Please do not open up structure or services yourself. Removing a wall, cutting into a header, or opening plumbing, gas or electrical work is not a job to start on the strength of a website. In a pre-war Queens building, walls that look like partitions frequently carry load, and old wiring is often ungrounded. Work of this kind needs a licensed contractor, and in most cases a permit, a structural engineer and your building's written consent. Never assume a circuit is dead, and never treat general guidance on this page as a substitute for somebody qualified looking at your own building.
Step by step
Seven things to do first
In this order. The first two are the ones people skip, and they are the two that decide whether the rest of it goes well.
Decide the budget before you decide the kitchen
Work out what you are willing to spend in total, then subtract fifteen per cent and treat that as the construction number. The remainder covers the things nobody puts in a spreadsheet — furniture, window treatments, moving and storage, and the wall the survey has not found yet.
Find out what your building actually requires
Ask your managing agent for the alteration agreement and the building rules before you speak to any contractor. How often the board meets, which months work is prohibited, and whether the building requires its own engineer's review will decide your start date far more than a contractor's availability does.
Photograph and measure what you have
Photographs of every wall, the ceiling, the existing plumbing and the electrical panel, plus rough room dimensions. It lets a designer tell you something useful on the first call instead of on the third.
Collect the things you like, and the things you hate
Twenty images of rooms you love are useful. Five images of rooms you dislike are more useful. Bring both — the second set is what stops a designer walking you towards something you will quietly resent.
Ask every bidder the same four questions
Is this price fixed or an estimate? What happens if you open a wall and find something? Who is on site every day, and is that person your employee? What exactly do I get at handover? Contractors who dislike these questions are telling you something useful.
Plan where you will live, and where things will go
A kitchen remodel means eating out or setting up a temporary kitchen for two to three months. A whole-home project means moving out. Decide this early — it is a real cost and it belongs in the budget rather than in a nasty surprise in week four.
Order nothing yourself until the drawings are final
The single most expensive mistake we see is a client who bought a beautiful vanity, sink or range before the layout was fixed. It never quite fits, it cannot be returned, and the room gets redesigned around it. Choose it early, order it late.
The one nobody wants to hear
Take fifteen per cent off your budget before you spend any of it
Whatever number you have in mind, treat eighty-five per cent of it as the construction budget. The rest is not contingency for disasters — it is the ordinary, entirely predictable cost of the things that never appear in a builder's quote.
Furniture, window treatments, lighting you will want to change, the moving and the storage, eating out for ten weeks while there is no kitchen, and the one wall that turns out to be hiding something. Every one of those is real, none of them is anybody's fault, and a household that has planned for them finishes a renovation in a good mood.
- Construction, at eighty-five per cent of the total you are willing to spend.
- Furniture and window treatments, which routinely run to a fifth of the construction cost.
- Moving and storing a household — typically $4,000 to $9,000 for a whole home.
- Living costs while a kitchen is out, for two to three months.
- A genuine contingency inside the construction number for what a wall is hiding.
Comparing bids
Four questions to ask every contractor, including us
Ask all four of every bidder, and write the answers down. The range between three quotes usually collapses once you know which of them are describing the same job.
Is this a fixed price, or an estimate with allowances?
An allowance is a placeholder for something you have not chosen yet. It makes a quote look cheaper and the final invoice unpredictable. A fixed price against a finish schedule where everything is specified is the only number you can genuinely compare against another.
What happens if you open a wall and find something?
The right answer names the likely findings and prices them in advance — old wiring, dead pipework, a floor out of level, a missing header. The wrong answer is a reassurance that it probably will not happen. In a building from the twenties, it will.
Who is on site every day, and do they work for you?
You want a named foreman who is an employee, present daily, whose number you have. A project run by a manager who visits twice a week and coordinates six unrelated subcontractors is where most schedule failures live.
What exactly do I get at handover?
A workmanship warranty as a document, the full drawing set, the finish schedule, appliance and material documentation, and any permit sign-off. If a contractor cannot list this quickly, it is because they do not usually produce it.
Warning signs
The things that should give you pause
A price given without a survey
Nobody can price a renovation from photographs and a description. A number produced that way is either padded to cover the unknowns or it is going to grow.
A large deposit up front
A reasonable deposit covers mobilisation and long-lead ordering. A demand for a third or half of the contract value before anything happens is a cash-flow problem being transferred to you.
Pressure to decide this week
A discount that expires is a sales technique, not a price. Good contractors in this borough are booked three to five months out and have no reason to rush you.
Reluctance to put things in writing
Anything genuinely agreed can be written down. A contractor who prefers to keep the scope conversational is preserving room to argue about it later.
No licence, no insurance certificate, or vagueness about either
Ask for the licence number and a certificate of insurance naming your building. Both are ordinary requests and take a day to satisfy. Hesitation here is disqualifying, and in a co-op it is fatal anyway.
A quote that is far below the others
Occasionally it is efficiency. Far more often something is missing from the scope, and you will meet it later as a change order at a moment when you have no leverage.
No charge, no obligation
Start with a survey and an honest conversation
Bring your photographs, your building's alteration agreement and a rough budget. We will tell you on the first call whether what you want and what you are willing to spend are in the same place.