1/2 floors?

PS to those who still want to guess on my unit: since the original renovation, nothing has been done (no painting, touch ups, etc) except for maintenance of appliances, replacement of worn out plumbing parts, and cleaning.

"btw, 30 yers your place is GORGEOUS."

Thank you. I spent probably thousands of hours on the design picking out moldings (and changing my mind 1000's of times), sourcing materials (I did all of the purchasing and sourcing myself, maybe if I have time I'll add some of the details like the nobs and hinges), and all of the other little details you can't see in those pics.

30yrs, right, #3. Whole different feel than yours. (Not that I'd turn it down.)

30yrs... I vote mid/late 90's

Giveaways: black square tile inserts in foyer, yellow'd PVC jets in the tub, white faucet in kitchen and glue line in the granite countertop nose.

I likee though... Looks rich and grand. 3k to bring it up to date. Well done.

added more (again, admittedly low quality0 pics to show some smaller details

Let me guess 30 years, you don't have pets?

for 30yrs apt., I'm going to guess late 80s/ early 90s.

actually spinnaker, I have a jacuzzi with white jets and it is from 1995. So since 30yrs has yellow jets, his place is definitely older than mine, so that is why I guessed late 80s/ early 90s.

Different plastics age differently. Fortunately stuff like that's easy to switch out if bothersome. I've been nagging a friend to let me replace his yellowed Lutron dimmers. Drives me nuts.

30yrs, great pics. Really like how the grain of the door comes through in that hinge picture.

Ah, found the article. I dig their esthetic. May they have long and happy lives, but I bet this estate wouldn't be so hard to sell.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/realestate/22habi.html?scp=4&sq=terrace%20upper%20west%20side%20white%20walls&st=cse

"Let me guess 30 years, you don't have pets? "

correct

"Really like how the grain of the door comes through in that hinge picture. "

I got very lucky on that I was able to find a bunch or real craftspeople for a lot of individual tasks. I sent the doors to a woman on Brooklyn for a few months who is a painter (artist, not house painter) and she worked on them part time but I ended up with 10 French doors where you can see every little nuance of the grain through the stain and varnish she used. Also got very lucky with my tile/stone guy (also from Brooklyn) first gen Italian perfectionist. You see that pattern on the floor of the kitchen and foyer? I drew it on graph paper and he cut all those pieces down from 12" x 12" limestone and marble tiles on site with a wet saw. Take a look at the cherubs on the ceiling: those are from baby pics of my wife and I: got another artist (I seem to remember he did a lot of commercial backdrops for store window displays and such) who did a great job on that faux skylight from my describing what I wanted an showing him pics of some classic mansions. the guys who installed all the moldings were amazing finish carpenters who really got stuff done very tightly. The woman who did the gold leafing worked in the restoration department of some major museum (I forget which one). There's no way I could have done this reno today because there's no way I would be able to find the qualified craftspeople.