Apartment Aesthetics

Isn't your handle techno logic?

10% of 500k or whatever buys you a lot of paint.

Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to judge a place based on paint color and furniture. When I look at places, my only thoughts are "how much is it going to cost to re-do this?" What I find most offensive is a tacky renovation that is baked into the sales price. I'd much rather have an unrenovated place at an unrenovated price.

I can't really relate to wall colors blocking my evaluation of the apartment, but for some reason I can never imagine upholstered furniture in a different fabric, so I guess each person has his different imagination blocks.

I know you guys are right....sigh...I have to work on this mental block issue....I guess when I see a place where I like the way it looks, I get inspired like "Oh i could live here and i love how they did it/i would do that too" .......

When I see an apartment, I go through steps in my head. First as I take it in, I see only dimensions, layout, views, light. I look at whether the views are likely to remain and imagine how the place would look at night or during different seasons when the sun moves higher or lower. These are the immutable things about a place that make the most difference. If I don't like these things, nothing else matters since something about the place wouldn't work for me at any price. I'm done. I honestly don't even see furniture or paint color or bad cabinets on the first walk through.

Second, I begin looking at what could or would have to change if I were to live there--what the more major reno items would be: rearrange some walls or closets, how much do the baths need work? Is a new kitchen required? How's the lighting/electrical? Is there evidence of prior leaks? Are there structural concerns?

Third, I may begin seeing how the current furniture configurations look and whether they reveal problematic spaces that will make it hard to configure a room (e.g. is there a good and unawkward place to put the bed--I can't live with seeing the toilet when laying in bed. I also look at the little things at this point like mouldings, wall condition, state and type of doors (hate hollow cheap doors with crappy knobs and hinges--all must be replaced).

Paint color matters not an iota to me since I couldn't imagine moving into a place and not painting it. In fact, the best case scenario is horrible paint colors and awful cosmetic problems like destroyed mouldings. Those are simple fixes but drive down an asking price.

You gotta see the bones! If you get caught on colors, you're handicapping yourself needlessly with things that just don't matter an iota.

It's not just you; it's most people. Most people have very little vision. At least you recognize the issue and can bring someone with you to gain perspective when viewing apartments.

Kyle - your response reminds me. Does anyone know how much it costs to replace door knobs? I live now in a prewar that has those glass doorknobs...but they are a little "shaky" and rusty when turning if you know what I mean. I love the look of them, but probably need to replace.

Sounds like an easy fix, rather than replace.

1) If you like the esthetics of an apt in the same line, your job is half-done. Just replicate in the uglier apt, and you already have an idea of what will work in the space.

2) Those glass knobs are worth a lot (not just to me, look one Ebay). If you have to replace them, check out Baldwin knobs. $$$ but nice hefty feel. There are even nicer knobs out there, but you will pay. I like the ones on rejuvenation.com. At least sell the used knobs on Ebay.

Have the super or a handyman see if existing knobs can be fixed--especially if you are moving. Quality replacements can cost more than you think and cheap replacements may do more harm than good.

Back to original question, for me the uglier the better. In NYC this means a large % of potential buyers won't even bother and that puts you in a much better negotiating position. Buying a bit of a wreck is not for the faint of heart though, you need to know a thing or two about renovating and a proven record of what makes a space great -and I do mean great as opposed to average. I wouldn't bother with the effort only to end up with an average apartment. Average is hard to unload when the going gets tough and doesn't really reward you for the effort. KW analysis is on the money.

spinnaker1: I'm with you. Give me the worst wreck. A bathroom 1/2 way to needing a reno is no better than a gut to me. I want a place that someone lived in for 50 years and really let go. It won't cost me any more to fix than a 10 year old apartment that a family with 2 kids lived in since in the latter everything would be beaten to sh-t anyway since that is what little monkeys do to a place.

