OUR BLOG
OUR BLOG
Check out what’s happening with Myers Constructs as well as the latest news and trends in home renovation.
Fairmount Whole-House Project: The Week in Pictures
Our Fairmount project is a beehive of activity this week as we frame out the new laundry room, pour a new concrete kitchen floor, install a breakfast room window opening, and remove and replace historically correct insulated windows! [nivoslider slug="fairmount-project-week-in-pictures-slider"]
Your Home: Playing It Cool When Temperatures Rise
Older homes tend to get a bad rap for being energy inefficient, but the truth is, many older homes have built-in energy-saving systems that homeowners can use to their advantage, particularly at this time of year. The vast majority of older homes are built from stone or brick with thick walls that retain heat in the winter and cool in the summer by way of their mass. Often, these houses also have small windows on the third floor or attic that are meant not only to allow light into the house, but also to allow hot air out during the summer. Opening these small windows creates negative pressure inside the house, which then draws cool air from the basement, where temperatures hover between 60 and 70 degrees at this time of year. This cooling air convection, combined with the thermal mass of the brick or stone, means many of these[...]
Renovation Challenge: Flood Zone
We recently received a call from a homeowner in an area of metro Philadelphia that is a notorious flood zone. In fact, this property owner told us his Schuylkill River waterfront property has been flooded out three times during the past five years alone! This homeowner called us after learning that his insurance company was going to "total" his house unless he could find a way to renovate to flood-proof it. His goal is to be able to power wash the debris away after any future flooding and quickly get back to living. That kind of solution is common at the shore, where we see houses on pilings and with blow-out walls on the first floor. However, the following elements are at play here: This house is in a historic area, so The Philadelphia Historic Commission will need to approve the homeowner's plans. The home abuts neighboring houses, so engineering[...]
Home Gyms: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
When it comes to creating a home gym, we often face a design dilemma: Where do you put it so folks will use it? We tend to think that locating exercise space in a garage or basement is just ... meh. We often find that those musty storage areas are uninviting, and they don't motivate homeowners to want to use them. In our own home, we keep our workout gear in our den because we find it to be so much nicer and easier to use there. Of course, this means the equipment has to look good, or at least nice enough that it looks like a feature rather than an eyesore. We can usually accomplish this for our project homes, too; it just requires a little extra thought and planning. One client of ours, who is a business consultant and investor, has his equipment in his very large cherry-lined[...]
Is Your New Kitchen Stocked With These 12 Cooking Essentials?
We find that many of our clients enjoy a renewed love of cooking in their freshly renovated kitchens. As a result, many of them tend to replenish their culinary tools and supplies — but are challenged when trying to find the right balance of kitchen equipment and controlled clutter. Here, local culinary blogger Kate Donegan, aka The Philly Foodist, shares with us her advice for stocking an efficient kitchen so you’re well prepared to cook any recipe in your new space. 1. Cooking Knives — Professional cooks treat their knives with the highest care and respect, with good reason: They are the most important kitchen tools. If you can, buy your knives one at a time, avoiding “sets” and “no sharpening needed” varieties. Begin with a good chef's knife, a serrated knife, and a paring knife. 2. Mixing Bowls — A set of both glass and stainless steel mixing bowls[...]
The Home Remodeling Timeline
Myers Constructs featured on Pennsylvania Homes.
In the Works: Whole-House Rewire
This week, our crew is hard at work on our Fairmount-area comprehensive home renovation. As you can see in this image, they are installing a completely new wiring system leading from the basement to various different rooms in the home. This house, which had insufficient old knob and tube wiring, used to have only gas lights! Shown are the wire ends that will be attached to the service panel (which is out of view, right next to our photographer). Some of these will connect to second- and third-floor bedrooms, where they will supply power for lights and outlets. Others, like the 220v yellow line, will supply power to major appliances, like the range in the new kitchen. To simplify the process, all of the lines are labeled on both ends of the runs!
Design-Build Restoration: The Sum of Many (Moving) Parts
We are currently working on a complex Fairmount area project with many smaller elements that all tie together. We are redoing a kitchen and breakfast room; removing an outhouse and old pantry; making a small addition into the yard; renovating a second-floor laundry/bathroom; correcting the drains and electric leading from each of those areas into the basement, replacing the house's main drains and soil lines; and restoring a storm-damaged cupola bay — and likely fixing collateral damage done to a roof, roof deck, and skylights. When we first visited the house, the homeowners told us they'd been thinking about a whole-house renovation for a long time. But, like many people considering such projects, they didn't really know where to start. Mother Nature gave them their first step when a major storm tossed a huge tree limb at their cupola/bay, leading them to call us for help. A few years ago,[...]
Restoration: Storm-Damaged Historic Fairmount Cupola
Crash! Just like that, our clients' cupola was hit by a large section of the tree from a neighbor's yard when it toppled during a recent storm. The treetop came smashing through two skylights, giving the main section of the bay a real bump. When we came to survey the damage, we found that the bay had been covered at some point in vinyl siding and lots of tar paper and muck, all of which were hiding bigger issues and problems. Often, we find that coverups like these don't keep out water, so they can add to the problems they are covering up. That was the case with this little structure. The framing was rotted in many places because the old wooden windows had been replaced with leaky aluminum sashed windows. And once the tree hit the cupola, the windows on the side of the bay were about 1-1.5 inches[...]
Pocket Doors: A Great Space-Saving Solution
Consider this surprising fact: The average single swinging door gobbles up about 11 square feet — or around 1% — of a room's usable floor space. That means you can't put anything within this radius of the swinging door if you want it to open and close. When you realize that most houses have several swinging doors, you find that the loss of usable square footage really adds up quickly, particularly in smaller homes. By contrast, a pocket door only takes up the space of the actual door itself, and only then when it's in use. Otherwise, it is tucked away, and the floor space is open. Of course, pocket doors aren't always the right answer, but we find them to be a brilliant space-efficient design solution, given the right circumstances. You first need to have an empty wall cavity into which the door will slide. Many interior walls have[...]
