A Road Map to Your Renovation with the Brownstone Boys

00;00;02;20 – 00;00;19;00

Amy Chernoff

Welcome to Ask the Appliance experts from AJ Madison Pro that tackles the ins and outs of appliances, making an often confusing and really technical topic, approachable and dare we say, even fun. I’m Amy Chernoff, VP of Marketing here at AJ Madison.

00;00;19;09 – 00;00;50;09

Jessica Petrino-Ball

And I’m Jessica Petrino-Ball editorial director at AJ Madison. We are the brand’s in-house experts and we’re on tap to interview installers, builders, renovation pros and other leaders in the field on all things appliances. Today is Valentine’s Day. We have in store for us today a home improvement love story. We’re super excited to introduce Jordan and Berry, a.k.a. the Brownstone Boys.

00;00;50;22 – 00;01;16;20

Jessica Petrino-Ball

They are designers, DIY’ers, renovators and restorers and they have a passion for old homes and everything that comes along with them, which is going to really come in handy for today’s episode. The details, the quirks, the character, and especially those parts that need a lot of love. They bought their 130 year old Brooklyn brownstone in 2018 and they’ve been restoring it ever since.

00;01;16;21 – 00;01;33;18

Jessica Petrino-Ball

They started a blog and an Instagram account on the day they closed, and they have been documenting their journey very closely. Today, the Brownstone boys launched a full time business, designing and managing brownstone renovations all over Brooklyn and New York City. Welcome.

00;01;34;07 – 00;01;35;12

Jordan

Thank you so much, Jessica.

00;01;35;24 – 00;01;59;14

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Thank you so much for being here. This conversation is super exciting, especially for folks that might be in that, you know, thinking about a renovation, maybe they have a little bit of trepidation getting interested in launching their projects. And at least I can say from an appliance perspective, there’s a lot of things that I’ve seen having done this over the years that I love.

00;02;00;05 – 00;02;14;01

Jessica Petrino-Ball

First, I definitely want to get some insight about your journey and kind of your background. Yeah, in the introduction. And for those listening who haven’t become acquainted with you yet. Walk us through how you got into the renovation business.

00;02;14;11 – 00;02;40;05

Barry

Sure. So, I mean, really, it was it was by accident because we didn’t mean to start a business. Our journey really starts before we bought our own house because we both had different careers and did things in the real estate and design world. I always wanted to be an architect my entire life. And so I went to architecture school and I lasted about two years before life took me in a different direction.

00;02;40;15 – 00;03;00;18

Barry

And I graduated with a business degree. So I actually ended up going into something completely different than architecture or ended up in software sales. I did that for quite a while, actually for about a decade, but I always loved real estate, I always loved design, I always loved architecture. And so I decided to buy my own place very early in life.

00;03;00;19 – 00;03;21;00

Barry

And so I did that. I lived in it for a couple of years. I sold it, then I bought another place and did a full renovation of it, live in it for a couple of years and sold it. And then I bought two places and did the same thing and so had quite a few of my own renovations under my belt and just really, really loved the whole process.

00;03;21;08 – 00;03;56;21

Jordan

So everything that you just said about buying property, it’s like I was the extreme opposite, where I rented a very small one bedroom apartment in New York City for eighteen years, and I just dreamed of owning a place. I background is a little different than Barry’s. I didn’t go to architecture school, actually got my start in New York as a baker, and I worked for a bakery that became very successful, and the guys that owned the bakery out in Red Hook, Brooklyn, decided they were going to open up a second shop, and they were looking internally for help designing their shop.

00;03;57;06 – 00;04;28;25

Jordan

And I just became obsessed with that task that how a kitchen functions as a baker. And I think it’s such an important thing. And with their guidance, we opened up that dream bakery in the heart of Tribeca, and it was a beautiful design shop and an ice cream company came to the owners and asked if they knew of anyone that could help them design ice cream shops because they were growing their business and that’s when I joined the famous New York Ample Hills.

