In a previous posting, I talked a little about the notion that a home shopper’s “HEART” usually fall in love with a home first , then they justify their reasoning with their “HEADS” .  Some say  that a home shopper’s first impression of a home makes them decide in mere seconds whether they will buy that home.  I would take that one step further in saying that a home shopping ideal would be to turn the entire tour of a home into a series of “first” impressions.

     That is to say, when the prospective home shopper enters the home, they must have a good first impression.  Then as they enter each new room, they are ideally having a series of good first impressions.  The Master bedroom must have this first great impression, the kitchen, the great room, the finished basement, and so forth.   If the home shopper has a great first impression, but , for example, the master bedroom is then ho-hum, that can break the love affair.   I am suggesting that if you want your home to “sizzle” with interest and excitement, you need to take the presentation as seriously as you do the actual inclusions of the features themselves.

      This means that a successful designer can not just be satisfied with the fact that they have included ,say, and island in your kitchen, or enough space for a King-sized bed in the master, or a whirlpool tub in the master bath,  it is more about HOW you are placing those items for that first impression than the fact that a home does or does not include the actual items themselves.   I have seen experienced home salespeople and shoppers alike , fall in love so hard that they easily overlook what I see as the obvious. 

To start the process of creating great first impressions, try the exercise of finding the first area that folks will be standing at when they first enter any room. Let’s call this the X-spot When a person is standing at that X-spot, what will they be seeing directly in front of them? What will their first impression be of that room as they enter.

      I know folks who have designed their dream homes on paper only to find that something is missing  when they actually walk into the finished home.  They are not excited.  I know home designers who know all about puzzling the prices together so the homes have everything they think the client wants(and they have checked-off all the wish-list items given to them by their clients) but the home fails to excite the buyer.  I have had buyers come to me who have designed, or had others design,  their home, but just don’t like the finished design.  The novice designer has never taken that step beyond the level of being a good home draftsman to the elite level of of being a good home artist.  This subject of creating great first impressions as you wander from room to room, is often the cheif difference between good and average designs. 

     I will get into a few examples inpart 2 of this blog but first, let me tell you that seeing a good design on paper and seeing what the design wil look like in reality can often be two different things.  Yesterday, I had one of my sales people come to me and say that he had met someone , over the phone, and that someone had a certain home they loved which was being offered by another big-name(respectable) builder.  This salesperson was experienced and so I asked him to show me the design that this new client had fallen in love with.  He got me the builders website and model and I proceeded to look at the design of a big 2-story home which was over 3,000 square feet in size.  At “first impressions”, it was indeed a lovely home.   The exterior was quite upscale in looks.  As I viewed the video tour and the photo page, the sales person told me things like,”see how neat the ceiling designs are” or “see how nice those 2-story tall windows are”.  I could tell my sales person was impressed. In his own way, he too had fallen in love with this home.   I could see why the new client may be impressed as well.  I see plans all the time that impress me, but this one did not impress me personally because it was missing so many things that I see as being “must-haves” in any home of this size. These things however were not being seen by either the prospective clinet or my salesperson.

     Remember, this home was over 3,000 square feet in size.  The home however had no walk-in pantry. The home had no private toilet compartment in the master bedroom.  The home had the twin-sink master vanity placed so when one person might be standing at one of the sinks, this person would block the way going into the bathroom.  This home had three bedrooms upstairs(master on the first floor) yet only 2 had walk-in closets.  The single master closet was surprisingly small and if the master bedroom door was to be left open, passer-bys could see the bed!   This home had a game room in the basement that was 10 feet wide.   A 4.5 by 7 feet pool table will require 14.5 feet of width which means this game room can not fit a pool table.  The laundry room had  a short 3.5 foot long counter top for folding clothes.  The dining room was able to only seat 6(it even showed that in the photos), where a home of this calibre should usually seat 8 to 10.  There was no broom/cleaning closet, no great room game closet, and the front and mud room closets were one- doored small closets that would force guests to throw their coats onto some couch or bed.  The point is that the fancy ceilings, a second- story “bridge” hallway, and colors of the home caused my salesperson, (and perhaps his clients as well) to fall in love with the home, and they were now apparently in the phase of trying to then justify their love  because their first impression was so strong. 

