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The costliest renovation mistakes in a New York apartment are not construction errors. They are design decisions that seemed sensible, were built exactly as drawn and then worked against the apartment, either in daily life or on the day it went up for sale. A style you admired somewhere else is not always right for the space you have. Here are five mistakes we see, and what to do instead.
Removing the only bathtub
This matters only when the apartment has one tub. Trading it for a large walk-in shower is tempting, and it takes the apartment off the list of every buyer with small children, because a home without a bathtub does not appeal to families.
There is a middle way. Take down the shower curtain and put glass doors on the tub. You get much of the open look of a walk-in shower and keep the tub. In an apartment with two bathrooms the usual answer is one of each.
Modern flooring in a pre-war apartment
People who look at pre-war apartments expect pre-war floors. When the oak or maple is replaced with pre-finished or engineered boards, or with stone or tile in the living rooms, the apartment loses part of what buyers came for, and that can lower its value.
First find out whether the old floor can be saved. Solid wood can often be sanded and refinished, and the Department of Buildings lists resurfacing floors among the work that needs no permit. If the boards are past saving, replace them with the same wood or one close to it.
Eliminating closets
Storage is hard enough to find in a New York apartment. Removing a closet to make a room a little larger feels like a gain while you live there and reads as a loss to the next buyer, who will be counting closets. If you have few to begin with, think again.
The better move is usually to make the closets you have hold more. A fitted interior with double hanging, drawers and shelves to the ceiling holds far more than a single rod and a shelf. That is the subject of our page on custom storage and closets.
Tile that is out of scale
A tile that looked right in a display bathroom at a home center may not suit your apartment, especially if the display was sized for a suburban house. Bring samples home and lay them on the floor of the room, so you can judge size and proportion where the tile will go. Do it before you order. Tile of the wrong size is a costly and messy error to correct once it is set.
Turning two bedrooms into one
This is among the most common renovation mistakes in the city. Taking down a wall to make one generous room out of two sounds like a fine idea, and from that day the apartment is a one-bedroom. It will be listed as one, fewer buyers will consider it and the asking price will reflect it.
You can put the wall back before you sell, but plan for that now. A room has to meet the building code to count. As a general rule, with a few exceptions, the city’s current code requires a habitable room to have at least 80 square feet of floor area, to measure at least 8 feet in each direction, and to have natural ventilation through its own windows or glazed doors (NYC Building Code, Chapter 12). Design the opening so that a future wall leaves two rooms that still qualify. And remember that removing a wall is not a private decision. It needs the building’s consent and, in most cases, a filing with the Department of Buildings.
The mistake behind all five
Each of these begins the same way: an idea is settled before anyone who builds for a living has looked at it. Talk to every professional involved in the project and ask whether the idea truly fits the space. Running a plan past your contractor gives the contractor the chance to point out problems while they are still lines on paper. We will go over every step of the process with you, and we would rather talk you out of a mistake than build it well.
For the full process, see apartment renovation in NYC and, for the bathroom decisions above, bathroom renovation in NYC. If your building is a co-op, read what you need to know before renovating a NYC co-op before you draw anything.
Have a plan you are not sure about? Show it to us before it is final. It is your apartment, and we want it to be right.
Questions people ask
Does removing a bathtub hurt resale value in New York City?
It can, if it is the only tub in the apartment. A home without a bathtub does not appeal to families, so the pool of buyers shrinks. Glass doors on the existing tub give a similar look and keep the tub.
What makes a room count as a bedroom in New York City?
As a general rule, the city’s current building code requires a habitable room to have at least 80 square feet of floor area, to measure at least 8 feet in each direction and to have natural ventilation through its own windows or glazed doors. The code has a few exceptions, so have an architect confirm a particular room.