Designing the Perfect NYC Bathroom: Expert Secrets from Zak of NYC Design Build

Transcription

Bella: Hello everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m Bella and I’m really happy you’re here with us today. Today we have a special guest, Zak from NYC Design Build. Zak, welcome. It is nice to see you here. Yes, 

Zak: great to be back on with you, Bella. 

Bella: Uh, thank you so much. Zak and his team have helped so many people create beautiful spaces in their homes, and I’m so excited to learn from him.

Today we’ll be talking about bathroom remodeling in New York City, what to expect, how to plan, and how to make the most out of even the smallest spaces. You may be thinking about a renovation, or maybe you are already in the middle of one. I’m sure this conversation will give you some helpful ideas and inspiration.

Zak, before we start, could you share a little bit about yourself and the company? What would you like people to know about you, about NYC Design Build, and what’s your message as the owner to all the homeowners listening? 

Zak: Yeah, basically, NYC Design Build is a consortia of builders and designers who have been focused on New York City residential.

Some of us for more than 20 years, myself, a little more than 15. So, we’re highly experienced in all phases of New York City renovation in the five boroughs and the Hudson Valley area. So really the, in the immediate area as well, we focus on residential, but we’ve also done a lot of hospitality, food and beverage, type spaces.

We’ve also done ground up construction and extensions, additions, rear and vertical. Um, yeah, and we basically are, um, conversant with all phases of renovation from initial feasibility exam. FAR evaluation and whether or not you have the buildable space, if you’re doing an addition, we can help obviously in the beginning stages with, um, looking for opportunities, value engineering products, uh, projects, and figuring out the best budget for you, which is always critical.

And just putting the whole project together, whether you have a, whether your building or apartment is on a landmark, uh, block or space in the New York area or is a more traditional renovation. The entire process from DOB filing to building approvals, to finished material acquisition floor plans, elevation drawings, a OR management and expediter management and all that kind of stuff.

All the sign offs and everything. So. We’re a set it and forget it operation, you could theoretically, uh, work with us remotely. Uh, we’ve done hundreds of projects that were aire or second departments for people outside of the country or who travel a lot or in other parts of the country. Um, so we’re, very conversant with working remotely.

Of course C And the the utilization of the technological tools that were on offer during that period of time made us even more flexible to work with people, um, remotely. And I only bring that up to say that if you are in New York City, which the majority of our clients of course are still residing in New York City, um, you don’t necessarily have to be on site very much.

And we can meet, wherever’s convenient for you guys on site or off. Um, yeah, and basically whether it’s a kitchen, a bathroom, a whole apartment renovation, an apartment combination where you’re doing like a horizontal or vertical combination of apartments, I can pretty faithfully say we’ve done it all.

Mustafa, my partner who runs the construction side of it. We are, uh, our inboxes are always open. You can always ring us up and ask us questions about prospective projects or our take on certain issues in your renovation. Um, we also work with a lot of real estate professionals who have clients who might ask us to either a look at a, a space that’s coming to market, that the client might be on the selling side.

Um, what upgrades might make sense to bring it to market, to maximize its, you know, it’s curb appeal, reduce time on the market, increase leverage on the seller’s end, on the other side of the equation, um, if you’re a buyer or if you’re looking to, to purchase a home or an apartment,

a few times a week, I’m usually looking at some comps or, uh, apartments from former clients or again, people in our, in our network who might throw me an address and say, Hey, what do you think about this? It might be in a state condition. And I’ll look at, um, properties in the surrounding area and then sort of look at the condition of the existing space and give you a pretty good idea of what it might run you to bring it up to fair market value and then see if there’s value there, if the place might be overpriced for an estate condition or, let’s say in need of restoration, uh, condition.

So yeah, we work in a wide variety of, of verticals and areas from direct to homeowners, real estate developers, , buyers, sellers. We’ve been renovating homes in, in New York City for decades. Yeah. 

Bella: That’s good. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that, Zak. Uh, it’s always inspiring to hear the story behind the work and to get to know you.

And I’m sure, uh, people who listen us right now, they will say, appreciate this.

Okay. So when someone is thinking about remodeling their bathroom, what is the most important thing they should know before starting?

And are there any common mistakes you see people make in the planning stage and that they could avoid?

Zak: Yeah. So, basically when you’re starting out with the project, because of the average sizes of, of bathrooms in New York City, it’s very common for a project that a homeowner might think, oh, I just wanna retile the walls, or retile the floors. And often that’s totally possible.

It’s very common to do. Smaller projects like that for sure. But what’s more common in New York City, particularly if you’re in a doorman building an elevator building, a multi-floor building, a co-op or a condo, structure, is that it will very quickly become a three quarter gut renovation to gut renovation.

I’ll tell you why. The bathroom is a closed system in a sense. In that, um, the footprint of the bathroom is often fairly well delineated by most, building management structures, that’s for sure. In other words, they don’t usually want. Wet over dry. They don’t usually want you to expand the wet area.

Now you, you often can, you, I would hesitate to say usually, but you often can ex expand your bathroom. But there’s always gonna be very strict parameters around that from the building, which usually involve, things like, additional waterproofing and stuff like that. Okay. So that’s not so hard.

What is more common that people need to get their head around on the front end of bathroom renovations in New York City is that most buildings, regardless of whether you’re expanding the wet area or not, are gonna want you to replace a lot of the branch lines. When you’re renovating a bathroom, the reason is very simple.

If you’re in a apartment building with, I don’t know, 20 units, 50 units, a hundred units, whatever it is, whenever someone is renovating a bathroom, that’s really the best and only time to get at the branch lines and replace them, right, and upgrade them. And the second that you start opening up branch lines back to the valve and the branch lines of just to bring anyone up to speed, is are the, the lines that might run to your faucet, to your sink, to your shower head, that kind of stuff.

That are coming from the main riser, right in the building, right? So you’ve got the large pipe, and these are the smaller ones that kind of, uh, branch off from it. Hence they’re called branch lines. So if those are being replaced and the valves are being replaced, which is often what buildings call for, that means that you’ve gotta get into those walls.

