Renovations

At long last, the renovations are done, and we’ve combined apartments (just in time to sell before we relocate to Cleveland). The main delay was paperwork: months waiting for papers from the architect, getting approval and signatures from the management company and co-op board, getting the final stamps from the Department of Buildings. I’m sure various papers sat on people’s desks for weeks at a time before being passed on. I’m responsible for a couple of weeks here and there, in part by misinterpreting an instruction and also defering things over the holidays. Mainly, I didn’t push the architect hard enough to get things back to me. (When I was chatting with the management company agent about the paperwork for renovations a couple of weeks ago, he asked me who my expeditor was. Expeditor? You can pay someone to call the architect and Department of Buildings? The agent nodded.)

The actual demolition and construction took about eight workdays, with a few of the workdays used waiting for the plumber or electrician or the floor guy to come in a do his thing. The contractor was great, working quickly and neatly; there was little dust that got past the plastic walls they put up.

Here are some photos of the process. We still have to figure out where all the stuff should go in the combined space, since we no longer have walls against which to stack up boxes:

The washer/dryer (a Frigidaire) was delivered today. The electrician has to come in and set up a 240V outlet, and the plumber has to hook everything up, but this should be fairly minor stuff. Earlier in the day, we did our last loads in the buildings laundry room. In-apartment laundry is just a good thing to have.

One Response to “Renovations”

  1. rbw Says:

    really interesting stuff– my husband and i are thinking of buying a place that was combined, but hte permits with the DoB are still “open”, so we’re a little wary– how long did it take you to close your permits?