Forum Archive

Hello all

I thought I might share with you the (almost) culmination of a brownstone gut renovation I embarked on 20 months ago. Having a background in design I drew the plans myself and designed the house entirely, which was the easy part… I consulted this forum as well as other sources for GC recommendations and did as much research as I thought I needed to, but still ended up choosing the wrong GC, who pretended to know more then he did, made a lot of mistakes and cut corners (many of them I only found out about after I fired him) and stopped showing up to work when he finished spending most of the money.
I luckily found a wonderful new GC who saved me and helped me complete the 4 story renovation.
I now live in the duplex apartment, comprising of the basement and first floor of the house, while the second and third floors each are 1 bedroom tenant’s apartments. The duplex is almost finished (I am still fixing problems the first GC left me with), but the rentals are complete and are rented out to lovely tenants. I would be happy to lend advice to any of you out there who are contemplating a gut renovation, as I have learned so much about construction through this process and what to watch out for. I can also recommend some good people. To see the complete work as it stand now you can visit my web showcase:

https://sites.google.com/site/spacedesignproject/