The second you go into those walls, now you’re retiling those walls and you’re taking off those walls. Well, the second you’re bringing down walls, you’ve only got so many walls in a relatively small area in a bathroom. So you can very quickly get into, pretty close to a gut renovation. Now the good news is it’s usually only 35, 50, 70 square feet if it’s a larger bathroom in New York City.

It’s not like gonna go outta hand or something like that. But just understand that even things like, some people say, Hey, I just wanna swap out my shower area, or I want to convert a bath to a shower. That’s pretty common. Some buildings, it’s a walk in the park. No big deal.

Other buildings want lots of different branch lines and valves, as I alluded to earlier, replaced, and that can allow the scope to creep up. So you just want to be cognizant of that. Somebody like myself or any professional with similar experience, we’ll be able to tell you that on the front end and start looking at, one thing we might wanna look at is your building alteration agreement so that we can just see what your building prefers.

So that’s one thing to get ahead of on the front end is. Uh, identifying what the full scope of work is gonna be, right? So that’s clear. In terms of mistakes that are made, other things that are also important on the front end, obviously finding a trusted partner to do the project with, people with experience in New York City with wet areas.

I wouldn’t call, I wouldn’t necessarily find someone on Thumbtack or something like that to come in. You want someone in there who’s done, hopefully dozens, if not hundreds and hundreds of jobs, in New York City bathrooms because when it comes to inspections, sign offs and things like that, you.

Then also insurances and all the kinds of things. Buildings have gotten crazy with who’s allowed in buildings. Understandably, things have gotten much more litigious. Also, repairs have gotten so much more expensive and all that kind of stuff that everyone wants to protect themselves, understandably. The downside is that it’s made it difficult for some of the, much smaller, teams that don’t carry the insurance that a lot of buildings want.

It’s made it a little bit harder for some of them to work in some of the bigger buildings. But it is what it is. You want in advance when you’re qualifying builders, ask what kind of insurance they have to make sure they can work in buildings like yours. You also might want to go and check out some of their work.

That’s very common. I would probably advise, just to make sure that they’ve got the plumbers that did their first 200 jobs are still involved with their next 200 jobs. You might want to go check that out. In terms of mistakes that are made, the most common ones, which are easily avoidable, particularly with bathrooms, is getting the budget right.

I’ve gotten to a point in my career where I know that has to be qualified, articulated, and made very clear on the front end. Otherwise, you’re headed for a uncomfortable, journey. So on the front end, level, setting people’s budgetary expectations is a big part of what I do.

Uh, bathrooms. Thankfully, if we’re staying on that subject, it’s, it, that, that’s one of the easier parts of my job. Bathrooms are because again, as I said, they’re relatively confined spaces and we can get into some aesthetic and layout and stuff, types of decisions in a little bit. But from a cost standpoint, there’s only so much you can do in an area.

So labor and raw materials, I can usually, I’ll usually know what your labor and raw materials costs are gonna be for a bathroom. Possibly by the end of the walkthrough. I can probably be within five or 10% of an estimate, of a fully articulated estimate. Like just seeing your ba you could probably show me a photo and I could tell you, you just tell me what kind of building it is, and you show me a photo of your bathroom, and I’ll probably tell you within a few thousand dollars how much it’s gonna cost to renovate from a labor and raw material standpoint.

Now the question is, when you asked about mistakes. Obviously you gotta get the budget right, to get the budget right? It’s very important. It’s crucial to have the conversation about what your goals are for the apartment as a whole. Why do I ask that? Well, if this is your forever apartment and they’re gonna take you out of, you’re not leaving that place until you go, uh, to meet your ancestors, right?

If you’re staying there for that long a period of time, I will tell you go build whatever, use whatever materials you want. Within some degree of reason, but you want the highest end tile known demand, huge format marble installation with additional wall mounts to carry that kinda weight.

Let’s do it if you’re gonna be there for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years, like, for sure. Uh, same thing with things like vanities and sinks and all that hardware and stuff. If it’s a place where you tell me, Hey, Zak, like, I love this apartment. I’ve been out of, grad school or law school for, three, four years.

Making my way my career, but I don’t know, my family lives in North Carolina and someday I’m gonna be going down there to join the family business in six years. Okay, cool. That’s really good to know. That tells me, hey, let’s maybe, from a resale standpoint, and, and like a return on investment, maybe, maybe we shy away from the, $90 a square foot, wall application.

When you’re gonna be out of here in six or seven years, you’re not gonna get that money back, so that’s important to discuss. So yes, getting the budget right is crucially important. And knowing, knowing the goals of the space is important. And then once you’ve got, a team that you trust, a scope of work that is really thorough and articulated and accurate, and a budget that makes sense.

Oh yeah, so. To my point about your goals, the biggest, I can always figure out what your labor and raw material’s gonna be real quick. The reason I brought up your goals of your apartment long term is that’s gonna affect your finished material costs. As I said, if you’re gonna be there forever, yeah.

Spend what you want within reason, you’re gonna enjoy it for so long, why not you, it you, it will have a positive impact on your quality of life. Assuming that you love it, and hopefully you will. If it’s a place that you’re gonna sell in five or six or seven years, yeah, maybe pull back a little bit and then once we figure out that finished material, goal, so instead of spending, $25,000 on say, an upscale bathroom that you’re gonna be there for forever, just on finished materials, maybe you target 1213 K or something like that.

For finished materials and, and yeah, and then once all those numbers make sense, your labor costs, raw mat, your labor and raw material costs, which is the value that you usually go into agreement with, and your probable finished material target. If those numbers make sense, you’ve got a team that you like, you’ve got a clear scope.

Honestly, with a bathroom, you should be good to go. In terms of other, mistakes, everything else is pretty much minor when it comes to bathrooms and mistakes. I would say, common sense things, but they don’t always come up in, in conversations. I’m surprised when I talk to homeowners who have met with other contractors or other, usually not design build firms, but usually like other contractors or something.