00;04;29;02 – 00;04;58;23

Jordan

I joined them when they were at three shops and I had the extreme pleasure of helping them build out 16 ice cream shops all throughout New York City. So I became so familiar with all the codes required to open up a commercial space, but it was always for somebody else, all while I lived in my small one bedroom apartment, and I just went home from work every night and added more Pinterest boards to my dream apartment that one day I would own and around this time is when I met Barry and I heard of his journey of renovating.

00;04;58;23 – 00;05;23;21

Jordan

And we took a bike ride on our second date and we discovered that we both shared a mutual passion and brownstone Brooklyn and the community that the brownstone Brooklyn entails and embraces. And that’s when I knew that me and Barry were going to do something there and then that our relationship meant the world to me already, and that I think I was finding a life partner in him.

00;05;24;13 – 00;05;37;12

Jordan

And we quickly purchased our place after seven months of dating. And when I told my parents I almost put them in their grave, but I just said, Trust me on this one. Barry is one of a kind and we’ve been holding each other’s hands ever since.

00;05;37;17 – 00;05;39;00

Jessica Petrino-Ball

I love that story.

00;05;39;27 – 00;06;27;25

Amy Chernoff

Me too it’s definitely not… But no, I love that we haven’t had a love story on our podcast yet. There you go. I love that. I think also kind of highlighted the bridge between inspiration, DIY and really becoming a capable technical experts across a wide variety of renovation skills. Right? So Instagram I think has done a lot for all of us to provide inspiration, but everything looks insta-easy and I think the DIY’er or that tries to tackle their own projects have to really applaud the spirit in which people are attempting to do that.

00;06;27;25 – 00;06;43;22

Amy Chernoff

But it does take a lot of technical capability to effectively make code and do things properly, especially when you’re renovating a whole home. And brownstones are so unique and their structure, their age usually.

00;06;43;24 – 00;07;11;09

Jordan

Yeah, and it’s interesting that you say that, Amy, because our journey, our brownstone boys really started out of curiosity. And both of us had so many questions around restoring and renovating an older home that we just weren’t finding the answers to. So that’s when after we purchased our place, I quickly told Barry I was like, we should put this out in the world just so people can have something to go up against.

00;07;11;20 – 00;07;36;03

Jordan

Have some information out there about what it really means to wood strip and how Barry and I are going to try to take on everything ourselves, but knew our budget was very limited. We knew that the cost in New York City and an old home can be overwhelming. But we were finding that concrete information, so we only had each other to go off of and decide what made sense to do ourselves and what we could sub out.

00;07;36;03 – 00;07;53;29

Barry

Instagram was a big part of how we started our business, but we decided to buy our house and renovated and start blogging about it and starting an Instagram account. And I remember when Jordan first brought it up, we were in his apartment and we were talking about putting in our offer and buying a house, and he’s like, What if we documented the whole thing?

00;07;53;29 – 00;08;08;07

Barry

And he even thought of the name of it right then, and there would be brownstone boys since we were buying a brownstone. And I was like, Sure, you know, our friends and family will read our blog and they’ll follow our Instagram account, and that’s going to be it. But really quickly, we found out that that wasn’t the case.

00;08;08;07 – 00;08;45;05

Barry

And we started with our first blog posts on popular real estate and renovation website in Brooklyn, sort of running all of our blog posts. They reached out to us and they said, We’d love to, like share your whole story. We’re like, Sure. And that gave us a whole lot of motivation to keep writing. And so we wrote a blog post a week for two years throughout our entire renovation and then well beyond and through it, we definitely developed a little bit of a community around our project and people started reaching out to us with questions a lot in our Instagram account, you know, gained a lot more followers and we were just kind of answering

00;08;45;05 – 00;09;04;07

Barry

questions left and right and helping out people the best we could and giving them recommendations for architects and contractors and wood strippers and plaster workers and anything else that we could. Every once in a while someone would reach out to us and they would really seem like they needed a lot of help. The subject of the email would even be, Please help.

