How we started
A carpenter who decided the drawings were the problem
Marco Ferraro spent fifteen years building other people's designs before starting this firm in 1998. What pushed him into it was watching the same failure repeat: a beautiful drawing that could not be built, discovered in week three, with the client paying for the discovery.
So we design and build under one roof, and the design begins with a measured survey rather than an idea. It is slower at the beginning and it is why our prices do not move afterwards. It also means there is nobody to blame when something does not line up — which concentrates the mind considerably.
The material library came later, and then the partner houses, for the same reason: clients kept finishing a beautiful renovation and then furnishing it badly, eight months later, in a hurry. Now the room and the things in it get decided together.
Every project we build carries a written workmanship warranty on top of whatever the cabinetry, stone and appliances carry themselves, and it is handed over on paper at the end of the job rather than promised on the phone at the start.
By the numbers
Twenty-five years, in four figures
- 25+
- years remodeling homes and offices in Queens
- 1,900+
- kitchens, baths and whole-home projects
- 12
- design and furniture houses we specify and install
- 9
- languages spoken in the studio and on site
How we work
Four commitments, and what they cost us
A fixed price, and a drawing set you actually own
You get measured drawings, elevations, a finish schedule and one number before demolition day — not an allowance-riddled estimate that discovers a second budget halfway through. The drawings are yours whether or not you build with us.
Our own carpenters, on our own payroll
The people in your apartment are employees who have worked together for years. The same foreman is there on day one and on handover day, and you have his number rather than a dispatcher's.
A material library, not a catalogue
Our studio on Skillman Avenue holds real stone, veneer, tile and cloth you can carry to the window. We specify and install for twelve design and furniture houses, several of them fashion houses with interiors divisions, so the kitchen and the furniture in it can finally be decided in one conversation.
Licensed, insured, permitted and warranted on paper
We file the permits, we prepare the co-op or condo alteration package, we carry the insurance the building demands, and the workmanship warranty is a document handed to you at the end — not a sentence said to you at the beginning.
Working in occupied buildings
The part of this trade that decides your reputation
Most of our work happens in buildings where eleven other households did not choose to have a renovation going on near them. How a firm behaves in that corridor is the whole difference between being invited back into a building and being quietly blacklisted by a managing agent.
- A sealed dust barrier with negative-pressure filtration at the apartment door, not sheeting taped to a frame.
- Common parts and the service elevator protected before the first delivery, inspected with the superintendent.
- Deliveries booked into the elevator window — nothing is ever left standing in a lobby.
- The corridor outside your door cleaned at the end of every working day, whether or not anything visible happened in it.
- Cutting and coring only within the building's permitted hours, with the loudest work front-loaded.
- A letter to the affected apartments before we start, with dates, hours and a number to call.
The last one matters more than it sounds. Most complaints in a building come from surprise rather than from noise, and a letter costs nothing.
Credentials
Licensed, insured, and happy to prove it
Licensed home improvement contractor
We are a licensed home improvement contractor, we carry general liability and workers' compensation, and a certificate of insurance naming your building, board or managing agent goes out the same day it is asked for. Where the work needs a permit, an alteration agreement or a landmark review, we file for it and see it through to sign-off rather than leaving an unpermitted renovation to surface at the closing table years later.
General liability and workers' compensation
Certificates issued to your building, board or managing agent the same day they are requested, with additional insureds named at the limits your alteration agreement specifies. For repeat buildings they are already on file.
Permits and building approvals
Where the work requires a permit, an alteration agreement or a landmark review we prepare it, lodge it and see it through to sign-off, rather than leaving unpermitted work for the next owner's attorney to find.
Our own carpenters and cabinetry studio
The joinery is drawn, made and installed by the same firm, so a wall that turns out to bow by nine millimetres is an adjustment rather than an argument between a supplier and a fitter.
Written workmanship warranty
On top of whatever the cabinetry, stone, appliances and furniture carry themselves, handed over as a document at handover with the full drawing set, the finish schedule and the furniture schedule.
The people
Six of us you will actually meet
Not a stock photograph of a call centre. These are the people who answer the phone, draw the plans, run the site and hand you the keys.
Free survey, written quote, fixed price
Book a free measured survey
Tell us the room, the building and roughly what you are hoping to spend, and we will tell you honestly whether those three things are in the same place. The survey and the written quote are free, and the Design Study fee is credited in full against a build contract.