Sometimes they don’t talk about timelines, when it comes to bathrooms, if you’ve only got one bathroom, if you have one bathroom, timelines are critical, right? Because the timeline on your bathroom, how much do you wanna live in your apartment with no bathroom? I hope you’ve got a great gym membership and they, or it’s in, or it’s in the building or something because you’re gonna be, without a shower and without a toilet quite possibly for quite a few days.

Timing those projects is really cool. If, and very important, if you’ve only got one bathroom, ple by all means, like line things up with a design build firm or a good gc. Who can get everything lined up in advance. The building approvals, the finished material selections, get everything ready for when you’re either gonna have a work trip or a vacation or a part of the year.

That would make sense for you to Airbnb somewhere for a couple days because you want to time it that way. If you’ve only got one bathroom, sometimes we can give a a temporary situation, while things are being built. But the last thing you want to have is bring in a contractor who demolishes it and then your finished materials don’t arrive for another month.

What was the point of that? , You wanna have, everything’s gotta be seamlessly aligned. That’s really critical. So that’s another reason why it’s incredibly important to get a professional and experienced team in there. Yeah, so I’d say timing is another, big issue , and like getting, realistic timeframes, if it’s a very large bathroom and there’s gonna be a lot of custom work, the actual work of installing the finished materials in the bathroom will take longer than a standard direct replacement, a bathroom.

If you have two bathrooms or three bathrooms, then there’s, you have more flexibility. It’s less, the timing. But it should still be given a lot of attention. 

Bella: Yeah, I can relate by the way, because I got my bathroom remodeled and I had the one bathroom and it was hard. It was hard.

Yeah. And I was still in the, in the house, yes, absolutely. And, those makes, make a lot of sense and I think a lot of people will appreciate hearing that because it’s so easy to overlook those details. 

Zak: It’s also important to think about some of the other, little things that don’t always come up.

Do you have a pet? If you have a pet that’s agitated by this kind of noise and vibration, you might not want them in the house during the days of construction. If you work from home, that’s something you’ve gotta consider. It’s gonna be a lot of noise, even though it’s in a confined area. If there’s gonna be a, a wet tile saw going to cut your tile, like good luck having a conference call, like with your, with your team.

It’s gonna be pretty distracting. So all of those things need to be considered. 

Bella: Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay. And about the second question, I imagine you get a lot of questions from homeowners during renovations, especially about things like timelines, dust, or living at home while everything is happening.

Mm-hmm. Uh, what do people in New York usually ask you and how do you help them feel comfortable during the process? 

Zak: It’s really interesting, again, the older I get and the more years I spend in this industry, the less eager I am to paint a pretty picture, I, I try to, now over present, like this is gonna be clumsy and loud and dusty, just to make sure that everyone’s expectations are there.

Why? Because as you alluded to, look, housing in New York City is. Preposterously expensive. Airbnbs are incredibly expensive. It’s, we get it, we’re all in the same boat here. So a lot of people ask, can I live in the apartment while the project is going on for a bathroom? Well, as I alluded to, as I mentioned earlier, , if you’ve only got one bathroom, it’s gonna be a quality of life decision you’re gonna have to make.

If you, again, if you’ve got a, a gym or a fitness center in your building that can, take care of you for, some days great. If you don’t, things might get a little bit rough for a couple weeks. That’s, if you have one bathroom, if you have multiple bathrooms, obviously that’s not as big an issue, but as you.

As you mentioned, you still got the dust and the and noise issues, right. When it comes to living at home, I would say if you have multiple bathrooms and and you don’t work from home, it can be you may be able to stay through the process. , If you’re gone like normal nine to five hours, like most buildings in New York City, if you’re in a doorman elevator building, they don’t usually want noise.

Certainly not before nine. Sometimes they ask for nine 30 and they don’t want noise after five. And often it’s actually four 30 and sometimes, use of the, service elevator sometimes stops at four or four 30. If you could be out of the house during those periods of time, you’re probably fine.

And with bathrooms. Like the average size bathroom, that you wouldn’t want to be there during the days of demolition. You probably wouldn’t e even if you have multiple bathrooms, I don’t think you want to be there during the mo the demolition days or the load out of the debris. So no matter your situation, there’s definitely gonna be, two, three days regardless of the number of bathrooms you have where you probably don’t want to be around.

When you asked about mistakes made on the front end, also that’s another part of getting the scope of work really tight. You wanna make sure that whoever you hire is very respectful of your common areas. Okay? So that means your hallways and lobbies and stuff like that. Why do I mention that?

Well, anything that pops up, if your contractor’s carrying like a huge bag of debris from, renovate, from demolishing your bathroom, like there’s old tile might be sticking out through a contractor bag if that scratches, a wallpaper in the common area of a hallway of a high-end building.

You’ve given your deposit to the building for a reason. It’s usually in your alteration agreement, a certain deposit for the renovation. You could be at risk of losing some or part of that, or the contractor may have to re wallpaper the hallway. I’ve seen it done. So you need to be, you want to be careful , on that front end, and make sure that’s in the scope of work that your contractor understands that they have to protect the common areas and all that kind of stuff.

But in terms of living on site during demolition, it’s really tough. You’d wanna, take two or three days, stay at a friend, family member, take the Airbnb, explore a neighborhood that you’ve never explored before, get a nice Airbnb in the outer borough if you want for a couple days.

Why not? Or work remotely or whatever you can do. , I would highly recommend that. Yeah. So in terms of those kind, and then with regards to dust, again, after demolition, there’s not a ton of dust, and if you do standard, zipper access, plastic protection in the area, you should be okay. But if it’s a larger renovation or,, if I go to a space and I see that, several factors building type, like if it’s an old brownstone, just the vibration of the demolition and some of the trenching and plumbing work can actually cause dust in other parts of the house because the, just the shaking of the walls, like if it’s old brick walls or plaster and that kind of thing.

So in, in those kinds, in buildings, which may be of older construction, I might recommend, doing, again, a. Based on the size of the renovation. Something like drop cloths for part of the project on porous furniture could be, could make sense. Um, and then some additional you might want to build in the scope of work, some additional cleaning services that the contractor can usually do for you that would in involve above and beyond just shop vacuuming the floor and things like that.

