My Brownstone: Going All Out Carroll Gardens
There’ve been a few new contributions to My Brownstone recently–all of which we’ll highlight over the next few days. One stands out in particular for its hardcore renovation pics. After buying this Carroll Gardens brownstone from a family who’d been there for forty years with nary an upgrade the entire time, our fearless contributors proceeded…
There’ve been a few new contributions to My Brownstone recently–all of which we’ll highlight over the next few days. One stands out in particular for its hardcore renovation pics. After buying this Carroll Gardens brownstone from a family who’d been there for forty years with nary an upgrade the entire time, our fearless contributors proceeded to save what they could and reimagine what they couldn’t. Among other things, this included created a double height living room at the rear of the house. In addition to the drama of the photos above, they’ve included some genuine live-action contractor shots as well.
Carroll Gardens Brownstone [My Brownstone]
The house is on Sackett not 3rd Place.
LESSON: DON’T PAY ANYTHING IN ADVANCE
Yeah, but no good contractor worth his salt would ever walk of a job! People get ripped off every day in all kinds of ways.
Of course it’s probably not the owner’s fault. This city is full of shmucks. But it’s a good lesson for everybody to be very careful before hiring some random dude with a truck to renovate your house!
contractors walk off of big projects quite frequently. sometimes they feel over their heads, or sometimes they finish the expensive stuff and dont want to stay to finish the smaller (cheaper) items. i see this all of the time, and a lot of the time it has nothing to do with the owners themselves.
Replacing damaged beams can be very expensive, but it’s also one of the most important things you can do when renovating an old house. I never argue with my contractor when it comes to stuff like that.
Having a good relationship with your contractor is just as important as having a good relationship with your wife. I see the contractor client relationship as a give and take. It’s not just about one person giving orders to the other. Mutual trust and respect are key.
I think the contractors should probably have the opportunity to speak out if brownstoner is interested in a fair exchange of ideas. Usually there are at least 2 sides of any construction story.
to 1104 – no that house is on Third Place and I used to live there. They gutted it and are extending it by 15 feet and adding two floors. I was surprised to hear that was allowed. I’m wondering too if that’s less money than starting from scratch – must be. Or maybe they just ran into more problems than they expected and decided to just go all out.
Agree w/SBA re: odor. Animal odor can linger for years, and with all the tearing out/replacing, I bet these owners will wind up wishing they had replaced the urine-soaked beam as well.
i wonder why, since it seems they are spending quite a large amount of money and basically doing a gut reno on the duplex, that they didn’t just replace the urine soaked beams? b/c what is going to happen once they start heating up the floors with all that radiant floor heating? isn’t the smell just going to get worse?
the flooring for the loft sounds very interesting-looking forward to seeing the final pics. some very cool ideas going on here…