I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to renovate an apartment in Manhattan by yourself. Those of us in The Rest of the United States (which, I think, describes about 99.75% of the U.S. population) have fewer problems and greater freedoms when it comes to remodeling. After all, home renovation is a hard enough job--why make it even harder?
This is a great story of a couple living in the Chelsea section of New York who renovated their 400 ft.˛ apartment by themselves. Mark Robohm and Stephanie Doucette renovated their apartment over the course of a year and a half, during which Mark lived in the apartment and Stephanie, wisely enough, lived elsewhere.
“Ever see ‘Papillon,’ where they break out of prison?” Mr. Robohm said. “Or maybe it was ‘The Shawshank Redemption’? They cut holes in their pockets and they dribble gravel, a little bit at a time. It was kind of like that. I paid to get the bulk of it taken out, but there was a tree on the street that didn’t have a flower bed. Now it has a nice brick wall where somebody put one in.” Mr. Robohm laughs, which he does a lot when he discusses his project.It's like you still have the same problems and annoyances of home renovation...but within the tight confines of the city all of those problems and annoyances are magnified by 1000. Out in the sticks, what do you do when you need to get rid of demolition material? Well, you toss it in your Ford F-250 and drive out to the city dump. Time cost: one hour. Monetary cost: 10 bucks. But living in Manhattan, you need to have someone else come and pick up the demolition material. Even if you wanted to rent a dumpster, there is no way you could ever gets authorization to park it on the street.
It does help to be creative. In the audio slide show, Mark relates how he had a restaurant supply company in Chinatown fabricate a kitchen sink-counter out of stainless steel. The company warned him that the fixture would not be of "residential quality," but I think the thing looks pretty good and so does Mark.
All in all, the entire home renovation cost Mark and Stephanie $11,600--a pretty good deal anywhere. Some advice from Mark:
- Recycle Building Supplies
- Check Out the Hardware Store, Yard Sales And E-Bay
- Cheap Substitutes Aren’t Always Ugly
- Vacuuming a Pillow for Months Can Wear a Man Down
- Some Costs You Can’t Get Around
If you want to know what all that means (especially the part about vacuuming your pillow!), read the article.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
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