But also more extensive cleaning services. That might be something you might wanna have built into the scope of work. And also if it’s gonna be a large renovation in an older building where there’s gonna be, a brick or plaster dust and that kind of thing, you may also just want to cover, a lot of the interior space, during the renovation.

And then just remove, have it in the scope of work to remove that afterwards. And often you just, sometimes you just need to have that protection during the demolition and maybe some of the tile stages. Um, yeah. 

Bella: Also ano 

Zak: another thing I should add. One more thing. One thing you can also negotiate in, which is helpful, particularly if you’re like in a studio apartment or a one bedroom, a smaller apartment, you might wanna, you might wanna ask or ne negotiate in on the front end, air purification and dust absorption, machines that can be brought in.

Bella: Yeah, absolutely. That would work great. Yes, correct. Mm-hmm. And thank you so much for that. Okay. Yeah, here comes the third question. Uh, that is something we hear a lot. Is it really worth converting a tub to a shower? Or should someone keep a bathtub for resale value, would you usually recommend.

Zak: Extremely common question. Look, there’s like age old wisdom that if you only have one bathroom, you better keep a bathtub in it ’cause you don’t know who’s gonna buy it. For resale value, that kind of thing. You don’t know who’s gonna buy it. And some people say if you have multiple bathrooms, it makes sense to have one that has a bathtub.

So I would say between those two kind of old wives tales, or cliches, I would say, the second one makes a little bit more sense than the first. And I’ll tell you why. So if you have multiple bathrooms, it means it’s a larger apartment, which means that there’s a very high likelihood that the future owners or buyers, people who may be in the market to purchase it after you leave or move or whatever, or if you’re gonna rent it, whatever the case might be.

That it might be a family unit of some sort, right? Families with kids or pets, often prefer to have a bathtub, right? It makes sense if you’ve got multiple bathrooms to have at least one tub. If you’ve only got one bathroom and you’re only like a one bathroom, one, one bed, one bath or studio or something like that, probably either gonna have a smaller family, but more than likely in New York City, , it’s probably gonna be a younger professional or a younger couple, or a young married couple or a much, or an older couple or whatever.

Whoever it is, they, future buyers might not be as, invested in needing a bathtub, and to put it very simply, the cost of real estate in New York City is as such compared to the cost of renovation that if you only have one bathroom and you just, you, let’s say you’re the owner and you feel like you’re gonna be there for 10 years and you never take baths, ever, you just never do it, and you like walk-in showers, put in a walk-in shower, take the tub out and put in a walk-in shower.

Why do I say that? Well, first of all, because of the availability of real estate inventory in New York City. If somebody really likes your apartment, a walk-in shower is almost never gonna be a deal breaker if you don’t, if they don’t have a tub. Why? Because the cost to then put in a tub, it, let’s say somebody loves the apartment but doesn’t have a bathtub, but the owner’s, like everything else is perfect.

That’s not gonna stop them from buying the apartment because anyone, or it shouldn’t. Because if they were to ask a contractor or a friend or their real estate professional, they’ll tell them, look, if you want to put a tub in, it’ll cost x. That cost is not gonna be a particularly significant cost relative to the cost of the apartment.

It’s a, if it’s a, if it’s a $500,000 apartment, just converting from a shower to a, from a shower to a tub or something like that, you’re looking at maybe 5% or something like that, which can again be over the course of the owner’s. Ownership of the space is nominal.

So I, I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people make it Again, if it’s a, if you’re in a townhouse or a three bedroom apartment or even a two bedroom with two baths, for sure keep one bath. I would recommend that. But if you’re, if it’s a studio or a one bedroom in a part of town, if you’re a younger owner in an area where there are a lot of younger professionals or younger couples or younger married couples, like it’s not gonna, it’s probably, I’ve never heard it make or really break a sale, particularly in New York City.

Not to mention, I haven’t looked at this year’s most recent data, but I dunno, A few years ago I saw that even bathrooms that had been renovated, I think six or seven years prior to, so in other words, if a bathroom was six or seven years old at the time of, and this goes for kitchens as well, actually, it’s a little bit compressed, five, six years.

If they’re only five or six or seven years old, by the time the, the buyer is acquiring the new space, there’s a very high likelihood that they’re gonna renovate it anyway. So whether you have a shower or a bath, they’ll probably be very high possibility that the next, resident will be replacing it anyway.

Bella: Yeah. Got it. Yes. And that’s, now, if it’s a, if 

Zak: it’s a rental property, you might wanna keep a tub because you’ll have to appeal to a wider variety of potential tenants,, who might have a pet or a young child or something like that. And you want it to be more marketable to a wider, group of people that, that can make sense.

Bella: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Actually. If you have a big apartment with multiple bathrooms, yes, you’re right. Keep one of them one tub. But if you have one small apartment, just go with the one you want. Go with the one what works best for your own life. For sure. Okay. Okay. And about the next question.

As we all know, New York bathrooms can be so tiny. How do you make a small bathroom feel bigger and more luxurious, even if there is not much space? 

Zak: Sure. Common question. I wish I had a more creative answer than the ones that I’m sure are, I’m guessing in today’s day of a AI and Google, it’s gonna be the most common answers. It’s large format tile, is gonna be, is gonna open up spaces. So let me put it simply, if you haven’t, come across this information by now, then I’ll be the first to share large, format tile will make the space seem more open, for it to be less busy.

So actually lemme come at your question for two different directions. I’ll start with the premise, the fundamental premise of your question, right? It’s a common one. So how do I make a New York City bathroom, appear more open? Let’s say it’s 35 square feet. So the go-to has always been lighter colors, large format tile, very clean refined lines, less ornamentation, inordinate.

Often people not just wanna stay light, but often even also a little bit in the gray scale. Try and do more whites and light grays and. Chrome’s and things like that. And, than warmer pallets. Okay. So that’s all pretty well established. Also, of course, other considerations like you could, okay, so if you wanna get a little bit creative on that, if the bathroom doesn’t have a window, you might want consider doing a cho window or bringing in light or a translucent glass door that can bring light in from the rest of the apartment just to, to lighten it up.