     I wanted to meet these potential clients so I could better understand their desires.  They were nice enough to come into the office this morning.  They were very nice people(as I have said, we only build for “nice” people), and it was not long before I started asking questions like, ” I noticed that this home did not have a walk-in pantry. Shall I therefore assume that you do not wish to have a walk -in pantry in your design?”   Their answer was to the effect of, ” We would want a walk-in pantry IF it could still fit into our budget”.    I would say , ” I noticed that this home does not have many closets such as a cleaning closet or game closet.  Does this mean that this closet space is not a priority to your living style?”  They answered to the effect , (the lady in particular) ,”No, I did not notice the design did not have a cleaning closet and I WOULD like more closets”.   At the end of our meeting, I had a much better understanding of what the clients actually DID want in their design and it WAS NOT the home they fell in love with. Nonetheless, it was still very helpful to use that design to discoverwhat they were looking for. 

     This reminded me of the Kenosha model home I visited last year.  It was a    huge national home builder’s model home. Surely desinged by a team of excellent home designers.  The home was again over 3,000 square feet.  As I walked into the home, I saw several folks who obviously had “love” in their eyes. They loved this home.  It was hard not to fall in love.   It was wonderfully merchandised and decorated.  I asked the salesperson, “is there a front foyer closet , or did I just miss it?”.   She said , sheepishly,” no we don’t offer one, but there is one in the back hall”.  This home also had no (that is to say ZERO) drawers of any kind in any bathroom.  This was only the start of a long list of things which few had seemingly noticed.

      What these 2 examples of really big homes did have was an understanding of making a great first impression as you walked through the home, into each new room.  When you stood on the X-spot in every room, the designers understood that if you could get the shopper to focus on some striking design element, or color, or decoration, you could win over the “love” of the home shopper.  

     In the next part of this 2-part blog, I will explain a few examples of how excellent home designs use this first impression device , and how , with a few simple ideas, you too can use it in your next home design.

     On a closing note, the market again seems to be maintaining it’s surge upward and one of my sales staffers is presently signing another new home contract tonight.  This is becoming our longest streak of new home activity in 4 years.   Are we now out of the housing slump?  Time will tell.  As for the Government stimulus money, if you want to build and still want that check, we got some new news today about getting in on this and still having time to build. 

     Thanks for blogging with me.   I love to hear your comments, so keep them coming. If you would like me to address anything in particular, let me know.

      Blessings,

      Tom Hignite

     So many good ideas come just when you keep your eyes and mind open when walking through a Shopping Mall. Take for example, one of my many trips last year, to Mayfair Mall In Wauwatosa.  I will probably murder this spelling but the store I saw one idea in was Ambercombe and Fitch.  I never actually went into the store, I just was walking by.   In case you don’t know, this store is one of those young folks high-fashion clothes stores.

     If you have ever seen the store(they have the same look in other malls that have this chain store), the most prominent thing you see when you walk by is a huge black picture frame that is about 8 feet by 8 feet.  This frame is placed on the floor (as I recall) and is directly centered on the double door entry foyer of the store. It leans on the wall about a foot away on the bottom.   Inside this enormous picture frame is an artsy , high fashion, black and white photo of some good looking person wearing some good looking clothes.  The photo did not strike me as much as this huge fancy black art frame.

     Flash-forward a few months and I am working on one of our simplier designs which was “more about” being a low price- point home, and less about style or being artsy in any big way.  I have always beleived that folks fall in love with a home with-in 60 seconds after they enter the home.  They may not know why they like the home, but they either fall in love with “something” or “everything” about the home in those 60 seconds or they probably are not going to buy the home. That first immediate impression better be a real doosey!   After they fall in love with the home, the prospective home shopper spends the rest of their visit trying to find reasoning and logic to justify WHY they love the home . That is to say, the home shopper falls in love first with the heart, then the head follows. 

      So anyway, there I was trying to re-examine some of my simplier low cost designs to have a more dramatic first impression.  My Dream series R1500 or DT2000 homes are both logically strong.  If , for example, I where to write an ad for the Dream DT2000, it would have all the right words. “4 bedrooms, all with walk-in closets, island kitchen that seats 4 stools, a big walk-in pantry, a 16 foot long laundry room, a big 11 by 14 foot multi-purpose room, a great room that would handle 3 full couches and everyone could see the T.V. and fireplace, a dinette that could seat 8, etc, etc, etc.”  All the words work to entice folks to look at the home. The problem is that visitors to the actual home were not having that head-over-heals WOW effect when they walked into the front door. 

