Before and After Townhouse Renovations

What to Know Before and After Townhouse Renovations

Can you customize a townhouse? Yes, you absolutely can! We have taken a twenty-room townhouse from its original shape and made it into a single-family home. Also, we’ve converted a townhouse that housed eight families into homes for four families.

If you want to customize a townhouse entirely, we can redesign the entire layout, add custom cabinetry or spacious closets, or add an elevator, a wine cellar, a media room, more bathrooms, or change bedrooms.

The first thing to do—even before you find the townhouse—is to bring in a good architect like H2 Architects. We will serve as a valuable resource from the site inspection to the final interior design. Before you begin, we make sure you are comfortable with the location, the neighbors, and the general bones of the house. We discuss how much you are willing to spend and gain a sense of your timeline. Consider if you are going to keep two mortgages going during constructions or rent a space to live.

The schematic design is the first phase of the architectural process. From this early phase, we are making the floor plan that transforms your ideas into the practical drawings that will drive the project. This is the stage where we take your concepts from the abstract into what’s actually possible from a building regulation and construction point of view. This can show the location of the furniture in the different rooms. As for the kitchen and dining area, if you say you entertain every week, we ask how many people you like to seat. Maybe it’s just you and your family, so we allocate a smaller amount of dining area to suit your family’s needs. When it comes to the kitchen, we determine how many appliances you need and where they will fit. If you need extra space for storage and a pantry, we add that into the design. We draw up your laundry room and find a place for your washer and dryer, plus all the other items you need for general living are put in place.

Our plans can be as detailed as you like. The living room plan, for example, can show the space, the furniture placement, and even the colors and fabrics if you like.

A thorough remodel takes everything in the building into consideration. Just about everything is improved—even the outside of the building. One project we worked on involved an unattractive exterior. The painted brick façade and fire escape had absolutely no appeal. The decision was made to remove the front of the building off and rebuild it from scratch. It looks like an entirely new building.

Other renovations can be quite thorough without changing the exterior of the building. 

Is it cheaper to remodel, tear down and rebuild, or buy new?

Relative costs depend on so many factors. How do you know which option is right for you?

As for rebuilding, most people buy a townhouse because they like the look. There are already a lot of elements in place that they want to preserve, at least from the outside, so they are not interested in tearing it down. As elaborate as the renovation inside may be, the building won’t change that much from the outside.

Just imagine yourself scanning an Upper West Side row of townhouses stretching down the street. This home will fit in and look lovely in the streetscape. Then picture your eye stopping at a new, contemporary structure that, in this case, does not fit in. Maybe it was cheaper for the owner to tear it down, but the resulting townhouse can look to be of inferior quality.  

On occasion, it is cheaper and easier to tear a building down, but it might not be better. In one case, we changed the height of every floor. The codes and zoning laws had changed from the time it was originally built to today. This made it more advantageous to work within the existing framework, since tearing down the building would have meant having to build a smaller building. Our work also included putting up a new eye-catching facade. Even though it does not match the original style from when it was first built, it exudes style, quality, and luxury that enhance the building and the neighborhood.

If you’re thinking about buying a remodeled townhome, know you are going to pay top dollar for it. You are paying for the time and money and work that someone else put into it. It  may be in excellent condition, but you are purchasing someone else’s choices and typically a handsome profit on top of that. Ultimately, you may not like the layout or the finishes or other aspects of the design.

In general, if you’re willing to go through the time and effort it takes to get exactly what you want, it’s cheaper to remodel.

But remodeling takes more time and stamina. We help our clients understand the remodeling process and what to expect. We brace them for the inevitable changes that will come up during construction. And we help them choose long-lasting materials, color and design schemes, and the builders and tradespeople that can bring the design to life.

Renovating an old house is worth it for you if you like the neighborhood, find the taxes acceptable, and you can get what you would look for in a new home. 

What kinds of results can I expect after townhouse renovation?

Your townhouse can be your own little oasis within New York City. It will afford you peace of mind and the privacy you’ll never find in apartment or condo where neighbors listen in from above, below, and beside you.

If you pick the right property in a neighborhood you like; if you have selected the right team to work with; and if you have taken care with your design, your budget, and your timing, you should end with a final townhouse you really like.

You have added beauty, functionality, and value to the property. In the end, you can benefit by passing along all the expenses to the future homeowners. Plus, when you take an old eyesore and fix it up, you brighten up the view for all your neighbor while also increasing the resale value of their homes.