The New York Times (Sunday, November 13, 1994) "Cutting a Few Corners to Keep Costs From Soaring" by Tracy Rozhon The architects riffled through their 2-inch stack of glossy photographs searching of the right "before" shots to illustrate their points about renovating the 1,500-square-foot apartment for less than $75,000, including the architect's fee. The photographs of the classic six-room prewar apartment at 9 East 96th Street, off Fifth Avenue, show the kind of place real estate ads describe as needing "TLC" or "in estate condition." It wasn't exactly a wreck - plaster wasn't hanging off the walls - but it needed work. "This was a psychiatrist's office," explained Jason Gold, one of the architect's. "We had to completely do over the kitchen - because there wasn't any kitchen. There was an archaic gas oven, with traces of the original warranty questionnaire; one of the questions was: 'Does your home have electricity?'" The client's, a young couple, each on what the architects called "the fast track" at their respective law firms, asked that their names not be used. But they didn't mind giving the price they paid for the apartment last March ($330,000) and the renovation budget ($65,000, plus the $9,000 archictects' fee). While a $65,000 construction is certainly substantial, home-design magazines are full of kitchens alone that cost as much, and generally speaking the figure is considerable low for a total renovation of a six-room Manhattan apartment - living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a maid's room - given its original seedy condition. "This project was money driven," says Harry Elson, Mr. Gold's partner in the small architectural firm Elson and Gold. "The couple originally wanted to spend $50,000, but we told them we couldn't do the things they wanted for that amount. We could do the kitchen but we couldn't touch the bathrooms or the bedrooms." "We came back with $65,000 and with the money the building was giving back - our plumbers did work in the walls behind the valves and in this building the co-op is responsible - it came closer to $60,000," said Mr. Elson. In no particular order, these are some of the things done to save money: Instead of hiring a standard residential floor refinisher, they went to a commercial flooring company. For $1.50 a square foot they got a well sanded, light blond satin finish. For the $2.50 to $3.50 a square foot they might have paid a residential specialist, they would have had a greater number of finer and finer sandings, maybe more coats of higher quality polyurethane. "It's the difference between acceptable and perfection, " said Mr. Gold. The cost for floor refinishing: $1,500. They bought the radiator covers for $1,300 for a Brooklyn company that concentrates on supplying offices, saving $3,700 over custom wooden covers. They changed the specifications for the seven closet floors from black vinyl tiles to gunmetal gray paint, saving about $1,400. The didn't strip all the doors and windows but painted most of them linen white to match the walls. With matching colored-paint, the often irregular build-up of old paint on the doors is not noticeable. "Linen white hides a lot of sins," Mr. Elson said. When doors were to far gone or missing, the architects found similar stock doors. The new doors cost less than it would have to strip, sand, and paint old ones. They bought brand names - but not super brand names - for most of the appliances, choosing a Matage dishwasher and a Caloric stove rather than a top-of-the-line Kitchenaid dishwasher and a JennAir or Viking stove, for instance. They did, however, opt for the SubZero refrigerator. Instead of leaving the telephone wiring to the telephone company, they had the electrician lay in the phone wires when he was doing other wiring. "AT&T is very expensive compared to what our guy charged us," Mr. Gold said. Mr. Elson, who is 29, and Mr. Gold, 35, found a group of young carpenters and electricians with little overhead. "Their offices are their trucks," Mr. Elson said, and they are willing to work close to the bone to save money. The architects also decided to spend "extra" money. When they went to replace the grubby baseboard, they did not take the cheapest way out and replace it with an inexpensive clamshell or other lumberyard molding. They designed a new molding, which required special cutters to be manufactured. Still, the new 9-inch-tall poplar molding, which travels through the whole apartment, cost $4.25 a linear foot and is big enough to hide telephone and cable wires. A similar 9-inch pine molding, bought retail from a lumberyard, would cost $3 a foot. To further reinforce the feeling of continuity, they replaced all of the old knobs - including the original glass ones - with brushed chrome knobs and locks. They are tiny, 1-inch brushed chrome knobs on the kitchen cabinets. ($4.35 a piece.) Instead of squinting at tiny color-splashed paper paint chips, the couple paid $50 to see their choices actually painted in 3-by 3-foot swatches on the walls. They had thought they wanted their dining room a bittersweet orange but after seeing a larger patch of it opted for a butternut squash yellow. The couple decided to spend major money on the dining room fixture, a 24-inch faux alabaster hanging light. "That fixture cost as much as all the radiator covers put together," Mr. Gold said. "But they can take it with them when they move." Because the dining room is directly to the right of the foyer, the fixture is immediately noticeable upon entering the apartment and stands out against the yellow walls. In the kitchen, the most changed room in the apartment, the architects also made choices. They spent money to change the layout; they turned an awkward pantry into a little anteroom between the kitchen and hall and laid black granite squares on the floor to reinforce the separation. They paid to make the maid's room bathroom smaller so the SubZero could be built in. They built in a wall of floor-to-ceiling pantry cupboards on the wall backing up to the entrance foyer. To make up for money spent on the restructuring, the chose flat plywood doors for the kitchen cabinets and had the insides made of white melamine, rather than the more expensive solid wood. The cabinets were ordered in a "paint grade" finish; that is, a finish that wouldn't look good left natural; because of the lesser quality of the wood, it must be painted - in this case, sage green. They also used black laminate for the countertops, instead of the currently poplar - and expensive - black granite. The cabinets and countertops, including paint and installation, cost $9,200. A side from the granite floor tiles in the little kitchen entry, all the other tiled floors are old-fashioned hexagonal white, bought for about $2.50 a square foot. With the $330,000 purchase price plus the $62,000 estimated for the renovation plus the $9,000 architect's fee, the couple will have spent $401,000 on the mid-floor prewar apartment on the best block of East 96th Street. If they were to put the apartment on the market today, several brokers familiar with the building said, the couple would probably break even or perhaps make a bit of money, factoring in normal real estate broker's commission. An apartment with an identical layout on a higher floor just traded for $455,000 and another classic six-room apartment across the street at 8 East 96th Street sold recently for $550,000. The owners didn't want to over decorate," said Mr. Gold. "One of the apartments they looked at was over decorated, and they felt they'd be paying for the other people's taste. Someday they may want to sell this apartment, and that's why they made the choices they did here."