00;09;04;19 – 00;09;24;12

Barry

We don’t know what to do. We don’t know where to go until we start this project. We just bought a house that’s a total wreck. We can’t find an architect, we can’t find a GC. Everything is too expensive. And so, you know, we would always try to help them as well. But we always felt bad, like we needed to help them more than we did because just giving them a referral to an architect was probably wasn’t going to be enough.

00;09;24;25 – 00;09;50;12

Barry

One day we finally worked up the courage to ask the person who became our first client, Do you want us to help you do this? They were an amazing couple and they said, Of course we absolutely do. Even though they knew they were our first client and it just kind of took off from there. We very quickly had a second client and then the third and then I think around the third client is when we decided we had to make the really difficult decision as to whether or not we wanted to quit our corporate jobs.

00;09;50;15 – 00;09;55;06

Barry

We decided to do it and take the plunge, and it just really took off from there.

00;09;55;28 – 00;09;57;27

Jordan

We haven’t looked back, since.

00;09;57;27 – 00;10;04;16

Amy Chernoff

I’m thinking of a word, and that word is unicorns. You two are like magical unicorns.

00;10;04;25 – 00;10;07;02

Jordan

I’ll take that.

00;10;07;18 – 00;10;07;29

Barry

Okay.

00;10;08;08 – 00;10;11;05

Amy Chernoff

How long did that first project take you? Like end to end.

00;10;12;03 – 00;10;13;01

Barry

What, eight months?

00;10;14;01 – 00;10;42;03

Jordan

And technically, it was a year and four months because this renovation happened right at the beginning of COVID and the city shut down. And we had a pause. The project for a good solid 2 to 3 months. I remember going back after that New York City mandatory lockdown, and I told Barry I was like, listen, if we can do this and get through this project, we’re really going to be able to tackle anything.

00;10;42;03 – 00;11;01;16

Jordan

It was probably the best challenge thrown our way because it really made us overcome so many obstacles in our renovation and delays that everything that’s just happening in the industry we really tackled on that first project. So we had hoops and bounce to go through and we really did soar get over that hurdle.

00;11;02;29 – 00;11;13;25

Amy Chernoff

When you think about that project and the implications of COVID, like how did you manage all the supply chain delays and planning and communication with your customer?

00;11;13;26 – 00;11;40;21

Barry

That’s one of the things that we always take into every project with the pandemic aside, is managing timelines, managing lead times, getting materials on site when they need to be there and not too early because that’s also a problem. Sometimes it basically really good communication with our vendors for one thing, and understanding what lead times are and asking for updates over and over again when things are changing a lot.

00;11;41;05 – 00;12;02;13

Barry

And so that was a really helpful thing for us to do and to that first project. Even though there were delays in getting the work done, we didn’t really have any lead time issues with products we needed and materials needed on site because we just kept in really close communication with our vendors that were helping us through it.

00;12;03;15 – 00;12;05;14

Barry

And there’s been there was a few times we had to pivot.

00;12;05;18 – 00;12;33;25

Amy Chernoff

Yeah. And you have to have the ability to like shift gears. We’ve seen some pretty significant delays depending on the brands and the product category. But you know, looking across 115 brands, it makes it a little bit easier to sub in based on features, price point, dimension. And I think having that flexibility with your vendors, to your point, as long as there’s really good open communication, Jess is really anxious.

00;12;33;25 – 00;12;54;16

Amy Chernoff

I’m sure, to get into the kitchen. I would assume in a brownstone, depending on the age historic elements of it as well, like how do you tackle the kitchen, making it modern and potentially keeping the esthetic or the very essence of the home as you’re renovating?

