Manhattan Carpentry and Painting

Radiators and deep stone or marble windowsills may be passé in new house construction in favor of heat pumps and small vents and, all too often, no windowsills at all. These radiators of old still deliver heat in a warm and wonderful way. Considering that much of New York City’s housing is decades and centuries old, radiators are commonplace in homes, brownstones and apartment buildings. Incorporating them into the interior décor can be fun, and we surely enjoyed this job.

 Here we reinforced a beautiful, new stone windowsill, installed the baseboard, constructed shelves on both ends and built a radiator enclosure. The radiator may be hidden from sight, but the heat from it will waft through the metal mesh, warming this living room and the residents in it all winter long. We painted the entire project in Benjamin Moore’s Super White paint for a light, bright, fresh, functional interior accent piece neatly camouflaging a radiator.

Manhattan Door Hangers 

You can live in the city, long for the country and bring some farmhouse chic into your urban abode with a sliding barn door. This relative newcomer to the interior design stage comes in an almost endless variety of materials, colors and textures, including wood, metal, glass and mirror. Zillow has reported that homes listed with “barn doors” sell faster than ones without them. We recently installed a handsome angled-wood door for a client’s daughter’s room in the city.

 The Paintworks crew removed and disposed of the old door trim before adding J Bead around the rough edges. The doorway was plastered, smoothed and painted. The top rails must be perfectly level and super secure for the door to slide effectively. We used high quality hardware and extra anchors. The new door adds a rustic style statement that blends simplicity with elegance and a touch of country with urban sophistication. Sliding barn doors are revered for saving floor space, though they do require more wall space. Besides replacing a room door, these novel sliding doors can hide a laundry room, close off a pantry or conceal a mounted TV set in a timeless style grounded in the American farm. Let Paintworks evaluate your space, share country, industrial and contemporary styles and incorporate an intriguing interior sliding barn door in your home.

Before

After

Gramercy Park Retrofit Full Bath to Powder Room

When our jobs extend beyond painting, we step right up to listen, understand, work and deliver what the homeowner specifies. Here we had a bathroom project which included removing a shower, walls and floor tiles at the outset. The homeowner wanted to convert a full bath into a half bath, while keeping the plumbing in place and shower body for reversing everything if a new owner wants to in the future.

 Structo-Lite® Basecoat Plaster, a lightweight, insulated, basecoat gypsum plaster with thermal conductivity, was used to level the walls before installing new porcelain tiles. We installed and centered a new sink, plus mirror, lighting and toilet. It's now a modern, sleek little half-bath with light industrial undertones.