Contemporary Gut Reno on Fifth Ave
900 Fifth Ave, NYC
Project Overview
TYPE: 60’s Building Gut Renovation
LOCATION: 900 Fifth Ave, NYC, NYC
CONSTRUCTION DURATION: 8 months
More Prewar Reno Before & Afters, Walkthrough Videos
Converting a 60’s PreWar style Co-Op into a Contemporary 3BR, 3 1/2BA Gem
This gut renovation required a Landmark Permit for no effect, Department of Building Permits (DOB), for Construction, Plumbing and Electrical to remove walls and dropped ceilings to create an open floor plan, convert a bathroom to a laundry room and upgrade the electric to the 14th Floor. It also required significant Asbestos Remediation for the ACP 21 permit to remove the wood floor mastic throughout the apartment (about 2500 sf of wood). This contemporary project included a complete rewiring, wire window treatments, managed Wifi installation and new piping and valves to the new to the fan coil heating and air conditioning units, and built-in covers throughout. And that was just the beginning of successfully converting this traditional layout into a stunning Contemporary Apartment!
The Full Story Behind This Gut Renovation:
The goal was to transform this large apartment overlooking the Frick Museum and Fifth Avenue facing Central Park into a beautiful contemporary space! This included a large Gallery with several closets, new entrance and service doors, creating a service vestibule with a pocket door to separate the service entrance from the Dining Room. We created an open kitchen/dining room by removing walls and removing utility room ceilings and walls to create a seated peninsula, kitchen eat-in area, and Laundry room. The Western-facing Living room, Den, Primary Suite with a Sitting room and His and Her Baths, bedroom, and two typical 5 x 7 baths, all transformed into a contemporary prewar beauty.
The gut renovation included removing partial walls between the kitchen, dining and utility room, gutting the four and 1/2 baths, and reconfigured closets and room entrances. We enlarged closet openings, added pocket doors, new doors and door openings, new door hardware, and installed through-wall AC. We had to complete Asbestos Remediation before we could start work. We also put in new wide-plank high-density interlocking white oak floors throughout, wired window treatments, and designed new lighting with dropped ceilings and new crown moldings. New base moldings and door casings in modern format, and we designed and installed custom wall-to-wall and individual radiator and AC covers with integrated sills and grills in Caesarstone tops.
Several months after we started we decided to replace all the windows of this Landmark apartment. We worked with the building’s window program and Panaroma windows to submit for approval, pull the Landmark permits and install. We managed to order and install new windows and window surrounds throughout without impacting the project time line!!!
It was challenging, to say the least! Nothing was plumb, and the ceiling beams made integrating the room areas with new dropped ceilings all the more difficult.
The Challenges of this UES Fifth Co-op Reno:
The building requirements were difficult, with service elevator reservations required for everything we did, each subcontractor needed to have a FOB card because of over 75 contractors going up every day to work on renovation projects underway. The alteration review was onerous. All ventilation fresh air ducts had to be accessed to install New Fire Dampers and new fresh air grills in the rooms. The Fan Coil Units piping, shut off valves, insulation and water sensors had to be replaced, for the most part.
With a fresh perspective, we changed the layout to improve the lighting design, closet openings, bedroom entrance door locations, and open the floor plan. We added 29 window replacements mid stream. The kitchen was opened to the dining room space by removing walls and dropped ceiling in Utility room, adding a pantry over the microwave drawer, drawer organizers, a corner cabinet pull-out, and LED under-cabinet lighting. The backsplash continued with Caesarstone quartz countertops, which we loved, along with my custom kitchen cabinetry design and custom millwork throughout to create a warm, modern style with finger pulls on the bleached, rift cut oak upper cabinets and matte, finger-proof resistant HDL for the base cabinets in a beautiful off – white.. Perfect Appliance and Pantry pulls finished the look where needed!
Each bathroom was beautifully finished with full-wall porcelain and accent walls that look like Wall Paper!!. Beautiful modern bath fixture hardware by VOLA. The overall design included larger tiles and showers with cubbies, frameless 1/2-inch Starphire glass enclosures with custom curbs, and Furniture Guild vanities. Each bath also Vogue Towel Warmers, Toto Bidet wall hung toilets and more! Exquisite, each bath has its own design personality!
Key Renovation Highlights:
- Opened kitchen to dining room, creating a 15-inch seated counter with custom cabinetry throughout
- New paneled Miele refrigerator, induction cooktop, wall oven, coffee maker, and dishwasher with flood stops for three appliances
- Recirculating new stacked GE washer/dryer in Laundry room with flood stops
- California Closets fitted out all closet interiors with design and collaboration for editing to meet owner needs.
- Casoro Safe installed in the Primary Bedroom Walk-in Closet
- Managed Wifi installed for low signal strength
- Installed new wide-planked commercial grade high density pre-finished oak floors, required a final buff and finish with polyurethane high-traffic Bona topcoat
- New lighting design, recessed lights, and light fixtures throughout
- Installed new Panorama windows to match the existing Panorama windows with white interiors
- Wired window treatments in the living room, Primary Bedroom Suite. Manual clutch control for the other rooms with 5% Opacity for the solar panels, and blackout shades for the bedrooms with Roman shades in front of them.
More Apartment Renovation Videos – Before & After, Walkthroughs
For those of you who love the ups and downs of renovation transformations, don’t miss my prewar project playlists featuring before-and-after videos of some of my most challenging prewar and other apartment renovations, and a dedicated prewar walkthrough video playlist as well. Visit my YouTube Channel for even more Design Build Videos.
If you love this Design-Build project as much as we do, and you’re ready to renovate, contact Paula McDonald Design Build & Interiors today!