00;12;54;24 – 00;13;18;00

Barry

That’s a good question. A lot of times a lot of the project involves restoring a lot of the historic features of the house. So there is marble fireplaces and plaster molding things and wood restoration and that sort of thing. And so a lot of times we are building in a new kitchen, new bathrooms and kind of more modern features of the house to live right next to those things.

00;13;18;08 – 00;13;40;23

Barry

We definitely want them to work well together and to speak to one another and to play nicely together. But we also don’t believe that we need to build a period piece kitchen in a brownstone just because it happens to be in the same room as an original fireplace or next to original woodwork. And so we pay attention to make sure things work well together.

00;13;40;26 – 00;14;04;00

Barry

We don’t go overboard with making sure that it fits the period or the style or whatever. So we’ll put a very modern kitchen in the historic home. We’ll put a very Scandinavian inspired kitchen in a Brooklyn brownstone. We love using a lot of really beautiful colors and kitchens, so we don’t mind bringing in a modern kitchen and modern elements into a historic house.

00;14;04;00 – 00;14;08;16

Barry

And we actually like that juxtaposition of those two things kind of coming together.

00;14;08;16 – 00;14;29;01

Amy Chernoff

Yeah, you must work very closely with your clients to really develop the aestatic. I would assume that homeowners, they want you to come in and just really make magic at their place. They’re looking for inspiration and they maybe they pinned some things on Pinterest or they’ve been on Instagram, but you’re the one that really has to bring that to life.

00;14;29;02 – 00;14;40;20

Amy Chernoff

Do you find that most of your clients have a very specific esthetic that they’re trying to achieve or they’re looking for your direction input and more of a collaboration?

00;14;41;05 – 00;15;11;00

Jordan

Definitely a collaboration really is about the teamwork that we kind of form with our clients. And there’s this initial almost like an interview process where we really get to know them as people and what they want their spaces to feel like. I always love asking our clients, Can I get your Spotify username or your music playlist? Just because I think music plays such an important part of your overall ambiance and how you want a space to feel.

00;15;11;16 – 00;15;40;00

Jordan

And then we ask them for the Pinterest boards where they sometimes overwhelm us with 3000 images and we’re like, Okay, let’s go down to three or four what you like. What’s each of these four photos speak to you? And from there we can really hone in on the design. And we’re fortunate that we do work mostly in brownstones and the traditional kitchen brownstone layout was always on a garden level where the ceilings are a little bit lower and everything was more confined, closed off corners.

00;15;40;00 – 00;16;07;22

Jordan

And that’s because back in time they used to produce a lot of the oils would go throughout the home. So they want to combine them into the smaller space. But now the more modern approach is to put that kitchen on the parlor floor with higher ceilings, open up the kitchens, and something that we get most from our clients is that they really want a space that they can host their friends, their family, a nice open kitchen, warm and inviting.

00;16;07;22 – 00;16;12;20

Jordan

So we always know that that’s going to be kind of the direction that we steer in our design, too.

00;16;12;20 – 00;16;23;26

Jessica Petrino-Ball

I’ve never heard of the Spotify inspiration before, like using someone’s music taste. I love it. At what point do you normally enter the process with your clients?

00;16;24;05 – 00;16;25;09

Barry

Yeah, usually.

00;16;25;09 – 00;16;50;07

Barry

It’s in the very, very beginning. So I think just because the projects that we take on are so big and the entire our townhouse or brownstone, it tends to be in the very beginning, a lot of times it’s even before they, they buy the house. So they might be in the market for a brownstone and they’re kind of like looking around and they, they found one that they are interested in, but they’re curious if it will fit their budget.

