North River Renovation Management

10/03/2024

07/19/2022

A study in contractor styles. Click through for story and photos

tl;dr: You get what you pay for

06/16/2021

Old houses are a labor of love! Our staircase was painted dark and gloomy gloss black until pandemic shutdown gave me a project. Many, many, many, many layers of paint peeled, scraped, and sanded later, and I finally have three beautiful oak treads refinished. I think these are original to an old carriage house or stable that predates this as a residence. Now just ten more steps to go! After that, fix the walls, cap the baseboards with new fresh molding, paint the risers and the trim white, and install a new oak stair rail and the stairwell will be bright and inviting again. I figure it will only take another year to complete.


(Yes, gloves and mask throughout stripping and sanding, because this is 100+ years of toxic finishes and lead paint on there!)

03/25/2019

What are your summer plans? Hoping to get that bathroom redone while you're on vacation? Need a kitchen refresh and think you can squeeze it in while the kids are at camp?

⭐️💥⚡️TIME TO START PLANNING!!⚡️💥⭐️

If you want to do work in the summer, now is when you should have your budget worked out and enough of a plan to call contractors for bids.

Contractors' time fills up fast, and the earlier you book them, the smoother your renovation will go!

DM me and I'll help you get started!

03/24/2019

How much do I love open shelving? I think it's a great option in New York, because our kitchens are small, trying to do a lot in a limited space.

Open shelves are a great way to add a focal point to a plain kitchen, with colorful dishes or sparkly glasses. You get easy access to your most used items, and clear sight lines.

But you have to limit their use in a functioning kitchen to a few shelves with nice dishes, and you have to keep it super neat. (You're not going to display the beans and oatmeal out in the open.) And if you cook a lot, like we do, every speck of dust and grease is going to come together to form a sticky sheen on the least-used stuff.

So I say go for it! Just keep the cleaning crew on standby for frequent scrub-downs.

04/02/2018

Love this cottage kitchen I helped design in a house out in Rockaway Beach! Classic look, great functional design, and quite affordable, too. Cabinets, counters and shelving done with IKEA for less than $2,000.

Pro tip: Make sure whatever is in the walls are perfect -- plumbing, electrical, insulation -- before you make the rest look pretty. Otherwise, you could find yourself with a repair that requires ripping out all your hard work to fix. This homeowner took down walls while the cabinets were out in order to put in good insulation, which will save her money and headaches in the long run.

12/04/2017

Check out my just-finished project in Kips Bay, Manhattan. Opening a wall and adding better light and glass cabinets really brighten up this space!

But the process of getting approvals and coordinating a kitchen carpentry team and a floor refinisher with a general contractor took a lot of coordination and time, which is why the homeowners asked for my help. So happy it turned out beautifully!

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11/27/2017

tfw, on the way out the door for the holiday, your honey tells you he opened the medicine cabinet right as he was flushing the toilet, and your expensive cylinder of face serum fell in and disappeared in the swirl, most likely jammed in the P-trap.

Cut to a post-Thanksgiving Saturday spent taking apart the whole toilet to reach the item and un-wedge it, because the flush had become disconcertingly slow. Now we have a fully repaired and rebuilt toilet, with new base bolts, new tank connections, and a new seat. And it only took 3 trips to the hardware store!

03/30/2017

In tight quarters like those in New York City, sometimes you have to ask your neighbors to let you use their property to fix your own. This is what happened to us this month. The neighboring building desperately needs to rebuild their brick roof parapet and repoint their 6-story wall that abuts our property line and overlooks our garden and the back cottage we rent as our home. To do that safely and legally, they needed to cover our entire garden in a scaffolding bridge, to protect us and the property from falling bricks.

The prospect of this sent everyone into a panic: no light, work happening outside our bedroom windows, liability issues if they have to be on the property. So my landladies hired me to represent them as their project manager, and I worked with the owners next door to make sure we were all involved and compensated. Yes, the neighbors had to do this work, but they also had to consider the loss of use of space that it would cause us.

The negotiations and planning took more than 6 months, but now we're all on the same page. We had them remove plants and store them for us, remove the furniture and protect it while they put the scaffolding up, install grow lights to keep the remaining plants alive, and compensate us monetarily for the duration of the use of our space.

No one is immune to the ever-changing landscape that is New York construction. But because I was involved, the project is going smoothly and so far no one (and no property) has been hurt. And because of incentives and our involvement, the inconvenience to us will be minimal and short. Can't wait to see the wall when it's all cleaned up!

03/01/2017

This is a miracle in New York construction. In September 2015, I posted the "before" of this house on Bank Street and Washington Street on Instagram, with the caption "Oh the things I could do with this place." Guess someone else had the same idea, but getting it to this stage in a mere year and a half, while navigating Landmarks, must mean there are some crackerjacks working on this project!

02/08/2017

Fun fact I learned at a lecture about townhouses last night: The Dutch invented the sash window (slides up and down) for their rainy climate. They don't leak like casement windows (swings out).
My clients in Red Hook could have told you that. They are very happy to have their new sash windows in, replacing the seriously leaky casements they'd had for 10 years.

12/01/2016

Though the holidays are on everyone's mind, now is the time you really should start planning that renovation you want to do right after the new year. You need to be ready with your budget, designs, and scope of work ahead of time so you can lock down the best pros before they're booked solid.

Better yet, consider working with a project manager like me to do all that for you. Give me a call or pass my info on to friends who feel overwhelmed by the whole process. That's what I'm here for!