I have come to accept that most people with kids in Manhattan function in a chronic state of chaos, financial strain, and time pressure. Add to that the fact that most people are utterly intimidated by reno (correctly so if you aren't willing to view it as a second job) and won't take on a major reno. A "livable" place that could use reno but could also be lived in is just fine for such people. Thus, the 1/2-baked reno or slightly banged up place has appeal to them. I don't want to compete with these people for a place. I want the apt that is so beaten up the family walks away leaving only those ready to do a full reno. That smaller pool of buyers means the property usually sits or the seller is fearful it will sit--either way the price is more flexible and the end result: a spectacular home. Like you said, not just an okay place, but a customized awesome place.

Bring on the WRECKS. Love 'em.

ok, here's a question for experienced renovators: how do you know what your tolerance level will be if you've never been through a renovation? I'd like to think i could tolerate a large project, but may end up failing miserably. i love my structure and order though my home is usually far from this on a daily basis :(. i try so hard though. anyway, what is it that gets someone through a major reno w/o a major breakdown? time? personality type? vodka?

my boo boo face got split
:(

Maybe I will try to just repair rather than replace the knobs. My super is the biggest scammer/POS ever though. I need a good trustworthy handyman that can be trusted to be in an apt around a woman and infant (I had a female friend who had the bad luck of having 2 very sketchy handymen/acted inappropriately). Any recs?

What I love: places that haven't been touched since they were built (prewar) but have been maintained (regular cleaning, etc.). I get excited when I see woodwork that hasn't been painted, or painted woodwork that has only had been painted professionally/well. All the original hardware there, floors etc. True wrecks can be heartbreaking if only you see stuff that is just beyond the point of salvage but still beautiful.

Uwsmom: someone who is patient but yet knows how to stomp on throats. If you have endless buckets of $, just turn it over to someone and write large checks. Getting someone good who isn't going to run away with your $.

i was just going to say "hiring the right people". that's got to be key.

and i have no patience. bummer!

uwsmon - for every KW and NYC10023 (experienced renovators with no fear) there's someone like me, saying NEVER AGAIn (and didn't live in apartment while it was being renovated). It wasn't a matter of overseeing the job (I was there almost every day), had good spec's (but discovered that not everyone in the building is thrilled that you're jackahammering the concrete subfloor in order to put in new marble, so it had to be done BY HAND, GUESS WHAT, there' a column BEHIND that drywall and do you just cover it, or build out the rest of the kitchen cabinets? etc. etc.)

Obviously, you'd get better at this the more you do it (see NYC10023), but you do need a strong constitution for the first one, IMHO

Having said that, after having cried several times during the renovation, I love our apartment now, and couldn't think of living anywhere else.

If you have no patience, you cannot undertake a renovation.

I've been through gut a reno once (in another city), and I'd be hesitant to do it again until we can afford a 1,500+ s.f. three bed two bath. It's too hard to hide from the renovation in anything smaller, and too expensive to live elsewhere in Manhattan while the renovation is going on.

uwsmom - you have to hire the right ppl, you get what you pay for. i hired my super to renovate my bathroom (he told me he was very experienced, did many bathrooms in bldg, and i would avoid having to have board approval/pay fee for application/contractors etc) young stupid me agreed. he totally ripped me off, maybe because i was young at the time/lived alone etc. he did a shitty job, and to boot - went 2 days over schedule which is a serious problem when you only sublet a place for a specific period.

i will take that under SERIOUS consideration. i don't want anyone's head exploding.

into? under?...whatever.

Let me guess, technologic: gigantic grout lines, some of them forming bizarre tapers where straight lines should be, and massive amounts of caulk smeared everywhere. And maybe new floor tiles laid over the old ones, and around the toilet instead of under it. Am I getting warmer?

Massive amounts of caulk, new floor tiles over the old, medicine chest hung at slight off angle, used glossy paint when I specified matte. The bathroom looks decent only because I opted to spend the $ for nice fixtures and a nice toilet/sink.

I found out this is his typical scam "oh let me do your renovation, you wont have to go through the board." And if you dont use him, he'll ensure you pay every penny of fees. He has tried to get me to give him several jobs since (radiator cover, painting etc) which I have declined. He also has ensured his entire family works at our building, but I have a plan to expose him. Im just waiting until this years financials and board meeting.

