A complimentary guide for first-time owners and owners abroad
Before You Hire Anyone: A Guide to Building the Right Team for Your New York Renovation
You have bought, or are about to buy, a significant apartment in New York City or a home in Westchester, and you have not hired anyone yet. Whether this is your first renovation or you are overseeing it from another country, you are being asked to make early decisions about a process you may never have seen from the inside.
You do not need to become an expert in New York construction. You need to know enough to tell a complete answer from an incomplete one. This guide gives you that clarity, with a checklist to use before your first hire. It comes from Sara Mosele Interiors, led by Sara Mosele, a licensed architect with more than 20 years of experience.
Inside the guide, you will learn how to:
Understand what your property requires, from the alteration agreement and board approval in a co-op to DOB filings and the infrastructure of a larger Westchester home.
See who does what, including how an architect, interior designer, decorator, contractor and owner’s representative differ, and who should manage the project.
Avoid the gaps that form early, such as a contractor price that leaves out soft costs or a designer brought in only to select finishes.
Plan the full picture, with hard costs, soft costs, approvals, construction and any time you may need to live elsewhere.
Keep control from abroad, by knowing who will be on site, which decisions come to you and where the project records are kept.