First apartment: clueless about flooring, bathroom work and other renovations:?
Written by Scott on August 2nd, 2009
I’m moving into a small (NYC small) 1 bedroom basement apartment with 1 bathroom with a standing shower (no tub). The entire bathroom needs to be redone with ceramic tiles and the standing shower stall was previously installed incorrectly and needs to be totally replaced. In addition the apartment currently has nasty linoleum flooring and I am thinking ceramic tiles are the best option for new flooring since it can get quite humid. How much do you think this will cost (I know I need measurements…forthcoming…but I’m looking for a ballpark). Also is it wise to have someone like Home Depot come in and do all the tiling work? Any suggestions appreciated–I’m new to this!
I should add: this is a unique situation where I am friends with the building’s owner and worked out a deal where I am going to take care of renovations to the apartment. There is no issue of legality or anything like that.
1 Comment at "First apartment: clueless about flooring, bathroom work and other renovations:?"
I don’t live in NYC so maybe it’s different there, but my understanding is that you have no control over performing these kinds of renovations in an apartment. Your landlord is responsible. If I tried to replace the floor tile in my apartment, they would kick me out. Read your lease.
If the shower stall was installed incorrectly, you can put in a work order and they will replace it for you. There’s nothing you can do about the ceramic tiles except live with it. It’s definitely a bad idea to have someone from Home Depot come in without your landlord’s consent. That’s what their maintenance staff is for.
There’s actually an old Mitch Hedburg joke about how he has an apartment, so he likes to go to Home Depot and not buy anything. “They should come up with an ‘Apartment Depot’. Just a bunch of guys standing around saying ‘we don’t have to fix s***.’”