You got what I like to call the "Super Special" ... I forgot about the fixation on semi-gloss.

Alan - I did indeed. I was an idiot, plain and simple. The bright side to it is I learned that 90% of the time you get what you pay for, and now being a little older and a lot wiser I dont skimp on price for quality products and services, and I educate myself before taking any step re: my apt, which is why I joined SE.

I'm convinced nothing short of a lifetime of experience will prepare you for building/renovating. Its only through multiple iterations that one learns it is an intense and frustrating experience, always. For those who are hands-on, decisive, level headed and able to manage the adversity it can be immensely rewarding experience. Watch my Canadian buddy Mike Holmes for some examples of people who just wrote checks.

Unfortunately, though, the good and real GC who can pull off a bathroom renov/update is many multiples of the price for a Super Special, so it's not necessarily the wrong decision ... life is so much easier in other RE markets.

On the other hand, the circus clown I initially hired to do electrical work in my kitchen turned out not to be so much cheaper than the real electrician I hired to finish the job ... and it was only the former who accidentally popped a hole through to the common corridor!!!

Reno hint: if you want to do all you can to insure no headaches, then no cutting corners. Get the permits you need. Pay the fees. Do only the work you submit to the building for approval. Anyonoe you are thinking about hiring who tells you they know how to skirt a rule or two, think again.

Spinnaker - so true. I think of so many things I will do differently if I do more renovations to my current and/or next place. And Im sure I will make more mistakes, though hopefully less substantial.

Alan - LMFAO at the circus clown reference, that is a funny story!

Reno #2 went better than #1. Reno #3 better than #2. #4 best yet, but still a few flaws (close your eyes, KW, a few wonky glass tiles, a little too much contraction on wood floors in winter).

Reno #5-to-be should be pretty damned good.

#5?! Not even KW has that in him.

KW, NYC10023, could you recommend any contractors?

I saw a 700 sq.f. apartment in need of gut renovation and need to get an estimate on how much it would cost to fix / how long it would take. (Kitchen, bathroom, floors, walls - everything is pre-historic.)

drujan - unfortunately, not w/o reservations. My last GCs were good but price was $$.

Where do you live while the gut reno is happening?

I just did this (brought along a contractor to price a gut of 700 sf). The answer was $90K.

generally, scargo, while you're doing a gut you stick your furniture in storage and live in a furnished rental.

ali r.

10023 - you officially win Queen of Reno.

scargo - i presume wherever you live when you purchase the new place. at least that seems like it would be the easiest, albeit costly, thing to do. though, i do have a friend who's renovating and she just moved her family into a short-term rental for 3 or so months. not really sure what she's renovating (not a very close friend)

sorry, i type slow with one hand. ali makes sense. i have such a renter's mind.

We're in the last weeks of finishing our 3rd complete renovation (over 25 years) and we've done all three with the same architect and the same contractor (all 3 jobs were finished on time and on budget). Having a team you trust and like is essential. I think we were both stupid and lucky on the first one; we met the architect first and she brought in the contractor but it was the first job they had done together. Again, we were lucky.

I'm sure this is our last renovation. But working with our team has been the least of the stress. Dealing with the coop's architect, getting our city permits -- these outside forces have been the worst of it.

But the good news? The Internet vastly increased our resources, the recession let us get fabulous deals on materials and labor, and this being our 3rd reno, we finally know what we like and how we want to live. I agree with much that's been written here, especially the point that if you do a renovation, make it special, not ordinary. Otherwise you not only won't get all your money back, you will feel a certain "I cut it short" resentment while you live there.

A final point to Technologic -- you might want to take one of your doorknobs to a place like Urban Archeology or one of the several places around the city that buys, restores and sells original materials. They can evaluate what you have and if it makes sense, help you find a place to repair and restore them. Doorknobs are just the kind of detail that can make a home be distinctive and really special. Plus -- you can find out if you have a rusty treasure or junk.

frontporch - that 90K sounds pretty low for a gut renovation of 700 sf. (just over $100/sf in NY?) Might have been the contractor trying to help you make a sale.