Again, maintaining privacy by it being, opaque as opposed to, of course, transparent. And,, and that can help out. Sometimes you can actually you can do like a light panel at the ceiling that can bring light in. Again, if you don’t have a skylight or access to a skylight, you can always put in a skylight, except your upstairs neighbors might get upset, unless you live on the top floor.

But I think there’s another way to look at, not another way to look at that question, but I always like to explore the opposite of that, which is, given that New York City bathrooms tend to be on the 35 square foot range. And particularly when people come to New York City, moving from places like Las Vegas, Houston, Miami, where people’s homes tend to be larger and lighter, more, an airier,

I sometimes ask people if they, they would be interested in at least exploring the other side of the coin and what is the other side of the coin? Embracing the smallness of the space and actually leaning into creating a more intimate space. So leaning into warmth, deeper grays or deeper textured surfaces, or, not necessarily busy, but comfortable types of materials that feel less stark, maybe less, clean and institutional and that kind of thing.

And maybe the, and the lighting can reflect that as well. Maybe a little bit warmer. So of course you, you may have task lighting. In and around the vanity area and places like that where you might be putting on makeup or doing your hair and things like that. But you have the opportunity during, whether you’re just using, whether you’re just using the toilet or if you’re just, taking a shower to lean into kind of warmer lighting and that kind of thing.

It’s just something that I have found, relatively popular and pretty successful over the last. I feel like this conversation has really expanded a lot in the last 10 years or so. ’cause I think the, the movement to try and put lipstick on a pig, so to speak, try to make a small area look big, like it can be done, you can definitely, make it feel less confined.

Okay, cool. We all know what to do. Light, large format tile, clean lines, not a lot of grout, all that kind of stuff. Cool. But I’ve noticed in the last 10 years, people have been more open to the conversation of yeah, maybe we do some cove lighting so that unless I am doing my hair and makeup, it’s gonna feel more like an intimate setting.

Think about the, , beautiful, bathrooms that are in places like a hospitality setting. Imagine a beautiful bathroom off of, a beautiful lobby lounge in a boutique hotel. Every time you go in there, there nice warm colors, maybe like fun wallpaper, some cool light fixtures, warmer lighting, maybe some cove lighting that gives you more than enough light to do what you need to do.

But it feels warm and you’re feeling more intimate as,, and actually it’s interesting, when the place is a little bit darker, actually, sometimes you don’t even, for example, I can’t remember which architects, said this event I was at.

They mentioned, you don’t know how large a dark room is. If room is pitch black, you don’t know how large the room is, correct? Right. Not that you should have a bathroom that’s pitch black, not safe for shaving, that’s for sure. If it is a little bit more intimate, your eye doesn’t tend to capture everything within the optical landscape.

You’re not influenced by it as much. It gives you a different feel and I think that can work as well. It, and that’s totally on the client. It’s just a kind of a thought experiment that I think is interesting to go down, with clients, again, given the restrictions, if it’s a building where you can actually, you can expand the footprint of the bathroom a little bit, , or even substantially, as long as you do it, a lot of additional waterproofing and usually some additional filings for the DOB.

Then you can also explore those options too. And sometimes a little bit can make it feel a lot more open and, less cramped. 

Bella: That’s a good idea actually. And my next question will be related to this one actually. It’ll be about the trends. Mm-hmm. Are there any new trends in New York City bathroom remodeling that you are seeing right now?

What materials or features are people asking for these days? Or what do you recommend to people, to homeowners? 

Zak: Well, the first thing I wanna do is I wanna plant the flag. Finally something that I’ve been, talking about for almost 20 years, or at least 15 years, has been becoming more and more popular.

Finally, I, so I spent a lot of my time in East Asia and Europe earlier in my career, and, as you may well know, particularly in Europe, a lot of bath areas are more like what are referred to as wet rooms, where you have, you may have a linear drain. The entire floor is pitched. It makes it easy to clean.

You can wander around the space. You don’t have to think about, , I can’t get water on that or this. It’s all one integrated, wet room space, a little bit pitched. Sometimes you have a little bit of glass to have, a little bit to protect the s. Basically has a splash guard to keep water from going all over the vanity and stuff.

Yeah, it, this actually does feed a little bit into the previous question as well about opening up a space. That’s the way to create the most open space. You have one open space, which is maybe a panel of glass, delineating it. Now, look, the vast majority of us are only using the bathroom one person at a time most of the time.

So if that’s the case, then you’re already private in there. So who needs a lot of delineation or non-transparent surfaces? Having one large wet, open, wet area has become more common with linear drains because people like the kind of refined open look of that. Also, I would say, when I say trending, I’d say for the last 10 years it’s been increasing in trend.

It’s been, um, going from kind of the fringes more into the mainstream is again having a seamless bathroom floor with no, threshold or step up. Again, , the building has to allow for that, the building conditions. But basically having a clean line throughout the entire, again, back to a wet area idea, straight into the shower.

And of course that’s also very good for, you were talking about trends. What I just mentioned also is very important in aging, in place considerations which are becoming more and more, , mainstream. That is, , incorporating designs into your renovation that would allow for, being, in that environment.

Well into your, seventies, eighties, nineties, when your mobility may be a little bit compromised. So you want to get tripping hazards out of the way. You might one day end up, using certain kinds of shower furniture in the shower if, if you’re in your fifties and sixties and you plan on staying somewhere till your eighties and nineties, it’s something you might want to consider.

All of those things are also being, are getting more mainstream, I would say. Other things in terms of trends, gosh, I feel like, for a long time now there’s been, a leaning into both in electrical and plumbing considerations. More exposure of the actual mechanicals.

So what I mean, or, what I, and components, what I mean by that is, so I would say more than 10 years ago if you had a rain shower, it was, almost all the time that it was almost always the case that those branch lines and all the plumbing was like buried in the wall and ceiling and you only saw the shower head.

