In this episode of Revealed, I take you behind-the-scenes to see what it’s really like doing remodeling work in a historic Boston neighborhood—and why it gives me nightmares involving parking and claustrophobic-sized residential elevators.
FINDING A NEXT-TO-IMPOSSIBLE PARKING SPACE
Today I’m headed to a beautiful historic neighborhood to start a kitchen installation. But getting there is the first hurdle. These neighborhoods are remarkable—but they present unique challenges. The area is densely populated, the streets themselves are narrow and often one-way, and tourists flock to this area as it abuts the State House and Boston Common—which all adds up to massive headaches trying to find a parking spot that isn’t a mile away from our building.
UP, DOWN, AND AROUND…
To minimize disruption to the residents and keep the main lobby clear, we opted to use the back entrance to bring in the cabinets. This involves going down a flight of stairs, through a narrow basement hallway, then up multiple flights of stairs, or attempt loading things into a small elevator. There is no modern, large freight elevator because this is an old, mid-rise condo building. In fact, a lot of the larger items won’t even fit into this tiny elevator—so we will have to carry it by hand up the stairs. We have to be extra careful as we manipulate cabinets around corners and through the maze of hallways and stairways transporting them to the unit. Of course, this takes more time and energy. So early on in the estimating process, these are all factors that we take into account to ensure we are covered for the additional time and manpower required.
—Ken DeCost