It sounds like technologic's doorknobs just need new screws and a little WD40 or graphite or whatever. Slippage and jigglage.

Kyle where were you when I was selling my W Village wreck apartment? You would have LOVED it! Actually, it sounds like where you ended up is really where you wanted to be (Lower 5th). There is a big difference between restoring a place to former grandeur and trying to make housing that was built for working/lower midle class people into luxury digs regardless of what has happened to the neighborhood.

technologic, what a great topic. When I first started looking, I was very turned off by apartments that didn't show well. But as time went on, I started thinking that it might be better to find an apartment that the owner hadn't put alot of money into which they wanted the buyer to pay for the costs of those renovations in the sale price. That said, I've never done a renovation on an apartment and it might prove a most daunting undertaking. I'm trying to find an apartment that isn't a total wreck, but needs maybe a renovated kitchen or bathroom(s), new floors, possibly some built-ins, new closets or possibly better (internal) windows - projects that I can take on either one at a time or maybe all at once.

If I were more mechanical, I wouldn't mind taking on a gut renovation. But I'm not certain that I know enough about construction to execute that type of project. Redoing floors or a kitchen or bath seems more manageable for a first-timer like me.

Lobster, what you describe IS a gut reno, or at least a very extensive one: kitchen, bath, floors, rough and finish carpentry, reconfigure closets...uh...what's left? Adding some new electrical and mouldings doesn't change the job that much.

FOR ALL INTIMIDATED BY RENO: If you can deal with planning a wedding and making it work, then you can do a reno. It's about the same amount of work. I think that's a decent yardstick to use.

that's it? like planning a wedding? piece of cake! tears and all, i loved planning ours and it was a blast. i'll be lucky to say that if we ever renovate.

I suspect it depends on how you view a wedding in the grand scheme of things. IMO, it's one day, and it's done. No-one will remember that much about it, either way. You have to live with your reno. If you are the type to spend 100k+ on your wedding, then yes, maybe it's equiv. to a reno.

that's a depressing view of a wedding day!! you've done 4 renos. i hope you won't have to plan 4 weddings ;). that alone should make it more special than your renos, no?
we still have friends and family tell us how much fun they had at ours. truly a fun fun day!

but yeah, you don't have to look at the flaws of your wedding day for the rest of your life

I suspect you were the one of the first ones in your circle to get married :) After you've been to the nth wedding, it all blurs. The wedding favors go right into the trash when we get home.

1/2 of my circle consists of lesbians so its not a fair comparison, but it was only 3 years ago so definitely not the first. agree on the favors. useless.

KW: I can't see how it's like a wedding unless you're a groom or bride-zilla type. As long as everyone's having a good time, the details of a wedding shouldn't matter so much. The details really DO matter in a reno.

i think reno's are always worth it if you are smart about business, do as much as you can yourself, be realistic about what you're working with and maintain control throughout (kyle's 101). when hunting i was specifically looking for a dump so i could get as much prewar space for the money in the EV; an apt that other people who be turned off by. the place i found was aesthetically horrendous - terrible paint, awful furniture, no doors or curtains, etc. a place where they didn't include pics in the listing. i spent about 6k to remove two walls and build one, remove a drop ceiling, have a closet reconfigured and have all my lighting redone. i did all the painting myself and probably added at least 50k to the value, based on what similiar units are now going for in the building. a person who bought a unit one floor up instead of mine, because it was so aesthetically beautiful, paid a lot more and had to have the floors redone due to settling (mine were fine).

I'll give you an example. I had spec'ed out a center-drain Duravit Starck tub for a bath. When the time came to install the tub, the rough-in was in the wrong place for the drain. I could gone into an utter rage and flipped out (the tub had been spec'ed for a VERY long time). Instead than wasting time making it work, I immediately got on the phone to order a different tub to be delivered ASAP and simultaneously listed the Duravit on Ebay for sale. New tub was there in a couple of days, and old one sold (got 80% of what I paid) and shipped out to D.C.

ph41, that quote came from my contractor and I trust him. When he says $90K, he might mean $95K, but def. not $100K. That's one of the things I love about him.