People have become much more amenable now to like seeing some of the plumbing, and, but using interesting materials for that, whether it be a copper or like brass or bronze finish or, even theoretically chrome finishes and stuff like that. So actually, celebrating the.

The, mechanical nature of the fixture? I’d say, floating toilets have been going on for a long time now. I think they’re now becoming more the norm where people are seeing them so frequently in airports, hotels, and things like that, that they don’t even want to see the, the base anymore.

They just want it kind of coming outta the wall. Usually it’s feasible, sometimes it’s not. Depends on what’s on the other side of the wall and how to run the branch and waistlines. Let’s see, other trends? Yeah, I mean I everything is coming back to glass now. As I say that also there’s a resistance against that.

Some people are getting into exotic, curtains too. But I would say that, , the days of if you’re doing a high-end renovation in New York City that you want any kind of return on investment on, it’s unlikely that you’re gonna have a shower curtain. So it’s usually gonna be glass. We’re now in an age where there’s all kinds of really cool options at lower price points.

And when I say cooler options at lower price points, you can now match the hardware for whatever kind of sliding or framing mechanism you have for your glass, if it is sliding or if it does have a hinge. If it’s anything other than a panel, you can often match that with your, faucet thermostatic controls your shower heads and shower and faucet handles and stuff like that.

So that can be unified and that’s become, , rather popular. I feel like, in terms of trends that are, that we’re going away from, even as recently as, five, 10 years ago, everyone wanted to have towel warmer, in their bathroom. And that was a big thing.

And I think I’ve probably removed more of them than I’ve installed in the last five or 10 years. I think that, I don’t know, I don’t think anyone ever really hit a home run with designing a beautiful towel warmer. So that’s an opportunity for any great designers out there. If you can redesign a beautiful towel warmer, you might have a huge market.

’cause I haven’t seen many and most of the customers, most of the homeowners now are like, eh, I think we can figure out how to keep our towels warm some other way. , Radiant floor heat, has actually, if we’re talking about trends, I would say that used to be a trend, and now it’s becoming pretty close to a norm.

And I think one of the reasons why it’s become almost a norm now. Is, a lot of it has to do with the technology and the tool itself. When I started doing renovations in New York City, , not that long ago, even just 15 years ago, a lot of the radiant floor products out there were a little dodgy, even the best brands.

It was like a Christmas tree problem. Christmas tree light problem, where remember back in the day, one Christmas light, one light would blow, and then like none of the rest of the lights would go on your Christmas tree lights. It’s used to be like that the way the circuits were, assembled and arranged.

, Now it’s it’s become much more consistent and reliable. And I should put out there the reason why that’s a massive problem or was a massive problem was because if something did go wrong with your network, under tile heating network, you had to dig up your entire floor, which was often tile, which is often expensive just to get at the radiant heating.

Because of the increased consistency and performance of those radiant floor units, that, concern has been mitigated to, such a degree that it’s become, I think, pretty normal for people to wanna put that in. And, I would say after base molding and things like that, radiant floor is one of the most, it is not that expensive.

Again, it used to cost an arm and a leg with the electrical work and the products themselves. Now it’s really not that expensive, so people are almost expecting it. 

Bella: Yeah. Got it. And let’s say, what are your favorite ones? Let’s say top three. 

Bella Bennett: What are my top three trends or top three bathrooms?

Bella: Trends. Like the elements you like, the components you like. 

Zak: Yeah. I think I already hinted on it. It’s funny, , this could very much speak. Well, of course it’s the most subjective question you could ask. What’s my preference? There was a period of time when I lived in Hong Kong and my parents came and visited me.

And my father, who’s even is quite a bit taller than I am. He’s in the six four range. He went to use my bathroom in Hong Kong and it was so tiny that he could, and it was just one wet room. He could, he could basically shower while using the toilet if he wanted to, which I thought was, which, which he thought was funny.

And I thought was funny too. Nobody did that. But you could. I really like leaning into the functionality of the wet room concept. I’m not remotely, I’m not trying to, recommend anyone create, something where you can shower above your toilet, although it makes for very good cleaning, very easy to clean.

But having a very open, plan. I’m all about refinement and simplicity in, in bathrooms. Fall into two camps, the bathroom where I’m, where I may be showering or doing anything. Basically any time I’m showering or cleaning up, I just want a large, open, clean, unrefined area.

I, I’m a very much a brutalist in this area. I don’t even need a, I don’t even care about a glass panel. I don’t need one if the whole room is tile. If I was left to my own devices, I would just use tile or large format, like countertop applications. Hydrophobic applications around the entire space.

Clean, open, low maintenance. ‘Cause bathrooms can be a headache if they’re too high maintenance. If there’s too many corners, if there’s too many gaps between the vanity and this, I would have a wall mounted, either, porcelain or non-porous material. ’cause I don’t need countertops ’cause I don’t, I, everything that I need can fit into a medicine cabinet.

So gimme a, a recess medicine cabinet for my razor. And a couple things, a freestanding or pedestal sink I don’t need under storage, not my bag. Totally clean a toilet, a shower. I am good to go with like very clean lines. , What I just described would scare away about 80% of my clients and 100% of my wife.

She would despise what I just described, but that’s what I like. And it’s funny, there are places in this world where that’s the most common type of bathrooms, in Hong Kong and in Tokyo, and even in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Barcelona, you’re gonna see a lot of bathrooms, , similar to the one that I just described.

Mm-hmm. In America, people tend to get a little bit more ornate, , in terms of other trend. And also they want, like all the storage and stuff like that. I keep a, I’ll keep a nearby closet or almost pantry size, something near the bathroom if I need something. , Like people storing their bathroom, cleaning supplies in their bathroom.

I have many clients who do it, and a lot of homeowners do it. I don’t wanna do that. I don’t wanna have a big drawer in my bath. That’s me. , Other trends that , I’ll tell you about a weird one. It’s the opposite of a trend. , It is a trend in that it’s the, in that it’s the opposite of a trend.

Okay. Another thing I’ve been telling my clients for many, many years, so you basically, it’s become really, really hard to use a, sorry to install a flushometer toilet. Bella, do you know what a flushometer toilet is? 

