The first thing that was rejected was the energy review. Our architect did this complex analysis using a web-based program provided by the federal government where you enter all the characteristics of the building including wall types, window types, light fixtures, etc. and it confirms compliance with the 2010 standards that are in effect for New York State. But the plan examiner rejected it because NYC is still on 2007 energy standards and the 2010 standards aren’t being phased in until later this year. They literally told us to come back in 24 days, on July 1, since they’ll accept our architect’s energy analysis on that date. So we got rejected for showing compliance with a more demanding standard that they’re going to use in less than a month. Go figure.

Second major item was the sprinkler system (again). This time the plan examiner wanted documentation that there was sufficient pressure in the water main to support the sprinklers being on the domestic water supply despite the fact that the code specifically states that sprinkler systems with 30 or fewer heads can feed off the domestic water supply. He also wanted all the pipe sizes and sprinkler heads specified, but that’s typically done when the sprinkler system is certified - it doesn’t need to be done at this point and requiring it now is just being difficult.

The biggest issue that he raised is that he’s insisting we do a pressure test on the water main to do the calculations to determine the sizes of pipes that are required for the sprinkler system. It takes 4 to 6 weeks to get DEP to do a flow test, so that means we can’t go in for a plan review until that’s done. Again, the flow test is typically done after DOB approves the overall plan - he’s just being obstructionist IMHO.

At one point the plan examiner insisted that we needed 2 hour fire rated walls around the stairwell, not 1 hour walls. Our expediter stuck to his guns and then it took the plan examiner 10 minutes of searching the code to realize we were right and he was wrong. Why do they have people doing plan exams who don’t know the code? If the code is just horribly complicated then why not have plan examiners specialize in certain building types? If we had someone who really knew the code issues for townhouses then maybe they’d know the code well enough to do their job properly.

Then the plan examiner was telling our expediter that he saw errors in the “I-Cards” for the building. I-Cards were the predecessor to Certificates of Occupancy, which came out in 1938. So in other words, he was holding us responsible for errors previous building owners made dating back to 1938 or before. I mean please… The whole point of our rehabbing the building is to bring it up to code and get a C of O. How can inaccuracies on the old I-Cards matter when the point of the exercise is to make them obsolete by getting a C of O?

Next time Dan and I will go to the plan review to prove the point that we’re not some nefarious slumlord trying to build a crappy substandard building. We’re just regular guys. Plus, with the enormous workload that DOB is under right now I just don’t understand how it’s productive for them to keep having us come back over and over again for stupid little things.

Now imagine if we were trying to purchase the place with a rehab loan and needed to get approved plans to close the loan. Obstructions like this can really hamper redevelopment of blighted buildings - for no good reason because they can tank deals. And it’s the reason why it can take FOREVER to close when the buyer needs financing to purchase. I’m sure more than a few deals have gone bad because DOB took too long and the contracts expired.

On Good Friday we headed over to the A&D building to do two things - 1) try to get inspiration and ideas for what we can and should be doing in terms of finishing details, and 2) to understand the price points. We started at Poliform since our old kitchen had been a Poliform kitchen. The Poliform showroom is now massive - takes up a whole floor - but everything was being ripped out and redone in preparation for a May relaunch of their showroom just before ICFF. Long story short Poliform blew us off and told us a few days later that they weren’t going to bother to do a proposal for us because they expected prices to fluctuate before we would be buying (a completely lame excuse, IMHO).

We stopped at a number of other kitchen places but our favorite was Eggersmann - a German company that’s only just started selling in the US. Their stuff was INCREDIBLE (take a look at their website), and the sales person who was helping us was not only nice and helpful, but she also knew her product backwards and forwards and so she was extremely informative. And kudos to them for being the first ones to get back to us with a proposal. And the proposal wasn’t just a sales sheet - there was a whole 3D mockup… These guys are GOOD!

Here’s what they came up with - realize this is just a first draft…

The ceiling height is wrong - it’s 10 1/2 feet and they don’t show the stairs and the doors will have glass panels in them, but it’s great first shot…

As they should, the renderings got us wondering about the layout of our kitchen. For starters, notice the similarity of the layout with our old kitchen…

Both have a tall vertical (the fridge) to the left, then the range in the center and the sink off to the left. As much as we loved our old kitchen, we want something new… To that end we’re thinking the sink or possibly a cooktop could go in the island to change things up.

