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May 16, 2008
3-family - how to use as 2-family?
Anyone have experience reconfiguring a 3-family house as a 2-family house? We're looking into 3 family homes but want rental income and are trying to figure out the best way to use as 2 families. We'd probably prefer to live on lower duplex (plus English basement) but how difficult is it to put in an interior stair in your unit (to preserve common stair oustide your unit)? And if you eventually want to take over the whole house, can the stairwell be easily removed in future? Any other ideas for how best to do this?
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Two neighbors bought three families they are using as two. Each opted to use the upper two apartments as theirs, and left the lowest level (garden) as a separate apt. They turned the top floor small kitchens into laundry rooms (left all water hookups, put in washer and dryer and took out refrig). This way, it would be easy to turn back into a three family.
Posted by: guest at May 16, 2008 4:07 PM
And always better not to live under your tenant.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at May 16, 2008 5:43 PM
not sure why you wouldn't just buy a two-family instead of a 3. But, we have a 2 we made into a 3 and we put a wall up that balances on the stair rail and where it meets the wainscoting we put plastic so it wouldn't ruin the wainscoting. This way we have privacy from the rest of the house/the tenants, but we can remove it if we want to take over the whole house someday. We have the bottom two floors and rent each of the top two, but if your building is a 3-story, then they would rent one floor, easiest being the ground floor. The wall I described works for this as well, but if you decide to take two floors, it works for that as well. Hope that is clear.
Posted by: guest at May 16, 2008 10:44 PM
We are converting our 3 family to a two family with duplex on first and 2nd floors. Rental on third. We have installed a staircase within the duplex apt and maintained the original hall staircase. (the treads aren't on yet but the metal stair is in place). Putting in the stairway requires a fair amount of space so lots of interior walls must be removed-we removed all for an open plan.
Not sure how easy it is to remove but if you are taking over the whole house in the future you could just leave it. Lot's of old houses have a front and back stair. If you would like to see it call718499-8079.
Posted by: Jane at May 19, 2008 10:28 AM
I'm in a similar situation. Can anyone who has installed an interior stairway give a cost estimate? Thanks.
Posted by: laurie at May 19, 2008 2:50 PM
I'm not in NYC so I may not be able to comment on cost. But we recently converted a three family brownstone to a two family in Newark, NJ. We completely gutted the entire house, re configured each floor and installed a spiral staircase to connect floor 1 and 2. It worked out very well and looks great too. It's a lot of work but we have the use of the backyard. We hired an Architect who had done this type of stuff in NYC. Email me if you would like to see some pics. lauraz92@yahoo.com
Posted by: guest at May 19, 2008 11:46 PM
Our stair installation was itemized for $19,000 as part of a gut reno of 2 floors. It included two cuts-first floor to basement and second floor. Several new lolly support columns were required. The basement stair is wood, the first to second floor stair is metal with wood treads. Since it was part of a gut reno I'm sure costs for demo were not included in this. Just a ballpark figure.
Posted by: Jane at May 20, 2008 10:16 AM
Thanks for the estimate and the detail on the lolly columns. It gives me a good place to start in deciding whether it will be worth it.
Posted by: laurie at May 20, 2008 1:51 PM
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