OUR BLOG
OUR BLOG
Check out what’s happening with Myers Constructs as well as the latest news and trends in home renovation.
Operation Organization — Everything in Its Place
Fall is the perfect season to think about nesting, de-cluttering, and organizing your home to make sure all of the odds and ends you accumulate throughout the year have a proper home. To that end, we’re offering a roundup of some the special customized cabinetry insert options that are available in the Myers Made™ cabinetry line to help you. See the slideshow below for some of our most popular solutions, along with details about how they can assist with your needs. How can you choose which options are right for you? You’ll need to clearly define your goals and wishes in order to create a beautiful and well-organized space that matches your home and taste. Of course, we can work with you to cover all of the basics you'll need — whether it’s a kitchen, bath, library, or entertainment/media room — and add value with these and many other internal[...]
In the Works: Center City Trinity Gets Underway
This week, we are in the framing and rough-in phases for our Center City trinity project. Because of this home's small, tight spaces, we are approaching the renovations a bit differently than we normally do. Typically, we like to fully complete framing before asking our subcontractors to come in to work in a particular order. However, because of the complexity of the spaces being fitted on this project, the carpenter will do some of the framing, then the plumber and electrician must fit some elements, and then the carpenter has to do more framing before the other two come back through to do yet more rough-in work. The same process will go for the HVAC work. The image shown here illustrates some of the original character-filled waves, sags, and bumps of this historic house. Some of these will remain, while others have to be squared up and made flat, mostly[...]
Center City Trinity: Small Space Expert Design Solutions
With the advent of the tiny house and sustainability movements, and the popularity of books like Marie Kondo’s "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" and Sarah Susanka's Not So Big series, many folks are looking to reduce their footprint and renovate smaller spaces. Here in Philadelphia, we have lots of modestly sized older homes and among them is no greater example than the original "trinity" — a small townhouse built in the 1700s or early 1800s with one room on each of three floors, typically configured with a first-floor kitchen/family room, a second-floor bedroom/bath, and a small third-floor living space. Sometimes referred to as a "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost house," these modest but charming homes usually feature a fireplace with a pocket staircase tucked behind the chimney and overall square footage of well under 1,000 sq ft. Many of the city's original[...]
Finished Images of Our Center City Pied-A-Terre Kitchen
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New Homeowners: Thinking About Renovating? Don’t Miss These 6 Vital Tips
As design-build general contractors, we get a lot of calls from folks who are either house shopping or have recently closed on a "new-to-them" older home that needs renovating. Most of them are new to the process and do not know the order of things that will happen during the home-buying/renovation process. Below is the ideal sequence of events, from our perspective after many decades in the business. Before You Buy... Practice Patience — Try to stay clear-eyed during the home shopping process. Most people are very excited about finding the "home of their dreams” or they want to tackle all of the renovations the old house needs at once, especially the "eye candy." The truth is, most of the time, it's better to wait, live with the new space, and see what really needs changing in order to live well in it. Schedule Home Inspections — Be sure you[...]
Sneak Peek: Center City Pied-à-Terre Project in Pictures
Here, we share just a few images of the exciting progress being made on our Lombard Street project. The
Smaller Spaces
As a design to build remodeling company, our job is to transform our clients' space to improve their life — and that transformation can go in a variety of different directions. Some clients have moved into larger space as their family grows, while others stay in their current home with a plan to expand or upgrade. More and more, we are seeing folks moving into smaller spaces to simplify their lives. With goals like reducing upkeep responsibilities and minimizing carbon footprint, downsizing can be very appealing. That’s exciting for us because it is an area in which we have lots of experience and love to work. Less Can Be More: Designing for Downsizing The shift to a smaller space requires us to create balance through understanding the homeowners' primary needs and weaving in some specialness. We’ve had a chance to work on a number of recent downsizing projects in which[...]
Water Damage Woes & A Pro Tip On How to Avoid Them
I got a call this week from a man whose home was flooded by a pipe that burst while he was away on a family trip. The water totally destroyed the first-floor finished flooring, as well as the walls in the kitchen, paneling in the halls, and all of the partition walls and ceilings in the basement. I have a feeling we may also have to add HVAC and electrical damage to the list. Once water gets into electrical fixtures, they need to be replaced. The culprit in this case was the water line to a first-floor powder room toilet. That's only a 3/8-inch pipe, but it caused hundreds of gallons of water to pump through the first floor into the basement and probably out the basement walls as the system continually kept flowing to refill itself. This is the second call like this I have taken recently. In the[...]
Adaptive Reuse and the Legacy of Zaha Hadid
It was with great sadness that we learned last week of the passing of Dame Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born British architect and the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel of the architectural community. Her elegant work and uncompromising spirit inspired so many in the art, design, architecture, engineering, and creative spheres, and she served as a fine example of overcoming the glass ceiling for women in architecture and design. The underlining parabolic curved design that Hadid came to be known for was innovative and groundbreaking, and her legacy includes new approaches to the world of the built environment. Hadid's groundbreaking work was introduced to many outside of the architectural community with her curvilinear Aquatic Centre built for the recent London Olympics. While visiting London in 2013, I had the chance to visit one of the smaller but important projects that her firm did — the renovation and[...]
One Great Project Ends; Another Begins
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be winding down an extended multi-phase whole-house renovation in a historic twin home in Philadelphia's Fairmount neighborhood. While the last of the subcontractors are scheduling their trim outs, the painters just finished up inside. We expect the exterior paint, gutters, and roof details to happen soon now that the temperature has warmed up. The deck is complete (see Facebook for photos ) and ready for the homeowners to put plants in the beautiful custom planters. We have our punch list items to complete and are ticking off our list. Meanwhile, the homeowners have scheduled their cleaners and movers and are thrilled to be able to move into their newly renovated historic home. As that project comes to a close, a new whole-home renovation at a pied-à-terre across town is picking up steam! Before the demolition phase, we applied for and were granted[...]