00;16;50;07 – 00;17;20;17

Barry

And it will if it can be what they want it to be in the end. And so we’ll all a lot of times even look at places before the client closes on them. So it’s very early in the process. So we usually are helping them in the very beginning, just wrap their heads around the project, what they can do with this house, what kind of work it needs, what a potential budget needs to be, which is very important if you’re buying a fixer upper and you’re going through a major renovation, you definitely have to understand what the costs of the renovations are going to be when you’re comparing it to the cost of the house

00;17;20;17 – 00;17;51;11

Barry

itself. The purchase price. So we help out through that stage. We usually bring in the architect and we work with several different architects. We do all the interior design and all the interior elevations for the entire house and of course like a lot of times there’s a team of engineers, two mechanical, electrical, structural engineers, and then once we get to the point with all the design and architectural plans are ready to go, we’ll bring in the general contractor and then manage the entire process from beginning to end.

00;17;51;20 – 00;18;01;12

Jessica Petrino-Ball

I didn’t realize that you’re engaging with clients even prior to them closing on properties. That’s super, super interesting. I recently purchased my first home.

00;18;01;24 – 00;18;03;09

Jordan

Oh, nice. Congratulations.

00;18;03;11 – 00;18;25;22

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Thank you. So very exciting time. And in going through and touring properties, you walk through them. And as someone that is not actively restoring homes, it’s hard to get a gauge of, you know, what is the purchase price, but then what is it going to cost to be able to bring the property to where you want it to be?

00;18;25;22 – 00;18;36;14

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Probably seen a lot of things where you can advise your clients on, you know, which projects are fun versus less fun. Putting a foundation in is probably less fun than.

00;18;37;08 – 00;18;37;26

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Removing the kitchen.

00;18;37;26 – 00;18;44;18

Jordan

Kitchen. Yeah, yeah, sure. All of our projects are fun, but yes, you’re absolutely out of percent, correct? It’s helpful to have that information.

00;18;46;06 – 00;19;12;05

Amy Chernoff

In that vein. Like nuts and bolts kind of question here. New York Metro is a market that’s been trying to move customers from gas to electric for probably the last five years or so. All of the local ordinances moving towards no new gas lines. Now, that has a lot of implications for cooking. We are a gas market in the New York metro area and it’s been that way for a very long time.

00;19;12;14 – 00;19;35;17

Amy Chernoff

Are you getting a lot of clients that are concerned about this move or this shift? I mean, obviously you’re restoring older homes, that they have a gas line. You’ll be able to keep that. But do you have clients that are looking for more energy efficient options and looking to convert the gas to electric? Or are you having a lot of clients that are asking for those things on your project?

00;19;35;27 – 00;19;59;06

Barry

We actually have, yeah. I mean, even though we do work in old homes that have gas lines and they can always be grandfathered in with that. A lot of our clients have an interest in moving toward electric appliances and heating hot water, in the kitchen as well. So we’ve been doing quite a bit of that. We try to encourage people to make that switch as well.

00;19;59;06 – 00;20;17;17

Barry

You know, a lot of people have the nostalgia of cooking on gas, but there are so many advantages to induction and we really love it. We even feel in our kitchen, we renovated our place. Now it’s been, you know, about four years or so we would do induction if we had it to do over again.

00;20;17;17 – 00;20;21;06

Jordan

That would be the one thing in our kitchen we would change, Absolutely.

00;20;21;21 – 00;20;49;00

Barry

Yeah, and so we’ve learned so much about it and we understand the benefits of it in so many ways with the efficiency of it, the clean up of it, which is just so much easier than having the grates on a gas stove. And so we’ve been have a lot of clients move in. that direction. I would say about half the time now we install an induction cooktop other than gas and we have several clients 20 to 30% I would say that are completely eliminating gas.

00;20;49;16 – 00;21;01;21

Barry

Some of them are putting in solar panels to go along with that. We have a client that has electric car with electric car charger and solar panels and, you know, full electric as well. So we definitely seen a trend in that direction.

00;21;01;28 – 00;21;24;29

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Plus, the Inflation Act is also going to address heat pump dryers and that ventless dryer technology, as I understand it, in these brownstones, adding a washer and dryer space to the home can be a little tricky, especially in spaces where it’s difficult to run a vent pipe to the outside. Remind me, in your home, did you recently redid your laundry space?