         Flash-back to the mall.  The direct view when entering is to look across the great room(on the front area of the home) and to see a dinette and kitchen on the back of the great room, across the rear of the home.  There is a patio door and a kitchen sink window on this back wall.  If you really want to entice someone to come into a home, you need to work on giving them a beautiful focal point to focus their attention on. When they enter, We want them to be drawn into the home. They need to see something unusual or pretty, or striking. There is nothing striking about a patio door or a kitchen sink window.   I don’t care if you make that patio door into a nice Pella french door or even if you put stained glass on the door, this is not striking in the way that a unified , well designed home should offer something “new” or “fresh” to look at that the home shopper has never seen before.

     If the home shopper falls in love with some new Pella window shape or some new cabinet door style, all they may end up doing is buying that feature to put into the home they really fall in love with.   I could accomplish the WOW factor goal by , say,  opening the rear ceiling over the entire back of the home to be a story and a half tall with stacked windows.   I could curve the entire back wall of the home so the circular design creates something most unusual.   I could create some elaborate beams or wood panels to form a strikingly rich presence.  There is a lot that money can do to create that WOW factor. These cost effective homes however, do not have the luxury of having a budget that would allow such extravagance.  To succeed, the Mall’s big picture frame came to mind.

     I thought of this frame and wondered why exactly was that frame so interesting? Was it the size? Was it the dark striking black color? Was it the placement of it on the floor? I asked and pondered myself and found it was probably a little of each. It was also the mere fact that this was just so unusual but yet classy.   The answer seemed to then pop into my head that it might be eye-popping to the first impression if I could build such a frame around my patio door(which was in my first line of sight into the home) .  The problem would be that the bottom of the frame would be a tripping hazard, so I thought I could potentially achieve the same effect if I eliminated the bottom of the frame.  I would now have a 3 sided frame with no bottom.  To light this frame, would add more drama and draw attention to it even more.  So, I started to imagine attaching the frame to the ceiling ,with no gap,  just about a foot in front of the patio door .   I could then put a track light between the wall and frame and back light the frame inside that 1 foot gap.  At night, the effect would be wonderous!

     At this point, I had decided to create the low-cost version of this elegant frame by making this whole thing out of rough lumber and cover it entirely with drywall.   I could angle the drywall frame edges so it looked like an art frame.  The 2 side verticals of the frame would also be attached to the floor and ceiling. The positioning would not take away any furnishing abilities or space.   I could use a dark cabinet wood stain in the home and then imitate the darkness of the cabinet color by using a similar paint color on the drywalled art frame. 

     Once this effect was designed,  I would then go and re-imagine using the same frame style to go around or over the sink window area.  This would create uniformity and not make this one design element an orphan item in the home. The next element to continue this design “framing” was to take the 2nd wall in the dinette and “dress” that wall with a very slight releif into the wall suggesting a frame is boardering that entire rectangular wall section, just like around the patio door.

       I recently built my first design of this nature and unveiled it this past weekend in our DT2000 in Milwaukee.  I am so happy with the results that I have already designed it into several other of our designs including the entire back wall fo our R1500 Dream Series ranch.  The dozen, or so,  guests who have already veiwed the home have all been falling in “love” with this element (and therefore the home) with-in 60 seconds after they walk into the home.

    Unfortunatly, this home is sold and will only be able to be viewed for the next few weekends at this 91st and Good Hope, Milwaukee  location.  I took this art framing one last step. This home also has a finished basement and I have put this element into the basement on a 16 foot long wall. The effect is that the frame is for centering your big-screen theatre tlevision.

     I hope you will have some time to see this totally new idea(well, not totally new, if you are a mall visitor), in home decor.  I also hope you will, as always, leave your comments and questions for me on the blog.  This is indeed an exciting and fun business to be in.  Thanks for reading.

    This last weekend, we had record breaking visits to the website and I thank you all. 

