Interior Design in New York City

Sometimes you have to do some finagling to make sure the Contractor has placed the light fixture exactly where you wanted it…

Day 17 and yesterday we did the templating for the countertops. Templating is when your countertop fabricator comes in after the cabinets are installed. They measure the exact site dimensions and any cut outs for sinks, electrical outlets, etc. They finish and cut the stone at the shop and bring it to the site-ready to go in perfectly! (we hope)

Things are finally moving along in our clients’ apartment and the cabinets are almost all installed.  Next we drywall the soffits and finish the plumbing, electrical, and finish work. Over the weekend our client (who’s 7 months pregnant) was put on bed rest, so now she has to be HOME while all of this is going on! We’ve tried to put pressure on the contractor to finish up, and we’ve gotten through the dirty work with no major problems.

The Kitchen cabinets we designed are totally green. They are made with urea-formaldehyde FREE particle board and FSC certified veneers. The finish is an acrylic based lacquer that emits low VOC’s. All of the inserts and accessories are made by Blum. The hardware is from Hafele.

Tomorrow we template for the Caesarstone countertops.

Kati speaks with www.homeanatomy.com

HA: How to balance wall treatments when so much is glass / preferred window treatments?

KC: Let the view be your art, and possibly intersperse sculptural pieces that don’t interfere with the view. Remember that sunshine can damage art, furniture, carpet and even wall paint. We recommend using  UV filters on framed art.

The best way to treat the interior walls in a high-rise apartment is to provide privacy and light control without obstructing the views! Silent Gliss has an extremely flexible system that allows many different options for light control while still preserving the views.

HA: How to avoid fabric fading?

KC: Use fabrics that are suitable for outdoor or commercial use. Sunbrella has gorgeous, luxurious, residential fabrics that are soft to the touch and are completely stain and fade resistant.

HA: What about balancing against dramatically day/night views?

KC: The beauty of living in a high rise is that your interior space is constantly changing. This can also be challenging when selecting colors and lighting for your space. Stick with a fairly neutral palette that compliments the outdoor view, with punches of colors that pop at night. Lighting should be extremely flexible and task oriented.

HA: What are some new ideas relative to energy conservation (reduce A/C use)?

KC: The best way to reduce heat gain in high rise buildings is by using low-e glass which also filters harmful UV rays.  You can also add a film to your windows. 3M makes a great product that is metal-free and eliminates these problems, performing to the industry’s highest standards.

Photovoltaic panels can be used to harvest sunlight and generate electricity for the building.

We are a week behind on the construction of our client’s kitchen on the Upper West Side. The floor tile is down (Stone Source Chromtech 1.0), the ceiling is drywalled and we are now ready to grout the tile and finish the drywall.

Getting ready to grout the floor

Cabinets Still in Crates and Waiting to be Installed!

Ceiling Ready for Electrician to wire the light fixtures

Still coming soon….cabinet installation…

Today we’re laying out the porcelain tile floor. No matter how good your drawings are, it’s a good idea to get together with your installer and make sure everything is working out as you expected.

Today we were supposed to be laying the porcelain tile (from Stone Source) for the Kitchen floor in our client’s Upper West Side apartment. As I had mentioned on Friday, we discovered a hard wood floor, underneath the old sub floor which also had to be removed. Underneath that was a layer of gooey adhesive that ALSO had to be removed before the tile guy would come in and do his thing…

gooey floor

While the guys scrape up the goo, hopefully we won’t be set back too far in our schedule.

The good news is that the wall is now opened up and our clients can get a sense of the openness of the space to the new Kitchen:

no more wall! this is where our island and bar will go

Stay tuned… after the floor the cabinets go in!

For over 17 years, Kati Curtis has been providing healthcare interior design and planning services for clients worldwide.

Our favorite English country wallcovering and fabric house, Designer’s Guild has introduced the ‘Manhattan’ Prints collection, which offers a dynamic and contemporary new look designed to appeal to the young at heart of all ages. Since it’s obvious I’m not afraid of color, I have a particular fondness for this modern, sophisticated collection.

Colours this season are soft and muted yet with vibrant, clean highlights.

Cool and warm neutrals and earth tones counterpointed with burnished golds and cool silver metallics, sit alongside shades of soft willow, deep moss and lime greens as well as soft pinks, pale aquas and duckegg blues.

‘Manhattan’ offers a vibrant palette of fuchsia pink, scarlets and persimmon as well as turquoise and lime with black highlights.

Friday was day three of our renovation on Central Park West. So far I didn’t see any major surprises at the site. We did find a plumbing supply line that was serving the sub-zero refrigerator we’re relocating. The hardwood floor, underneath our subfloor presented some demo difficulties for the guys. The subfloor under the linoleum was adhered to the hardwood floor below so the floor removal was challenging….

Late Friday afternoon I received a call from the contractor, Howard Klein, letting me know that he was putting together a “change order” (meaning charging the client MORE MONEY) to deal with plumbing line and the extra work to take up the floor…. Saturday I received that change order from the contractor for $5K and about fell over. After reviewing his original contract, I confirmed that these conditions were expected and part of his original contract. I sent him an email asking him to explain the reasoning behind adding $5K to the job….When I arrived at the jobsite this morning the change order had miraculously disappeared! Thank goodness we had set things up meticulously at the beginning of the job!

So – all is on track and moving ahead smoothly. Floor goes down this week, and cabinets installed next week!

So far the renovation of our client’s kitchen on the Upper West Side is progressing without any major glitches. Demo started yesterday, and the strangest thing we found was the original hardwood floor underneath the existing linoleum tile. No big deal, but a transition consideration. The contractor, Howard Klein and I worked out what type and thickness of subfloor to put down,  how to deal with the transition and to lay out the tile.

Even though I had verified that the wall we were removing was not structural, I was having nightmares that we might find something unexpected, like a plumbing chase, behind the wall. Howard was nice enough to take the sledge hammer to the wall so that we could be sure there was nothing major hindering our progress. Sure enough, nothing, and the guys proceeded like pros!: