Philadelphia

90% Done, 75% to Go!

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When it comes to closing a renovation project, that old saying holds true: the devil is in the details. It’s a time when having logged your 10,000 hours counts, and we’ve even coined a phrase for it: “90% done, 75% to go.” Because while the big, fancy and expensive pieces are installed and complete, there is still a large pile of teeny, tiny details to get done. It’s these details — the last 75% — that make your project look finished.

Here is a snap of some of the things that still need to be installed at this small, whole-house renovation we’re doing for the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The house is in a nice neighborhood in the city’s East Mount Airy section. It’s not a fancy project, but the details still count.

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Make it Boaty!

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In our work, just as in many other professions, tidiness is important.

Recently, I attended a wooden boat show in Clayton, NY, home of the amazing Antique Boat Museum. Clayton, a pretty old town with lots of cafes and shops, sits on the St. Lawrence River, close to Lake Ontario and Canada. It is a tidy place. Things are well kept and well built, and efficient use is made of space there. I use a catch phrase for these qualities. When I want our designers to find space for storage or for the field crews to make things tidy, I say, “Make it boaty!”

You can see from these images that, on a boat, you must use space very efficiently and make sure that things get put away. Loose items can break or injure people when the boat rocks. In emergencies, items left lying around can cause serious problems.

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Significant Home Ruined by Poor Window Choice?

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A couple of years ago, I toured a home that was for sale and built by esteemed architect Louis Kahn. It was a lovely 3-bedroom, 2-bath, very modest-sized gem of a house in Elkins Park, a suburb just outside the city limits of Philadelphia. At that time, I was looking to move, and I found this house very charming and beautiful. Everything about this house “fit” within it. The yard was well tended with mature plantings and a small stream. The price was not out of reach. But, in the end, it was just too small for our family. But I’m so glad I took the opportunity to go see it because it reminded me about an important lesson: windows can make or break a house, even an architecturally significant one.

If you visit the Louis Kahn Wikipedia page, you can see the house I am talking about on the right-hand side, and I’ve included an image in this post.

When I saw this house, it was almost completely original and “un-remuddled.”

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We’re in The News!

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Discussing modern day marketing and how we do it in :

Remodeling Magazine

We are moving to e marketing because it’s more sustainable than snail mail. E marketing doesn’t require little gas powered trucks driving all over to deliver cards with our contact info on them.

But in order for this to work we need your help. When you share our newsletters and other marketing materials with your friends and neighbors, you are helping all of us be more sustainable!

“Plumb Level Square” Does Not Always Apply

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Plumb Level Square is a touch stone phrase carpenters and other craftsmen use to be sure their work is tidy. But it doesn’t always apply. Here is the proof. Enjoy the show!

These photos were taken at The Wooden Boat Show hosted by The Antique Boat Museum in Clayton NY. Its a fine museum with many open water slips and covered galleries where they show off amazing wooden craft of the Finger Lakes Region in NY.

Anyone who appreciates wooden construction methods will be blown away by the craftsmanship and engineering of these craft. It’s no easy task to make wood take these shapes!

Choosing a Contractor: The Inside Scoop

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At our company, I field all the sales calls. This means I spend time on the phone with potential customers. This is where I learn about the projects they’re interested in. I ask a lot of questions. I ask about their intended project, problems or issues they might be having with their homes. I get general information from callers too, like address and contact information, age and condition of their home. I ask about their budget. Knowing that callers have a reasonable assumption about costs is important because without that, it’s going to be hard to help them. I will also ask if they have worked with another Design to Build general contractor before. I learn a lot about other construction companies and what ticks homeowners off about them from this part of my conversation.

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The Sweet Smell of Home Improvement

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Most people don’t know that their houses smell new and much nicer after they renovate. It’s kind of like “new house smell” gets sprayed on their home.

The first week or two of construction is dusty and may not smell very good. In fact, it can uncover many BAD smells, like mildew, rot or sewer gases. It’s icky. No two ways about it.

But after that phase, NEW STUFF is installed. So you smell all the new pine lumber, plywood, drywall, primer and paint, adhesives and polishes. The new cabinets often still smell of varnish or paint. Floors can smell terrible during the varnishing process, but after that they smell fantastic. In fact, two of my favorite scents include new cement and fresh wax — a fine old-time finish.

The experience of finally being able to see, touch — and smell! — so many thousands of dollars of shiny, new, wonderful stuff you ordered 6 weeks or more beforehand can be a little overwhelming. Customers can’t keep from touching and playing with things. They “oooooh” and “aaaaah,” even though they selected the goodies themselves. But the excitement can also cause them to do naughty little things, like put their fingers into wet paint or step on wet tile floors. I myself have been guilty of doing both. It’s like sticking your finger in a birthday cake to taste it. You just can’t help yourself.

Home Changes, Life Changes

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Many of our customers of replica handbags have older homes, in which large, complex or expensive projects have been delayed. Sometimes, the needed renovations are really overdue, but we are glad our customers waited until they found us to work on their homes.

Renovating a home is stressful. It costs money — sometimes a lot of it. Just to remind ourselves of these facts, we renovate our own homes from time to time.

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We’re On Vimeo! Take 2!

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Check out this cool, new trailer about our team at Myers Constructs, Inc.

This is just another example of our efforts to market our business without polluting the earth in the process. We’ve found that we don’t have to rely so much on the postal service to deliver printed marketing materials when we get great results from the organic sharing of our messages. So, please share this clip with your circle of contacts … and stay tuned for more fun media soon!

Chestnut Hill Kitchen/Powder Room Reno

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Today, we are beginning the construction portion of a small kitchen and powder room renovation in Chestnut Hill. This cute, Tudor-style twin is home to two adults, two kids, and a senior-age dog.

The kitchen was no longer functioning well for this family. Here is their wish list:

  • Better flow/space function/circulation
  • Better/more prep area
  • New location for the fridge, which is currently in the unheated shed area out back
  • Better storage
  • Better work surfaces
  • Better kitchen efficiency
  • Open plan kitchen/dining room to engage the whole family
  • Better venting of cooking area
  • Better lighting
  • A more discreet powder room
  • Better pantry use
  • Staging area for lunch boxes, keys and things that need charging
  • Better organization of the many doors in the room that access powder room, pantry and basement

    • Stay tuned for updates on how this project is coming along!