      Blessings,

      Tom Hignite

     I often hear folks ask me to design LOTS of closet space into their new home design.  If I have a master walk-in closet with 6 feet of hanging space per spouse, that means either a double-sided ,  6 foot long  closet  OR a 12 foot long , single-sided closet.  Many folks today want more than 6 feet of space per spouse.   Today’s Generation “Y” home buyers are not overly possession orientated EXCEPT when it comes to owning lots of  clothes.  Home designers who want to really succeed in building for this new generation ,would be well advised to plan closet space for twice as much clothes as they have been commonly putting into their normal home designs.

     The problem with putting in , say 12 to 16 feet,  of hanging space per spouse, is that this uses up twice the amount of  floorspace on a normal , existing home design.  You may not realize this, but home designers sweat bullets whenever it comes to adding even one square  foot of extra space to their home designs.  All subcontractors, use the home’s total square footage to calculate how much each phase of the job will cost.  An example of cost would be that  a single-sided , 12 foot long closet (today’s normal, for a couple) has about 50 sqare foot of floorspace.  Making this 4 foot wide , single-sided , closet into a 7 foot wide, double-sided closet adds an additional 36 square feet of space to the home.   This would result in (if the builder was calculating , say $75 per square foot) costing the end buyer (that’s you) about $2,700 .  Depending how elaborate you get with closet organizers, this cost could be a bit high or very low.

      If you consider that there are several other closets in  secondary bedrooms and if you wished  to increase those as well, you can see how the costs and square footages would get out of hand quite quickly.   The many national surveys done for the Generation “Y” home buyer profile clearly says that this buyer wants a smaller m ore compact home. To get more closet space yet have a smaller home, means you either decide to increase the closet square footages  OR…you could think “outside the box” and get another unexpected answer.

       Instead of making a closet bigger with more floor space, what if we were to make a much bigger closet, perhaps TWICE AS MUCH CLOSET space foWITHOUT needing to increase the square footage ONE extra square foot?   A while back, when I was delving into what I call my “Little-Big House” design (see photos of the Parade 2009 on our Home Page), I approached this very subject of making a a closet bigger but not adding square footage to do it.  Here’s what I came up with.

     I started by imagining what is actually in our every-day closets.  What I realized is that about half of what we have in our closets is considered out- of- season clothes.  In Summer,  few people would take their winter clothes out of the closet into the basement.  In Winter, our Summer clothes is likewise taking up room in the closet but not being used.   NO,  I am not recommending we start taking half of our clothes out of the closet depending on the season.  We could, but the best in home design should not require we trade our living patterns to fit a home design. Just the opposite, good home design should always fit our living style.  

    The answer is to build up, not out.   I am talking about building a tall ceiling in your closet and utilize the attic space that is currently just doing nothing right over our heads. If your  closet was 12 feet high instead of 8 feet high, all of your seasonal clothes could be hanged up high and your usable seasonal clothes would be hung at normal level.   If you do build this story-and-a-half closet, you effectively double your hanging space. In order to hang this clothes up high, you can utilize the same method they use in department stores, when they have a wall of clothes on display.   The clerk uses a tall metal hook/rod device that enables them to easily reach any high clothes hanger.

     I hope the next time you think of adding square footage to create a bigger closet, this “Wild Idea” of mine will save you money and square footage!  Look at the photos of this in that Home Page photo gallery.  When you see these photos, also notice another bonus idea. We have a clothes chute door that is in this closet.  You can pass the dirty clothes through the wall into a laundry room on the other side of the wall. How’s that for easy living?!

      Thanks for reading the blog and, as always, please feel free to give me your comments or questions. 

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

Hello ,

     An idea has been with me all day and I would appreaciate any feed-back you may have on another off-the-wall idea.   Like most of my home design concepts, it often starts when I see something happen at my home or around me in public that makes me question if life could be better if I designed some thing to address the situation a little better in my homes designs.

     This Wild Idea started a few months ago when I noticed that my 20 year old son Sean (he has a one year older brother Nik you may have seen in our ads) spends an awful lot of time in the shower. I mean A  LOT of time like 45 to 60 minutes or more!  It turns out, he has been doing this for some time and I just never took notice of it.   His Mom and brother Nik knew exactly what he was doing. 