Bella: I do not think so. 

Zak: So flushometer toilet is the term we use for, those really old school toilets where you’ve got just the commode, right?

The basic uhhuh, the seats, toilet seat uhhuh, and you’ve got the plumbings is exposed above it. You, in America, you mostly see them these days in uh, institutional settings, like in hospitals or in airports and stuff like that. And there used to be like a hand valve that you, you would turn it.

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Okay, so there’s no tank at all. There’s no tank. Mm-hmm. Okay. So this was the primary toilet in most New York City apartments for a very, very long time. The originals were, that had the box above and you pulled it. That’s going, those started going away in the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, around the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties.

You start getting these flush TERs, right. With the valve. And you bend the valve to flush it. Yeah. A lot of New York City apartments still had them. Okay. If you have one, don’t get rid of it. If your building will allow you to keep it, dear God, please, I’ll grab you by the legs and beg you to not get rid of it.

It’s the most consistent. Worry free. You’ll have very few problems with it, but it will be incredibly loud and , forceful. I think it’s cool. To me it’s almost like the toilet version of a muscle car. And I’m not like a muscle car guy. I am not like, I don’t need to drive Mustangs or something, or loud sports cars or something.

But it’s like that, people, Americans particularly, I think they got more, subtle shy with that. , They don’t want the entire house knowing that you just flushed the toilet. Look, if you live alone, particularly why care? Go for it. So if you’ve got a flushometer, keep it. If your building allows you to install one, consider it.

I think they’re cool. Yeah. So I’ll put that out there as well as, my anti trend in, in bathrooms, for sure. Okay. Also, I would say also in terms of trends, that are cool. Look, I do like drop-in tubs. When I recently renovated my own in my house, I put in a drop-in tub.

’cause if you’re gonna have a bathtub, yeah. I don’t need to see the side of the bathtub. If we can just tile that up. Fantastic. Let’s do that. Unless it’s a claw foot or something like that, which again, is also something that’s, if you can have one, I would recommend that. 

Bella: Yeah. Good ideas.

Listeners, I’m sure you are hearing these. And I’m sure , giving them fresh ideas and if they want to give it a try, why not? 

Zak: Yeah. 

Bella: Okay. And, uh, already my final question, once the model is finished, what should homeowners expect? Can you walk us through what happens during the final walkthrough and what kind of ities or support you offer afterwards?

Zak: Sure, I’ll just speak on our behalf. ’cause I think what we do is more or less industry standard, in the punch list phase. That means that basically all your finished materials have been installed. You go around, there’s a thousand ways to do it. There’s no one right way. Sometimes you want to go through with, post-it notes, and you can just put a post-it note on different things that you might have questions about, and then just bring the contractor back or the build team to ask questions about.

Like the grout lines seem a little wide here, or, the shower head, is there an opportunity to change that out now that I see it in the space, maybe I’m thinking about going for a different direction. These are all things you can bring up. You want as few of those as possible, but yeah, any quality control issues that you might have at the very end.

You want, of course, use it a bit, make sure that, water is staying, you know where it’s supposed to be. It’s not splashing around, it’s not getting out of the wet areas. If you do have a vanity that’s been custom made, make sure that the drawers are opening and closing. , The way that they should operate.

Always test the radiant floor, heating, all that kind of stuff. , Just basic common sense things. Making sure that everything is functional. If you’re in a, again, con co-op condo, elevator building of any kind, there’s gonna be final sign-offs. That’s all pretty boring stuff.

Look, here’s what’s in your favor. What’s in your favor? Is that between workers’ comp, liability insurance, the insurance umbrella, that the building’s gonna want your, your contractor or design build firm to have, and the DOB, the Department of buildings as a backstop for inspections and stuff. The, so the downside about building a New York City is that it’s.

It’s a massive headache in a lot of ways and for a lot of reasons dealing with A DOB is a huge, can be a pretty big hassle. The upside there is at least one and the upside is that due to the inspections that they’re gonna have, you’re gonna know that your bathroom is safe as long as it’s inspected and permitted and that kind of thing.

Above and beyond that, even if you’re, let’s say a homeowner who is just giving your bathroom a facelift, and it didn’t even require really any DOB filings of any kind ’cause you’re just replacing finished materials or something. The contractor or design build firm, have their own insurance and their own reputation, on the line.

So you know, if anything were to go wrong, it should be built into your agreement that, of course all the local laws apply and all that kind of stuff. And again, if you find, as long as you find a builder that has a good reputation, that’s done dozens, hopefully hundreds of jobs in New York City. You should be good to go.

’cause that’s a sign that builder’s not here to just, renovate your bathroom and then just move to Kansas City or something. If they’ve built a reputation here, the online presence and history is gonna follow them. You’ll never make every human being happy.

But if you have lots of bad reviews, clearly that’s a red flag. Particularly if the reviews are calling out the same problems over and over. So you should be in a good situation in terms of what to expect. And sign offs. And warranties. The expectations that you know, the finish materials should match the ones that you selected.

The layout should, match what you had designed. The DOB will help with that. ’cause if there, if anything doesn’t fit what the plan was that was filed with the DOB, they’re gonna flag it. You’re not gonna pass your inspection and your builder’s gonna look like a real. Amateur, unfortunately. And that’s pretty rare and something must have gone very sideways for that to happen.

You, you’ve hired the wrong people, but let’s assume you’ve hired the right people. With regards to warranties, again, bathrooms. Well, I love bathrooms. Very simple. The master plumber, who signed off on the permit, they’re gonna, they’re going to basically warranty all of the plumbing, right?

They have to come back and fix anything that should happen with that. If the plumber was hired by your builder, then the builder will have to pay for any, anything that could go sideways with regards to warranties for a bathroom. Whether it be a 10, a 20, 50, or a lifetime warranty, that’ll be negotiated into your agreement.

Different companies work differently. Let me give you the absolute, let me tell you how the sausage, I’m gonna take you behind the curtain real quick here. Okay. For a reputable design build firm or a contractor like take NYC Design Build for just example. Off the top of my head, I’m not even sure what our, what our agreements stipulate in terms of, warranty on work.

