You are faced with a confusing situation:
You know that you need to renovate an apartment or a house, but you don’t understand exactly how to do it, how much it costs and what it entails.

An architectural consultation meeting is the right solution for you!

Sorry – you will not see any beautiful before and after pictures in this article!! You will see an apartment which is desperately in need of renovation, how we went about analyzing its weaknesses, and the advice I gave the owners in our meeting.

The owners are a couple whose children no longer live at home. The couple bought a small apartment, built in the nineties. It was clear to them that they wanted to renovate the apartment, but they were not clear about what and how, where to invest, what should be done now and what can be postponed. I was called to advise them.

This is what the apartment looked like, and these are the recommendations the couple received:

Kitchen and living room:

The apartment needs a new kitchen, of course. When planning it, they need to pay attention to some important points:

Remove the upper corner cabinets
Place the sink under the window
Create a greater distance between the stove top and the sink
Only drawers, no shelves in the lower cabinets!
Extend the kitchen to where the sofa is currently
Turn the sofa ninety degrees and put it against the wall, to create an open space and not block the kitchen

Dining area:

Give up the crowded and useless dining area. Take advantage of the free space for a work corner.
On the long wall near the corner, under the existing air conditioner, place a console. A console is a type of dresser, which opens to a long dining table. It can be used for entertaining the extended family at special events, without taking up much space in normal life..

Bathroom and toilet:

Currently, the apartment has a small windowless bathroom, a separate toilet, and a service balcony.
The problem is that all three are small and very crowded. Considering that the apartment owners are older (and probably won’t get any younger in the coming years…), accessibility to these areas must be ensured. That’s why I proposed to unite all three of them into one large room, spacious and lit by a large window.

In giving these advices, I also took into account the location of existing pipes, and the fact that there are no engineering difficulties in demolishing the walls.

These were some general tips.

To make them more concrete, I did a quick measurement of the kitchen and bathroom area. (I come to every counseling session with a tape measure and a laser measuring device.)

Back in my office, I drew an exact plan of the existing situation: I put the initial ideas, which we had talked about in our meeting, into a sketch. This is the only way to check whether these ideas are feasible, and compare the different options:

At this point, I can already give the apartment owners schedules and cost estimates for the renovation.

And what’s next?

The couple can choose two options:

To be content with the initial architectural advice they have received from me, and to set out independently.

To ask me to continue with them in planning and executing an apartment renovation. This process includes the preparation of detailed work plans, the preparation of a bill of quantities, the selection of a contractor, the selection of finishing materials and supervision of the execution of the renovation. In case they choose this way, the one-time consultation cost will be deducted from my fee.

In this article, you have seen no beautiful before- and after – pictures, because we were talking about the very initial stage of the transformation. Now that the owners know what needs to be done, they can move on!

Please check out some of my other articles to learn more about the magic we can create together!

I have many years of experience in renovating old apartments, so if you are in a similar situation and need a one-time architectural consultation, which is based on seeing your needs, analyzing the apartment data and getting to know the renovation procedures in depth, you are welcome to contact me at 054-473-9584.

to learn more about renovating an apartment in Israel, look here.

You are faced with a confusing situation:You know that you need to renovate an apartment or a house, but you don’t understand exactly how to do it, how much it costs and what it entails.