The first rendering also made us realize that we don’t really want the closet right inside the front door. It makes the space too narrow. So we’re going to move it down where it’s opposite the stairs and then put a long bench across from the kitchen and narrow the island and remove the stools. That will give a wider walkway with a lot more shoulder room, but we’ll still have a place to sit to put on and take off  our shoes and a place guests can hang out while Dan’s making dinner.

Unfortunately, while we love Eggersmann, we may not be able to afford them. The price they came back with was double what we paid for our Poliform kitchen 5 years ago. Even if we cut back on how much they do (not do the entry closet, etc.) their price may still not fit into our budget - we’ll see… But if you’re doing a renovation and like a modernist aesthetic, we highly recommend them - their stuff is possibly the best we’ve seen.

We’re also having Siematic spec a “lower end” kitchen (by their standards). If that doesn’t come in at a price we can afford and we can’t afford Eggermann then we’ll probably give up doing a European modular system and go with a “custom kitchen”. The problem is local craftsman don’t have the same abilities as the European factories. That means we have to be careful to design the kitchen in a way they can execute properly. That’s a lot more work for us, but it is what it is…

Our place is a 5 story townhouse that’s a narrow(ish) 15′ in width. It’s attached to sibling townhouse to the east (to the left as you look at the front of the building), but there’s an alleyway to the west between it and the apartment building next to it. The windows look off center because one sidewall is shared (and hence our portion of that wall is narrower which throws off the symmetry).

We’re still working on the window situation. What’s drawn is a casement window over a fixed pane transom. We need to do some measurements this weekend, but it may turn out that only double hung windows fit the current window openings since they’re wider than 3 feet. If we’re going to do casements in the front we have to make sure they’re in before the block is landmarked - apparently there are people who want to do it and there’s even a meeting about it tonight. Landmarking will help the value, but restrict what we can do in terms of development including what windows we can put on the front façade. Just for reference, the window next to the front door is huge - 4 1/2′ wide by 7 1/2′ tall! The window next to the door in the back (parlor floor) is 3 1/2′ wide by 8′ tall. We’ll may have to narrow the back windows to 3′ since that’s the maximum width for casement windows before you get into expensive custom “architectural” windows. We could also do double hung windows back there, but I’d really rather have casements.

The back side is south facing, so tons of light. The front faces north.

One thing that we loved as we were looking at townhouses was the quality of the light as you went up in the building and got light from the skylight. We’re not actually doing a skylight, instead we’re doing a bulkhead with south facing windows - just as you see in a lot of European factories. This should improve the quality of the light since it will reduce the light at noon in the summer when the sun is high in the sky, and increase the light in the winter when the sun is lower on the horizon. We’re devoting an bigger area than normal to the stairs and wrapping them around a “light well” which will bring the wonderful light down deeper into the building.

As you can see in the section view the house is basically a 6 bedroom owner’s unit over a 1 bedroom rental unit that has “accessory space” in the cellar. It may seem odd to have a 6 bedroom place in Manhattan, but if you think about a family with three kids - that’s three bedrooms for the kids + a master bedroom for the parents + a home office + a playroom/lounge for the kids. Even at 2 kids it makes sense - then they’d have a spare bedroom for guests.

Most townhouses are 4 floor buildings. We’re lucky to have a 5th floor. Dan’s a sculptor who’s never had enough space to do his work. One of our objectives in getting a townhouse was to give him space to do his art in a place where he could make as much noise as he wanted to (apartment buildings have lots of rules about noise). Initially he thought he’d take the cellar for art, but when this building had a 5th floor we decided to give it all to him for his art. In the back he’ll have a “dirty studio” which can get as messy as he wants. In the front will be his “clean studio”, and gallery space (if he can get people to walk up all those flights to look at the art). The dirty studio faces south so it will have tons of light and the gallery will get flooded with light from the bulkhead windows. However, FDNY may make us put a wall up between the stairs and the studio since it’s a bit of a fire hazard to have an open room at the top of a stairwell since fire spreads vertically. If that happens we’ll put a big window in the wall. In the middle will be a “utility room” that can easily be converted to another bathroom. It will have a slop sink, a small kitchenette, and some storage. The ceiling height on this floor will go gradually up and taper with the slope of the roof. In the back it will probably be about 8′, and in the front more like 9′.

