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/
looks fantastic. don’t let other haters get you down. you did what you wanted and that is what counts!
dude, if you put a reno up for public inspection, there are gonna be people who don’t like it. That’s par for the course. You’re comment at 12:37 is nastier than needs be also.
I have a couple of questions. The glass doors, are they double pane or otherwise insulated?
And did you build that concrete wall in the backyard?
Accessibility and visibility — that is the name of the game when it comes to the proper shelving of products. The best shelving allows customers to properly view all products and gives easy access to anything they would potentially want to buy. If a business utilizes various shelving methods properly, the way products are displayed should actually work for the business, enticing consumers to buy.
The main factor to consider when putting up shelving is making sure that products are displayed in a manner that makes their presence known to customers. As products come in all shapes and sizes, proper store shelving should change given the type of product. For example, a product that needs to be hung most likely won’t sell as well if laying flat on a shelf. As opposed to a flat shelf, one may consider utilizing a slatwall to display hanging products.
http://www.asiadisplays.com
correction:
by ‘you and your kind’ I specifically meant ‘bowl of dicks’ and ‘CMU’.
The rest of the comments and emails I got were constructive and I will be happy to answer any more questions, again through email . Thank you and once again, good luck with your homes.
bowl of dicks (name says it all doesn’t it)
1. I didn’t want a deck to go up and down on. its nice to just walk back and forth.
2. I soundproofed the whole house. I have three layers on sound and energy insulation and suspended ceiling I don’t have problems with noise at all.
3. “Aren’t you special!”
Why does it bother you so that someone likes my doors so much? what eats you inside, what miserable life you must have had that you have to post comments like that?
4. To everyone else on Brownstoner:
I posted this renovation to share some hard work and experiences with the people on this site that were helpful to me at the time I was starting out this project, and I wanted to give something back. I thought someone might benefit from this, get ideas or just appreciate me sharing my house with them.
I don’t expect everyone to have the same taste or choices, and you might have done things differently, but you and your kind, with your remarks are just plane nasty. I hope there are some people out here that liked it. I will no longer comment here on this post. If anyone wants recommendations, or wants to ask anything constructive, please email me on the contact link on the website I posted.
I wish you all good luck with your projects.
That red oak is amazingly flawless! Nice job. And kudos to you for coming up with that door design. You missed your calling! Good point about the height of the oven…if you cook a lot, bending does get tiresome. I suppose it’s just the angle of the pic that makes it look super high up. I hope you repost pics of the kitchen if you decide to put in an island. I think it would look spectacular, especially with a marble top.
Agree with CMU on this one.
“Also in some weird common sense of mine, it makes sense to have the bedroom upstairs back of the house, away from the front room, with sound insulation around the house so that its nice and quiet”
Actually this makes no sense at all since presumably you have tenants above you on the second floor so the logical place would be to put the sleeping quarters in the basement and the living spaces on the parlor so there is some kind of buffer there.
RE: kitchen / garden / entertaining……..hello, it’s called deck.
“I drew the doors myself and had them made. The ironsmith liked them so much he charged me a lot less and used them for his portfolio”
Aren’t you special!
InsertSnappyNameHere :
the floors are 100 percent hardwood, red oak. I had a really amazing floor guy who installed, stained and finished it.
His name is James Daniels from Daniels Constructions. You can give him a call and tell him I sent you if you like:
917-945-2216
best of luck with your renovation.