Floors

Most renovations with the exception of painting require approval. If all you are doing is floors the process should be easy. I would call your management company and tell them your intentions. It should only take a couple of days to get approved.

They will require that whoever you hire have the right insurances.

It should be a pretty easy thing.

Sorry to hijack your post Gator, but perhaps Primer or others can answer a flooring question for me. I have an old loft that was sold as a "white box (i.e., no internal walls) when it was converted 20 or so years ago. They put down cheap strip flooring that I am thinking about replacing, but the flooring runs under all of the interior walls. Can the flooring be changed without taking down walls? Any issues in doing so?

Nyc sport,

Yes they can. Thats why we have base molding. The basemolding is used to hide the cuts. It might require a little more work to cut the floor at the walls but not a big deal

Is it very difficult to replace patches of wood flooring where it is buckling or cracking or would I need to replace the entire floor? I'm not sure if one can simply replace some strips of wood after insuring that things are level underneath so as to prevent this from occurring again.

Sport
I'd get a quote for both(after you asked for the floors only).New walls aren't the most expensive part of a project and it might be nice to have conduits and the like in your wall for 21st century gadgetry instead of the 20 year old walls?

Gator,

They can be repaired but will look different to the existing. Usually when we replace damaged sections of flooring we sand the entire floor, stain them and then apply poly.

Truth,

True that new walls are not that expensive but what could add up is:

Are the walls made out of plaster? then between demo and garbage remove the price goes up. Is there existing electrical conduits running through the wall, that too could cost more as well as the project taking longer and the owner will have to pay to live somewhere else.

Sounds like I need to determine if it is worth repairing or consider putting in a totally new floor...humm