I don’t remember if it’s 20 years or lifetime, whatever it is, forget it. Okay it’s lifetime. Why do I say that? Why do I say it’s with us at least? , And with any good design build from, why do I say that? Chances are if something is not working properly in your bathroom, unless something went really wrong and it was signed off on by the DOB, so it passed the inspections, it passed the waterproof test, branch lines, all that kind of stuff.

If something went wrong, probably there’s a warranty issue. There’s a, there may be a problem with one of the materials, like your fixture, in which case there should be a warranty in place from the fabric, from the producer, the manufacturer, right? If it’s a shower head, something’s weird, or there should be like a relatively simple fix.

If it’s a tiling problem, then something went wrong with the tile installation, usually, right? No matter what it is, if it’s 20, if your warranty was for 20 years or a lifetime, if your GC or design build firm is still in business, we live in a world right now where one bad review, one wildly crazy review, one harra, it’s like you want to minimize and mitigate this as much as humanly possible if something didn’t work out, and again, it’s often a case of material or who knows, it could be expansion contraction behind the walls that nobody has anything to do with.

Who knows what the situation is. It could be the neighbor upstairs doing renovation and their vibrations caused a crack or something like that. It doesn’t matter. Call your GC and your, or your contractor. Take a photo of the situation, send it to them. In the onboarding process and the signing process, you should always feel comfortable with the people you’re moving forward with.

If you don’t do it. If you’re like, these people gave me the best price, but I feel a little sketchy about them, red flag. Like, no. Or if they, or if you like, I feel comfortable with these guys. They don’t have any reviews and they haven’t done any other bathrooms, but I like them. No. Okay. So if you find somebody who you feel comfortable with that has good reviews, and you go into agreement with them 999 times out of a thousand, if you show them a photo of something that’s not working out with the bathroom, they’re gonna want to come back to address it.

Because our reputations are everything. Right? What is it? If it takes me, if I have to hire a plumber to do something for a day versus a bad review, come on. If I have to send my tile guy from, something he’s working on to go look at your situation, maybe after hours to assess the situation and then come back and fix something, would I rather do that or live with some big, glaring bad review?

Of course I’m gonna , send someone to come in and have a look at it, and that goes back to the very first questions you were asking. If you bring the right team on board that’s experienced, that is in New York City that eats, sleeps, breathes, and works in New York City, that’s not going anywhere.

They’ve been here for 15 years. You know it to, to set one’s entire reputation on fire because you didn’t feel like going back to replace a shower head. Like it’s not good business. So yes, from a warranty standpoint, I highly advise that it’s articulated in your agreement. But know that when you work with a reputable design builder or firm or contractor, like they’re gonna come back and take care of your situation

They should otherwise they’re not in it for the long haul, that’s for sure. 

Bella: Yeah. And their reputation is there for some reason. And so it’s all about choosing the right people. 

Zak: Now sometimes now we’re talking about bathrooms. So my answer to your question is very straightforward when it comes to bathrooms.

Now, kitchens get a little bit interesting only in the sense that, I give the same answer in terms of industry reputation and stuff like that, right? We want to come back and address it in a kitchen though, you do have more opportunity for there to be things that are completely, manufacture related.

But don’t hesitate to call your design build firm or GC first, right? So let me give you a perfect example. The dishwasher, like I. NYC Design Build. We stand behind our work 100%. Has Whirlpool ever made a not so great or meal or, Toshiba made a subpar dishwasher. It has happened.

Okay. We don’t hand make dishwashers, but we install them. So, if we go and we look and our electrician says the connection is appropriate, and our plumber says that the connections, and we show a bunch of pictures and then you can send that to, again, the supplier for the appliance, they should honor the warranty and we can help you with that.

Whether it’s removing the existing one, dropping it off for you, and then getting, and then installing the new one. Like we can of course, help with that. It’s very rare. These days, I just, I haven’t seen many appliances that are that problematic in a , very long time.

There generally seems to be a lot of consistency. Refrigerators, of course, you call subzero if there’s an issue, but we can help with all of that for sure. But in bathrooms, you’re not dealing with a lot of fancy electronics or, particularly complex machines.

Usually most complex thing you might have might be some lighting or something like that. But again, that should be on the contract or the GC to address if there’s any issue ever. 

Bella: Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, got it. Okay, and thank you Zak. This was all for today. Before we finish, would you like to add something or do you have anything else to share with anyone listening?

Zak: Yeah, just that, if you’re interested in getting some feedback on your bathroom innovation or have any questions, you can always reach out to Mustafa and I at NYC Design Build. Yeah, our inbox is always open. We’re all, I spend a lot of my week answering questions from former clients, prospective clients, architects, real estate professionals who hit me up,, for questions exactly related to this.

Don’t be shy and don’t think that your project might be too small or that you’re in a part of the city that you know that we don’t work in. We work in pretty much every part of the city and we’ve worked on projects of all different scopes. And what I always tell people, ’cause it is, has been maybe my best business model that I adopted ages ago is that.

If I’m not the best fit for a solution for you in terms of us personally doing the work, I’ll always point you in the right direction and, um, only good things have come of that for me. If a project is somebody reaches out to me and it’s a friend of a former client and all they need to do is they just want to redo their just shower area.

If we don’t have bandwidth to do that, I can point you in the right direction and then, that person might then recommend somebody else who needs like a full townhouse renovation. You never know. I’m always here and, feel free to utilize Mustaf and I as a resource. You can just reach out to us at a, info at NYC DB nyc, and we’ll get back to you.

Bella: Yes, I’m sure they’ll experience something good with you and with Mustafa I am, 100% sure they’ll like your work and everything. Thank you so much again for being here and sharing your knowledge. It’s been such a pleasure talking with you I knew everyone listening will find this so helpful.

For anyone who wants to learn more about bathroom remodeling, NYC Design Build, or connect with Zak, connect with Mustafa, uh, you can find the website link in the description below. Thank you all for joining us today. Take care and see you next time.