Extensive damage from previous occupants. Outdated layout. No rental appeal. Morris took it from that to a contemporary apartment worth renting — in 3 months, on a $130K budget.
Some renovation projects are straightforward: new paint, updated fixtures, refreshed kitchen. This wasn't one of them. The apartment had been left in genuinely poor condition — damage that went well beyond cosmetic issues and required structural remediation before anything design-focused could begin.
The approach was to treat the damage as an opportunity for a full reset rather than a costly patch job. Every element was assessed from first principles: what stays, what goes, what gets rebuilt properly. The brief was to deliver a contemporary apartment that would attract quality tenants and command a strong rental return — not just look better than before.
The kitchen was redesigned for a modern open layout. Bathrooms were fully stripped and rebuilt. Flooring, lighting, joinery — all addressed as part of a coherent interior vision rather than a series of independent fixes.
Three months. $130,000. The result was an apartment that no longer resembled the property that had been handed over. That kind of transformation requires precision planning and a builder who can coordinate multiple trades without slipping on schedule — something Morris has been doing for twenty years.
Previous occupants had left the property requiring more than touch-ups. Structural damage needed addressing before any renovation work could begin. A builder without the experience to assess and remediate accurately would have either missed issues or over-quoted the fix.
By treating the damage as an opportunity for a complete reset, rather than patching around it, the resulting apartment was elevated well beyond its pre-damaged state. New kitchen, new bathrooms, updated throughout. Three months. On budget.