One floor down will be my office. The fact that I’ve been self-employed for 9 years now (and for 3 years in the early 90s) is another reason why we needed more space. I need a proper office and that’s what will be in the front of the 3rd floor. Any street noise there might be won’t bother the office, unlike the guest bedroom which we’ve put in the back of the building. In the middle is a bathroom with an attached laundry room with a stacked washer/dryer. There will be exposed brick along the wall with the hallway. The other three walls will be insulated and sheetrocked since they’re exposed exterior walls. The ceilings are a nice 9′ high on this floor.

The next floor down is the floor just over the parlor and is traditionally called the “master/mistress floor” because the husband would have a bedroom in the front, and the wife a bedroom in rear and in the middle would be connecting dressing rooms. That let each spouse have a separate bedroom, but let them discretely go between the rooms as they desired.

We’ll have our master bedroom in the rear and a 2nd guest bedroom / den in the front. Since there wasn’t room for a second bathroom on the floor we’re putting in a pocket door so we can share our master bathroom if we have a lot of guests. The bathroom is smaller than some might want, but it’s plenty big for us. We opted to have a bigger master bedroom and a smaller master bath. I should mention that each of the bedrooms has about 10′ of closets - which we’ll really enjoy. There is a wood burning fireplace shown on the plans. It doesn’t use the existing chimney (which is on the opposite wall). It was just easier to put in a new fireplace and a new chimney. However, chances are the fireplaces will get cut due to a tight budget. But they’re something that can be done almost as easily at a later date.  The ceilings are a whopping 10′ on this floor.

The parlor floor is always the most grand floor in a townhouse. Ours has 10 1/2′ ceilings, though we’re considering raising the floor 6″ (which would lower the ceiling height) to give more ceiling height in the apartment on the floor below. Historically the kitchens were a floor below and they had servants that would bring the food up. There would have been a sitting room in the front, a dining room in the middle and a living room in the rear. In most modern layouts the living room is in the front, the kitchen in the rear and the dining room in the middle. We’re changing that around and putting the kitchen in the front because we want the living room in the rear where it’s quieter, more private, and more connected to the living space in the back yard. Ultimately we’re going for an open concept loft-like space on this floor. When you come in the front door we want an unobstructed view to the back.

One of the objectives in buying a townhouse was to have a back yard, so there are stairs going down so we have use of the back yard. We could have put in another rental unit on the parlor floor pretty easily and made it into a 3 family, but then the only outside space we would have had would have been the roof deck. The back yard isn’t huge - just 15′ x 26′ (390 sq. ft.) but it’ll still be really nice to have it.

It was tricky fitting a bathroom on this floor. The thing is you don’t want people using a bathroom next to where you’re making food, and you don’t want to think about someone else using the bathroom when you’re in the living room, and you definitely don’t want it to be an issue when you’re eating. The best solution was to tuck it under the stairs and put a privacy screen between it and what will be the dining area. We’ll just have the rule that if you need to use the bathroom during dinner you need to go and use one of the bathrooms on the upper floors.

The rental unit will help carry the cost of the (rather large) mortgage we have to get on the place. So it’s important that we have a nice rental apartment so it will rent quickly and for a good price. We’re including 1/2 of the cellar in the rental as a “accessory space” (see floor plan below). You’re not legally allowed to have a bedroom that’s fully below grade, but renters can use it as a media room, artist studio or home office. There will be about 725 sq. ft. on the main ground floor and another 225 or so in the cellar - so it will be over 1,050 sq. ft. The tenant will have access to the back yard, but we want the back yard to primarily be ours. So how much they’re allowed to use it will depend on how we get along with the tenant and how much we find ourselves using it. Ceiling height will be at least 8′. We’re thinking about raising the floor above and taking 6″ from the parlor level and lowering the floor in the rental 6″ in the living/kitchen area. Those two things would give 9′ ceilings in much of the rental and over 8′ ceilings elsewhere.

