Now What?

Written by Jaqui Lividini

Our bid was accepted and the former owner moved out – it was time to take off my rose-colored glasses and face the reality of this apartment that I now owned. Again, to use a dating metaphor, the courtship was over and we were now in a committed relationship, we had to figure out how to make this work. Before purchasing the apartment, I had come up with a vision and a plan of attack – now it was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

The apartment had not been renovated since the late seventies/early eighties so the first thing on the list was demolition. I have lived through renovations, and my rule of thumb is if you don’t have to, you absolutely should not. Fortunately, this time around, we didn’t have to.  

The first thing to go was the black marble bathroom off of Calliope’s bedroom. This bathroom was challenged in every way possible — from the mini tublet to the mini sink and the floor to ceiling black marble which only exasperated the unfortunate situation. The living room had 8-ft ceilings, that felt like you were on the set of the movie Being John Malkovich — they too had to go, and quickly! Next up, the filthy stained carpet in the family room, followed by the floor to ceiling mirror that filled an entire wall in Calliope’s bedroom – and we haven’t even gotten to the hardwood floors (which ultimately had to go twice, but that’s another story for a different blog). The apartment had a home office with a huge built in desk of an unspecified orange wood, when that came out I had the first vision of my new supersized (by NYC standards) closet – that was all the incentive I needed to keep moving forward.   

The apartment was filled with dark finishes, black marble floors, dark stained woodwork, dark wood kitchen cabinets, you get the picture – ick! As you all know, my first instinct is to paint everything white.  My preferences: white stained wood floors, Calcutta and Thassos marble counter tops, vanilla white wood trim, white subway tile, etc. etc.  Our initial plan was to move in having Calliope's bathroom and the kitchen complete and to hold off on the master and lower level bathrooms. That idea lasted about one week – waking up to the sight of all that black marble (and the black acrylic tub), was not what I had envisioned, so, I gave in and had those both demolished as well.

The lesson learned: whatever scope of work you agree to, double it – that goes for the budget too, then you will never be surprised!