Renovation Reveal and Advice
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…
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/
“When the day arrived the examiner was not there and we were told he had taken a personal time off and would not come back for another month. I went to the head examiner and asked him if he could just look at…”
Been there with that!..i wanted to strangle someone…my examiner went on vacation for 2 weeks after the 2 week wait to get the review. Calls in sick on my day and they bump me another month! The chief says ” well if there were no corrections you would not be here!” meaning it’s all my fault the plans are not “perfect”..finally the examiner let me do a walk-in a few days later and approved it. So much time wasted in traveling and sitting down there. Don’t bring a weapon to the DOB..you will use it!(besides they screen)
PS nice house!…don’t let the comments get to you but it was fun reading how you stuck up for yourself!..F’em all!!
Thanks Val. That was one of my considerations as well. I get more room for the siting area this way. and I don’t have to close off the stairs. I lived once in a house (in England) where we had a deck going down to the garden. I didn’t like it. 🙂
correction- meant to say “if it were be on the parlor level”
Spacedesign,
I think you made a good choice by placing the kitchen and livingroom on the garden level. It gave you about 4ft x 16ft more space than if it were to be on the garden level (because of the public hall that was needed), and like you said- direct access to the rear yard. Great project, congratulations!
to : GinoinGreenpoint
Well, I don’t have the time to write the whole novel but here are two examples out of many:
First of all they took forever to approve the plans. one of my kind new neighbors decided to report me when he saw that I started some of the work.(I know its him because his name and address are actually on the DOB website in the complaint form) DOB shut me down. I paid the fine, and finally got the building permit. However, their system decided to ignor the fact that I paid the fine, and told my plumber that they cannot issue him a permit untill I pay it. I went to the building department myself to sort it out. The clerk at the plumbing dept told me he doesn’t see any problem in the system, to send my plumber back. my plumber went back. Again he was told the same, I didnt pay the fine and they cannot issue him a permit. Again I went back to the building dept myself to sort it out. again they told me it was all good. again my plumber went there and was told he cannot get the permit. Anyways the 4th time, somone finally figured the error and corrected it.
The construction plans:
My examiner approved everything except he decided that because of the estimate of what the renovation would cost, I would have to make the building wheelchair accessible with a ramp. Now, this is a 16 footer. There is no way to do this without tearing down the front steps and the front of the house. Nothing helped he said that’s the new code. The only thing to do was to go to the mayor’s office in manhattan to have it waved. We submitted to the mayor’s office. We waited. We waited. I called the mayors office and spoke to the guy who deal with this and he agreed with me, it would be nuts to demand a wheelchair accessibility ramp, except he said, he has a lot of files to go through and it would take him a month to stamp my application. Never mind what I had to tell him on the phone long story short I went there the next day to collect the stamped waver. Had to wait two weeks for another appointment with my examiner, so he can approve the plans. When the day arrived the examiner was not there and we were told he had taken a personal time off and would not come back for another month. I went to the head examiner and asked him if he could just look at the waver and approve my plans since that was the only objection. The head examiner said this to me:
” I can take a look at your plans if you want but I can’t promise you I wont find other objection. You can choose between that or wait another month for your examiner”
finally my architect got an appointment with the chief. He approved the plans.
There are many more examples of this. They lose applications, misplace paperwork, make many errors in the computer system that prevents you from proceeding, and so on and so on. I guess you should just accept that this will happen and be as philosophical about it as you can be. My architect is.
” Dealing with the building department is a whole other novel, I won’t get into it right now, but you have to have nerves of steel and patience to deal with these people.”
Please do tell!
Very lovely metal doors!
GinoinGreenpoint
11217 i’m not a trash talker on Bstoner, and you know it.
I never said I did not like this guy’s reno job. I simply do not like the know-it-all tone he took in describing his project, and his follow up responses. I did initially read it as an advertisement. I thought ads and self-promotion were banned from the forum? The latest long winded OP post further fuels my opinion. So ok fine, I’m a spacedesign hater.
I’m near the end of doing a gut rehab to a four story brownstone. I understand how trying the project can be. In any event, some of the comments seem very vicious. I would not waste time responding to them personally. It seems like you’ve done a great job with your project. Good luck and hope you enjoy your home.
spacedesign,
Your project looks good. I have a similar brownstone and will be doing something similar. Perhaps I missed it, but in which neighborhood is the project located? I have a few numbers questions, and will contact you directly for that… As for the haters, we all know where they can go!!