The one odd part about the building is that there are two entrances under the stoop. There’s a 3′ wide staircase down into the cellar, and a 2′ entrance to the ground floor. The 2′ entrance is not up to code and we doubt we can get it grandfathered, so we’re thinking we’ll need to make what was once the window into the legal door. The tenant can use either, but we’ll put french doors on the legal door so it can read visually as either a door or a window.

We have a “C2-4″ commercial overlay on the property which means we can use the ground floor (and even the parlor floor) for commercial purposes. In regular economic times a commercial tenant would be better since they’d probably pay as much or more in rent and only be there during the day. We’ve done the layout so if you take out the kitchen it’s a viable office space or small store, hair salon, etc. However, we won’t be trying to get a commercial use specified in the C of O. We’re amending plans for 2 family building the prior owner got approved. If we went the commercial route it would cost us a lot more money. Down the road we can think about changing that - but not now.

Here you see how the tenant gets half of the cellar. There’s a mechanical room in the center and storage for us in the front. The townhouse is unique in having a “vault” under the “front yard”. Usually the utilities are brought in under the stoop, but since there are stairs under the stoop they created a little stone walled room with a rustic arched brick ceiling (that’s having problems). It’ll make a wonderful little wine cellar or dungeon - depending on your proclivities

So there you have it - top to bottom… Hopefully in a year we’ll be living in it!

I really like the use of color in this kitchen. It’s a bold use of color, but not jarring which is a rare combination. Of course, the skylight and natural light helps as well. The use of laminate cabinets is also consistent with our budget. I’m wondering what the floor material is - it’s hard to tell…

This next kitchen I could actually see in our place…

This is just really simple and elegant. Once again there are relatively inexpensive laminate cabinets, the counter can be done relatively inexpensively and the backsplash can be done with simple small white tiles. I just have to figure out how a range/stove would integrate into something like that… NYC building code says you can’t have a gas oven unless it’s part of a gas range so our design choices are limited unless we go with an electric oven.

Ideally we’d get a townhouse. Townhouses in Upper Manhattan are a much more speculative market that swings up and down a lot more than coop apartmentss. In the past two years townhouses in Upper Manhattan (in the lower end of the price range which we can consider) have lost about half their value. In comparison in our building the prime apartments (like ours) have lost 10% or less of their value, and smaller apartments have lost about 20% of their value. As a result, if we’re ever going to be able to get off our wave onto the bigger townhouse wave, this is the time to do it. People think the New York real estate market will get worse by the end of the year, so cashing out now and buying in the fall is the optimal way to do things.

So we’ve been trying to determine which broker to go with and we’re finding it’s surprisingly difficult to find a broker with a good balance of what we need. For starters let me show you what we’re working with - this is a picture of our kitchen…

When we did our renovations in 2005/2006 we sorta went all out - Wolf range ($3,000), Sub Zero integrated fridge ($4,500), Poliform/Varenna cabinets from Italy ($22,000), stainless counter with Franke sinks welded in ($5,000+ - just the sinks were something like $1,500), a KWC faucet ($600), and so on… This is not an Ikea kitchen.

Mind you, we did a lot of the leg work ourselves so we probably didn’t spend that much more than a hands-off person who did a “good” Ikea kitchen.  Still, there’s a fair amount of value in our renovations.

What we’re finding is that most of the agents just don’t understand the renovations. One stood in the kitchen thought it was nice, but was more focused on problems like whether there was enough cabinet space (despite the fact that Dan’s a great cook and has room for everything he needs), or the fact that some people might not like an eat in kitchen (looking at HG TV I thought everyone wanted eat-in / entertainment oriented kitchens). The more typical response is that they know the renovations are special, but they just can’t put their finger on what it is about them that’s special. Only one agent really seemed to get it, unfortunately he a junior agent and wasn’t from one of the “power house” agencies.

What we want in an agent is 1) someone who “gets” the apartment and can explain/sell it to buyers and other brokers. 2) someone who can give the apartment a lot of exposure and bring in a lot of qualified buyers. That last point isn’t easy in this market. It’s a combination of advertising and connections.

