Home Visit: Bringin' It to Brooklyn

I’ve been waiting for these pictures to be uploaded and just finally got some time this morning to get them up and sort through them. We finished 98% of the work on this Brooklyn home earlier this year but have been working on some exterior wiring problems the last few weeks. Regardless, the interior work is completely finished and here’s a look at what we’ve been up to in BK.

Our major areas of focus were the kitchen, the dining room and the basement. The for the basement, we ripped up the floors and laid down new tiles, fixed up the walls and gave it a whole new paint job. There was also extensive cleaning and clearing of old debris before we were able to do all this work, but the result speaks for itself. We also installed a new washer/dryer and ran new lines for them, as well as new wiring and lighting fixtures. 

The kitchen was a complete overhaul. Those are brand new wood cabinets, granite countertops, and tiled floors as well. We helped the customer pick out new appliances, including the stainless steel stove. We did some fixing up on the walls, and then put in a nice tiled backsplash. We also put in some new wiring and lighting fixtures in here. The dishwasher and fridge are new as well, and both are Energy Star certified. Very happy with this.

The dining room has yet to be fully designed, but we put in new cupboard doors, laid down new tile flooring, and fixed-up and repainted the walls. That’s it for now but we’ll be posting some finished jobs next week, one of which is a follow-up from the “before” pictures I posted a few weeks ago.  

Home Visit: Victory Lap in Baldwin, Long Island

Back in late February, I posted some shots of a house out in Nassau that we were finishing up. Well, the job is done and here is the finished project. Just as a reminder, this was a huge renovation of a dining room, kitchen and bathroom, including installation of new electrical and plumbing fixtures in all three rooms. And, for the record, the family we were working for were ecstatic with the results. I'm particularly proud of the creamsicle-orange paint job in the dining room and the tile work in the bathroom. More important is what you readers think.

Those, obviously, are photos from the new kitchen with brand-new-spankin' cabinets and beautiful new granite countertops. Below, you'll see the completed tile work and bowl sink that we installed in the bathroom. I'm also particularly fond of the shower head we installed and the light fixture above the mirror. We have since moved onto the project I posted about last week, which will likely be finished next week.

Room for Ideas: Jasmine's Seuss-inspired Bedroom

Our office manager, Jasmine, has been redoing her 18-month-old son's bedroom and been giving us weekly updates on the project. Earlier this week, she was nice enough to show us the remarkable job she did, decorating the walls with characters and creations from the works of Dr. Seuss, including The Cat in the Hat, The Grinch and Green Eggs & Ham. We liked the end product so much that we decided to share the pictures here as well, giving out a little creative inspiration before Easter weekend. Isn't Shel Silverstein overdue for some wall space somewhere?

Before & After: Rockin' the Rockaways - Part 2

Last week, we took a look at the basement and bedrooms of the East Rockaway house we've been working on for the last two months. Clearing out the basement was more like an archaeological dig than a gutting, and the upstairs, as evidenced by the bedrooms, was not much better. Today, we're looking at the kitchen and bathroom which were perhaps even worse than the bedrooms when we arrived.

Would you take a look at that ceiling? The upstairs bathroom sits right on top of the downstairs kitchen and the cement from the upstairs has been weighing down on the wooden joists that are, as you can see, rotted almost entirely through. We've been replacing the joists before we completely redo the ceiling. You'll also see the rusty, rotted aftermath of removing the aged oven and cabinets. We're currently putting in new cabinets, appliances and a beautiful new sink, along with some stylish countertops that the client picked out.

Speaking of rotting away: the bathroom floors are getting a total overhaul, due largely to the fact that walking on the current floor makes every trip to the bathroom like that scene in any adventure movie when the hero is walking across a rickety rope bridge.  But, as you can see, the floors are certainly not the only trouble here. The fixtures are way overdue for replacement and the pipes needed to be replaced with PVC. Patch-up and paint work is getting underway, after some extensive retiling and grouting. We also took out the old toilet and but a completely new unit in, seeing as I wouldn't be surprised if alligators swam out of the current one. I'll post pictures of the revamped place once we've completed; prepare to be wowed.