Crash! Boom! Bang! The Living Room Reno Begins!

Room by room, year after year... That's how I've renovated my Brooklyn Heights apartment over the past 12 years, from kitchen to hallway and second bedroom to bathroom to bedroom (thank you HGTV's Dear Genevieve!) and now... at last... the living room. Geez, what the hell took me so long?

Demo began Tuesday, and over the next month, hardwood floors will replace the nasty dark green carpet that's been in place all this time, while the walls are rehabbed with fresh drywall and a testy ceiling gets a full whitewash. Also: a new fireplace hearth, new base and window moldings and a few other tricks to dress up the room... while allowing it to shine with elegance and simplicity.

My contractor Angelo and I got off to a slightly rocky start... before the work began, as we were assembling the pile of requisite forms, certificates, licenses and permissions for my (typically) fussy coop building. Funny, when I threatened to fire him—and this wasn't a bluff—his whole attitude changed. How 'bout that?

So the games have begun with the crash, boom, bang of demo—a procedure I happen to adore. Seeing what's behind these 200 year-old walls is always an adventure, piecing together various piecemeal re-dos over so many years and trying to discern how this ever happened to that. Purists like to insist that I should have salvaged the hardwood floors that were under the carpet, but if you'd seen them, you'd know better. Some were mere slices of wood, rotted and worn around the edges, with slabs of plywood filling in some of the holes. Sorry, prefinished new floors are my muse. Stay tuned for updates as the madness ensues. *