We’re really disappointed in what the brokers in the area offer. The two agencies who used to control the listings in our little neighborhood have a track record of exclusive listings and they just don’t have the relationships or reputations to work well with other brokers - in our opinion that’s deadly in this market. One in particular has listed/sold many of the high end apartments in the neighborhood, but the tactics that worked for them before aren’t working so well anymore.

Then you have the power house brokers from big corporate agencies. They bring a lot of marketing muscle to the table but their agents are a bit of a mishmash - some are so busy you feel like they won’t have time to concentrate on your listing, others only have experience with lower end listings (the bread and butter listing for the neighborhood), and none of them really seem to “get” our apartment. At best they know it’s good, but can’t quantify in words why it’s good or how that translates into a price.

And lastly there’s a quirky sorta scrappy agency where one of the agents does “get” the apartment and the other one (the more analytical of the two) comes close to getting it but so far has had problems putting it into words. At the moment they’re the ones I’m most hopeful of, but the issue is whether they have the marketing muscle to get the word out there and get the exposure the listing will need. But to their credit they did just sell one of the prime apartments in the building for less than 10% off the high price for apartments like that, and they got the offer in 2-3 weeks after listing.

So we’ll see, but so far none of the brokers is a clear winner.

That’s right… Abercrombie’s definition of what’s rugged includes a pink shirt! I can just see my father (who’s a pretty rugged guy) shaking his head…

Abercrombie - PINK IS NOT “RUGGED”!

I was just a kid in the 70s and my parents were big fans of Jerry Falwell. I remember going to Thomas Road Baptist Church one Sunday and having gay men protesting on a picket line outside, so my experience with the gay community in the 70s isn’t first hand…

But looking back at pictures and videos from the era there was a level of creativity that you don’t see anymore. Sure they have the obligatory gay guy on every design/make-over show, but how did the creativity of gay men go from the outrageous antics of groups like The Radical Faeries and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (both founded in 1979) to making picture perfect apartments and making straight guys into metrosexuals?

I mean think The Radical Faeries are all about rejecting heterosexual norms and finding our own way - of not being afraid to blend masculine and feminine - of not being limited by norms of acceptable creativity… Here are some pics I’ve “borrowed” from LifeLube’s blog - they have a weekly Friday is for Faeries blog post which is inspiring to see that while the Faerie movement is small, it’s still very much alive…

As you can see - they range the gamut - some can be wonderfully creative, others just enjoying themselves and having fun, while others are just normal guys who seem genuinely well-adjusted.

Then you have The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence… They take more of an in-your-face, over-the-top, “shock and awe” sort of approach to their creativity…

Needless to say whether it’s the Radical Faeries or The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, these are the sorts of gay guys who really push creative boundaries in our society. With the commercialization of gay creativity on reality TV shows, it just feels like gay creativity is less than it used to be - more mainstream, more homogenous.

Or maybe there are just as many as there were in the 70s, but they’re less visible because they’re now a smaller percentage of our community since all the people who had no problem “blending in” have now come out of the closet.

Still, it’s wonderful when you see crazy creative minds at work. One of the latest that I’ve come across is François Sagat who’s best known for being a big name porn star, but when you look at his his blog and his YouTube channel you realize how much more he is - how wonderfully creative he is. He is a porn star and a lot of his creativity is centered around his body (his ass in particular), but he takes it way beyond the vulgarities of porn and makes it into something fascinating and edgy…

One of his more recent videos is a music video of sorts with him, a drag queen (playing his girlfriend), and another guy who he’s got the hots for…

Yes, I like the fact that HIV/AIDS isn’t killing off gay creative talent like it was in the ’80s and early ’90s. I like the fact that gay men are back in the saddle creatively - even if that’s making straight guys into metrosexuals, or helping women chose better outfits, or decorating a home. But I’ve got a special place in my heart for the guys who are “out there” and push the limits of what’s acceptable. I’m a geek - I’ll never be one of those people, but I know they’re special - very special…

They’re authentic mid-century modern pieces. The chairs were manufactured in 1969 and the tables were most likely made around the same time.

If anyone is interested, please send Dan an e-mail.