Row house renovation in Brooklyn

A row house renovation is a job with a fixed footprint and an unknown condition. The width is set, the depth is set, and the stair is where it has always been. What is not known is what previous owners did inside that envelope.

Floor by floor, or all at once

Doing one floor at a time keeps you in the house and spreads the cost, and it means the noisy phases happen once per floor rather than once. Doing the whole house is faster per square foot and usually means moving out.

We will give you both numbers rather than pushing you toward the larger one.

The garden level

This is where most of the value is and most of the risk. Lower ceilings, less light, and walls that are partly below grade. The order is always the same: establish what is happening with water first, then decide what gets built against the walls.

What we expect to find

Divided and recombined layouts, wiring from several eras, plumbing extended rather than replaced, and joists notched by somebody who needed a pipe to fit. None of that is unusual. What matters is that the scope says which parts we can see and which we cannot, so a discovery is a line item rather than a renegotiation.

What drives the cost

How many floors, whether the layout changes, what is found once walls are open, whether the garden level is included, and the finishes.

Questions people ask