Breakdown is $30K bath, $25K kitchen, and $35K everything else. Where do you think we're underspending? It's only a 700 sq. ft. apartment, IMHO it doesn't need a $50K kitchen.

I like the wedding comparison although I'm with UWSmom on this -- my wedding day was the biggest day of my life, and I only got to have it once, and I had a bunch of people who were all coming in from out of town who all had to be made happy. With a reno, you only have to make a few people happy, plus if you screw up it's "only" time and money. You don't like the countertop, you can always change it.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

c'mon ...23, you mean you didn't stomp your feet once? Very accommodating of you because relocating a rough in drain is far easier than the solution you came up with.

Having said that, your example demonstrates the kind of adaptation and decisiveness needed to see a project succeed. I hope the GC rewarded your effort with a little extra somewhere else.

i actually had to have a new wedding dress shipped from the designer the evening before my wedding. you wanna talk stress! :). the lines were so simple that if it wasn't tailored perfectly, you could see the flaws. they kept telling me the crease would steam out. guess what, day before my wedding, it didn't steam out. it was right at the bustline too. sadly, they managed to butcher the 2nd dress the same way. incompetent whores! it was actually quite subtle but i wanted it perfect and you CAN see it in pictures if you look closely. c'est la vie! guess it's like crooked tiles.

Its called a renovation. You dont like a color, you paint. you dont like a finish, you replace. Love the space, not the decor or the design put in place by a units current owner. Also if you decide to buy a home vs renting, please be sure that you treat it as a purchased home and not a rental. Im sick of going to condo open houses and find the unit decorated (or lack of) with builders white walls, and a living room set. I went into a unit at 101 Warren the other day and couldnt tell that it was actually a $3MM home. It looked like the related unit i used to rent when i was only in nyc one week out of each month. The big issue with the housing crisis is that too many morons went all in on shitty unit, making themselves house poor. If you are buying a condo with two mortgages stop. If you cannot afford to furnish your place easily after you close stop. Do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

front_porch: when the weather man tells you its going to be 60 and sunny, does that mean that it might rain later but wont t'storm? Unless your contractor is quoting you for finishes only then there will always be that hidden oops causing a spike in you total.

In this case, the rough couldn't be relocated that easily. Nah, GCs only remember the extra work they did that they want to charge you for, because inevitably they don't end up making as much as they thought.

Maybe I'm a guy when it comes to weddings. If people weren't happy, I didn't hear about it.

You want to talk stressful weddings? Try this: me in levis, hiking boots and white shirt, her: the same but beginning to show. The clearing we chose was about 2500 feet above the town of Banff overlooking glaciers and the continental divide. The JP, trooper that he was, wore a suit. To give you an idea of the topography, I am about 6" taller than my wife but she was uphill when we kissed, which made me about 12" shorter.

2nd weddings are the best! If you haven't had yours yet, just wait. Anyway we weren't going to bother except for the cap gain issue on the WV apt. If that ain't true love I don't know what is.

jasieg, if the weatherman told me it was going to be 60 and sunny, and it was, I would be likely to believe him the next time around. Similarly, I've used this contractor, so I know what he means.

The "oops" people face in a reno is usually either late-in-the-game change orders (which cost money) or suddenly deciding they need an $8K refrigerator. Off-budget, as I've seen it, is usually customer-driven.

I'm with you on 101 Warren though. Some people love it. That's what makes horse races.

News flash, everybody: spend as much or as little as you like, you're not going to turn your apartment into Barbie's Malibu Dream House.

News flash: if Rush can do it, so can we!

News flash: we're talking Barbie's Malibu Dream House, not Plato's Retreat.

ahaha - i just can't shake those palm trees.

I heart this apt. http://www.pointclickhome.com/image/tid/5465?mag=PointClickHome&page=0