SOMETIMES not having enough money to renovate right away can be a blessing in disguise.
At least that’s how Nina Johnson-Milewski, an art dealer and the owner of Gallery Diet, and her husband, Dan Milewski, an artist who owns a cafe and wine bar, have come to regard it.
In 2006, they bought a 1939 bungalow here for $230,000, but they couldn’t afford to make the changes they envisioned before moving in. So they spent the next six years living in the one-story house while they gradually renovated it, putting in thousands of hours of their own labor, as well as $75,000 — in bits and pieces, whenever they could.
The advantages of slow renovation quickly became obvious. “You only see what you need once you’re living in the space,” said Ms. Johnson-Milewski, 27. That’s when “you see how you want the house to function.”
So it was first by necessity, and later by choice, that the couple, who met in 2004 as students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, let the design of their 2,100-square-foot house evolve room by room and chair by chair.
read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/greathomesanddestinations/in-miami-a-pay-as-you-go-remodel.html?ref=realestate&_r=0
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