00;21;25;07 – 00;21;45;16

Jordan

We did, yes. So? Yes, we are about less and our laundry room was a silly mistake on our end, but we had the plans and the architectural set that did not show it in the parlor or the top floor. And because of that, we had to put our laundry room in the basement. So now we have to go down three flights of stairs to get to it.

00;21;45;16 – 00;22;09;07

Jordan

So we knew we knew that a really fun space. So we made it literally the brightest room in the entire house. We turned it into a bright pink paradise, and it’s just a space that we actually look forward to going down and doing our laundry. Now, as crazy as that sounds, you need a bright room to motivate you to do your most tedious task and for us it was the laundry.

00;22;09;23 – 00;22;16;26

Jordan

So we decided just to go full out there and make it an absurd, crazy room for us to just have fun and want to do laundry.

00;22;16;26 – 00;22;17;25

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Oh, it’s so fun.

00;22;17;28 – 00;22;40;26

Barry

Sometimes it’s hard to vent. We didn’t have the ability to vent, and so we had to use an electric dryer in that situation and the Miele is amazing. And the other thing we run into is we all we usually have to do electrical upgrades. So that that is one thing that kind of comes along with it is in these old houses, they just don’t have the amount of amps coming into them to support going all electric.

00;22;41;04 – 00;22;55;28

Barry

And so that’s one of the things that we do. But fortunately Con Ed does that for free. So they’ll come out and upgrade the electric at no cost. There’s a little bit of electrical work that has to be done on the inside that they don’t do. So you have to have an electrician do that. But actually running the new service they do for free.

00;22;55;28 – 00;23;29;04

Amy Chernoff

Wow, that’s huge. There’s really nothing holding you back then from converting over to electric. You know what, New York, such an interesting market. Also, we’ve gotten lots of interesting requests from clients, especially if they’re in a building that does not allow washers and dryers just because of the venting considerations. But we’ve had Manhattan customers request, you know, can you deliver my washer and dryer but put them in dishwasher boxes so that we can get them in the service elevator?

00;23;29;06 – 00;23;31;01

Barry

Oh, wow. That’s great.

00;23;31;02 – 00;23;34;12

Amy Chernoff

Yeah. So that’s how we roll in the New York area.

00;23;34;26 – 00;23;36;15

Jordan

I mean, we make it work, right?

00;23;36;16 – 00;24;01;07

Amy Chernoff

We make it work. Do you do Most of your clients ends up going just because of the size constraints. Narrow doorways, etc.. Do they end up usually going with column refrigerators? Because you can kind of create whatever size you want and vary the dimension of both the refrigerator and the freezer? Do you find that most of the brownstone clients will end up going with columns?

00;24;01;14 – 00;24;25;15

Barry

So even though a brownstone is a whole townhouse and by the New York standards, it seems like it would be a lot of space still squeezing your kitchen in. Like we’re still having to work with a constraint in the how big of a kitchen we can build. And so figuring out a way to get a nice big fridge and the big full range in as well is kind of tough some time.

00;24;25;15 – 00;24;55;07

Barry

And so we’ve definitely found it very useful to use a taller fridge that isn’t as wide in, that’s counter depth so that everything kind of fits in to a tighter footprint. And so using the columns is very, very helpful. Love to use the ones that are integrated and paneled so that they sit flush with the cabinetry that makes it so much easier to maneuver around and maneuver past and to work with the door swaying as well, which there’s limited space for.

00;24;55;19 – 00;25;18;00

Barry

And we really like to go narrower and taller as well. And so a lot of times we’ll use a 30 inch column that’s eighty-four inches tall. But one thing that I’m always reminded of is a kitchen that we did that wasn’t a brownstone, actually, it was just a condo that we did in Murray Hill. And that place was all about trying to, like, find space everywhere.

00;25;18;01 – 00;25;40;10

Barry

Like every inch of that apartment was about making this small one bedroom apartment as spacious, feeling as possible. And so we actually did a 24 inch column, 84 inch tall column there that was paneled and really opened up the space so much it gave them more counter space. It gave them more space for food prep. It just made the kitchen feel more spacious, even though it was kind of tight.

00;25;40;22 – 00;25;55;10

Barry

But we’ve really been using the columns and I love how you can mix and match and yeah, I have the full freezer as well. I think it’s really, really helpful. And we actually have been working a lot with Fisher and Paykel on theirs and really like their product.

00;25;55;11 – 00;25;56;05

Amy Chernoff

That’s amazing.

00;25;56;05 – 00;25;59;12

Jessica Petrino-Ball

How do you approach the appliance selection process with your clients?

00;26;00;04 – 00;26;22;27

Barry

So we, we do start every kitchen with the appliances, especially when you’re working with size constraints as we really want to understand what kind of appliances we’re working with and where we’re going to put them before we build the rest of the kitchen around it. And the appliance that we tend to start with is the fridge, because it is the biggest thing in the room and it needs to be in a specific location.

00;26;22;27 – 00;26;41;05

Barry

We’re not going to put it in the middle of the kitchen like in the middle of the wall. It’s going to be to one side of the other. So it just makes sense to start with the fridge and then we build from there. And usually in most of our projects we don’t have the space to do a oversize fridge and an oversize range.

00;26;41;13 – 00;26;56;21

Barry

And so we try to help the client figure out which one is going to be the most beneficial for them. Do they want the enormous fridge or do we want to go a little slimmer on the fridge and do a bigger cooktop that has more burners and more features and things like that?

00;26;57;05 – 00;27;21;27

Jordan

One of our first field trips with our clients is a trip to our local AJ madison. While Barry and I educate our clients on everything they need to know, there is always this thing that you can’t really help them make unless they touch everything and they see it in person. So it’s just a really nice first kind of field trip with our clients to have them see a plethora of different things, hear from the professionals themselves.

00;27;21;27 – 00;27;31;22

Jordan

On why they should maybe call this if they like one thing or the other. And then from there we narrow it down and hone in on which appliances we’re going to go ahead and select for their kitchen.

00;27;31;22 – 00;27;35;29

Amy Chernoff

Wow. Jordan, thanks so much. That’s not even a paid endorsement. I just want to know.

00;27;36;00 – 00;27;38;09

Jordan

No paid endorsement. It’s honest & true.

00;27;38;12 – 00;27;39;14

Amy Chernoff

That’s amazing.

00;27;39;22 – 00;28;16;08

Jessica Petrino-Ball

The major reasons you want to go with your clients into an appliance retailer is to really kind of see the different types of products and how they could produce a specific installed result. Right. Like the majority of homeowners that they’re not looking at home appliances packages every day for fun unless they’re me, but probably probably not. And so, you know, one of the biggest kind of challenges are pitfalls that I’ve seen is people putting in a standard package or something that just doesn’t necessarily fit the design esthetic.

00;28;16;13 – 00;28;23;14

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Sometimes you have to see it in real life to see, you know, what a paneled refrigerator actually feels and looks like.

00;28;23;14 – 00;28;47;03

Barry

We explain to every single one of our clients what the difference is between a paneled integrated fridge and a counter adept fridge. Most people do not know what the difference is. So I don’t, I don’t think there was one client that we started working with that came with that knowledge already. And so showing them what the differences are and how it’s going to feel in their kitchen I think is really important.

00;28;47;17 – 00;29;16;16

Amy Chernoff

I think also most consumers, like they may not have never purchased appliances before, you know, maybe their home came with appliances or they just haven’t had the need. And there’s been so much innovation and so many changes sometimes it’s hard to sort through. I would say we’ve been trying to educate appliance shoppers about panel ready for figurations that are available for refrigeration or for cooking the different technologies that are incorporated into dishwashers.

00;29;16;16 – 00;29;24;22

Amy Chernoff

For example, if you’re buying appliances once every 15 or 20 years. Like there’s a lot of catching up to do.

00;29;24;27 – 00;29;48;25

Jordan

Kitchens are always one of those spaces that our clients that we use are the most excited to design and kind of create and put all the pieces together. But there is so much overwhelming information on any size renovation, whether it’s a brownstone or condo or anything, and there’s just so many decisions to be made. So we always recommend, let’s knock out the kitchen first.

00;29;48;25 – 00;30;09;29

Jordan

Let’s really hone in on the appliances, what makes a good appliance, what doesn’t make a good appliance, and then kind of get that order taken care of because it’s something that you want to obviously place early on in process. So make sure it’s there on time. But it’s also one of the last things that you will be using and seeing visually before the renovations will complete.

00;30;09;29 – 00;30;26;19

Barry

Yeah, that’s a really good point. When we come into a project, the first thing that we tell a client we need to work on to order are windows and appliances, because there are a lot of long lead times out there right now. But like to Jordan’s point, we don’t need those appliances until the very end of the project.

00;30;26;21 – 00;30;43;15

Barry

You don’t even want your fridge on site. And so the end of the project, because if you’re installing hardwood floors, you don’t want an enormous fridge sitting in the middle of the living room or in the kitchen while all this other work is going on around you. It is one of the first things that we tackle is nailing down those appliances.

00;30;43;15 – 00;31;00;07

Barry

And it’s one of the first orders we place. And again, you know, one of the things we love about working with our AJ Madison team is we don’t have to really worry too much about if we’re placing the order too early because they help us with managing when we get it on site so we don’t have to accept it earlier than we need it.

00;31;00;27 – 00;31;19;15

Jessica Petrino-Ball

That’s a really good point. Barry. When you think about the project management aspect of what you are doing, especially when it comes to appliances, I could speak to them. You know, you don’t want to take delivery too early because then your manufacturer’s warranty kind of starts when the product gets delivered and you definitely don’t want to place that order too late.

00;31;19;15 – 00;31;49;17

Jessica Petrino-Ball

I think that that is a huge pitfall that I come across also where folks are reaching out and saying, I need to have this huge project worth of appliances in two and a half weeks. And and it’s it can be a little bit of a challenge to kind of project manage at that point because then we’re limited right like the way to get the best selection and brand choices to make those decisions when you are making them proactively and then coordinating all of that, the details with you to make sure that they get delivered on time.

00;31;50;19 – 00;31;59;13

Amy Chernoff

Thanks for being here, guys. It’s been a pleasure to hear about your process. I’m definitely going to be consulting my notes as I embark on my kitchen renovation.

00;31;59;23 – 00;32;00;18

Barry

Thanks for having us.

00;32;01;25 – 00;32;24;06

Jessica Petrino-Ball

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Here are some key takeaways. 1, if you’re going to tackle a historic project like a brownstone renovation, make sure to secure the right subcontractors with experience for best results. 2, work with an AJ Madison Pro Account manager to ensure that you have the right products for your project at the right time.

00;32;24;20 – 00;32;51;10

Jessica Petrino-Ball

We can deliver expert advice to avoid lengthy delays and keep your construction schedule on track. 3, to maximize the kitchen space consider an integrated refrigerator or columns. Columns are a great solution for older homes, especially with a tight delivery path. 4 just because it’s an older home does not mean it needs to be a period piece. Make sure to balance the old and the new to deliver modern convenience.

00;32;51;18 – 00;32;56;08

Jessica Petrino-Ball

5, For more info and tips, visit AJ Madison dot com slash learn.

00;32;57;03 – 00;33;13;28

Amy Chernoff

Make sure you follow the show so you never miss an episode. AJ Madison is part of the SURROUND Podcast Network. Check out our show notes and discover other architecture and design shows that surround podcasts, That’s podcasts with an ‘s’.