     When I first designed our present home in 1999, I saw that it was a mistake for us to ever put a big whirlpool tub in our master bathroom since my boys were the only ones who ever used “our” tub.   Rather than having them come into our master bath to use our tub, I thought I would get ahead of that curve by putting the big 6 foot tub into my boy’s bathroom. They were pretty young when we moved into our present home and they took some baths together, so the 6 foot size was right.  But I am avoiding the point.

      The point is that my Son Sean is unfortunately a procrastinator. He hates waking up in the morning.   His Mom or brother usually try to get him out of bed.    Instead of trying to fight them on getting up, Sean has gotten in the habit of turning on the shower over the tub and “sleeping’ in the 6 foot tub!  Sean has found a way to sleep in a hard fiberglass tub and LIKES  it.  He LIKES the warm water sprinkling on him while he sleeps.  Sean will now occasionally just go into the shower just to relax as he takes a short nap after a work day or mid-Saturday.

    I attributed this to my “weird’  son’s behavior.   Since Sean is a” straight A” student, I figure this is not really hurting anything and I don’t think it could be dangerous.  Now comes my big PONDER.  If I could find a more comfortable way to lay down in a shower, would common “non-weird“(or are we ALL weird and I just don’t admit it?) folks like to also lay down for a relaxing nap in a shower?   I think,  and think on such things and one observation is that I know folks who like to lay-down and relax in a bath tub full of water,   why not a shower?  Would the sprinkling water NOT be relaxing .  Would it NOT feel like a gentle  rain massage?

     My next thought is even if I did find a way to have an area to lay down in a shower, how could I make it more comfortable? Could I use some sort of fabric or woven straps like on lawn furniture?  Could it just be a big, longer bath tub and could I get some of that closed- cell memory foam and have it shaped like the tub on one side and shaped like a dentist’s chair lounger on the body side?   That would seem VERY comfortable to me! I wonder if anyone would buy this idea?

    I also know that a dozen years ago, I tryed to tell people of a new Wild Idea of  maybe putting two shower heads in one bigger shower.   Few folks seemed interested.  In the last few years, I now have folks ask me to do exactly that.    I HAVE to think romance is a big part of this  2 shower head idea.  I don’t want to get too  ”racy” here but couldn’t “romance” be taken to whole new levels if you had a shower big enough for two to “nap” and “relax” together?

     As I think of this, I am finalizing two new designs I have been laboring on for several months.   I always want to use new designs to introduce new concepts.   I have looked at one 4 foot by 8 foot double shower I have designed and I am now seriously thinking about the “shower lounge/bed”.

    So I ask you.  Is this Wild Idea appealing to anyone or am I just getting too “weird”?

     Hey folks, we are having a lot of fun designing homes to go on lots that I have never seen offered so inexpensively.  Today, we also had a gentleman talk to me about building a home and donating the profits to help support his missionary daughter.  This idea could blossom into something that could support many missionaries if  we could get tradespeople to get on board with the idea.  We could use homes to do a lot more good in ways I had not before considered. Home building is so exciting and it seems I meet more nice folks every day.

     Please let me know your thoughts on this idea or any other wild home idea you may have. 

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     Why is it that everyone who I meet that wants a Ranch design, never really seems to notice (or care) that the ordinary ranch has 2 to 3 steps to climb before folks can enter the home?  I  thought the main reason why folks want a ranch is to GET AWAY from the steps? 

      I have been designing homes for over 20 years and my very first homes always had extra-wide, full 3 foot widths. Today, I hear a lot more folks who heard on HGTV about making homes easier to “live in place” by having 3 foot wide doors.  Folks think that these doors will make it easier in case anyone ever needs a wheelchair in the home.  These same folks never seem to care about making the home bigger in key areas (such as the bathrooms or hallways) so these areas too would fit the wheelchairs.  I can only guess that these wheelchair live-ins will not need to use the bathroom or ever go down a hall and decide to turn around and come back. That never got covered on HGTV apparently.

     Why do folks seem to be asking for staircases to be a foot (4 feet instead of 3 feet)or more,  wider just in case  they ever need to have a chairlift,  AND THEN also want these stairs to be curved or change directions half-way up the stairs?  Odd shaped stairs can look cool, but don’t work easily with chairlifts.

     Why do people want walk-in showers in case they can not step over a tub when they get older, yet never seem to worry too much about the 6 inch ledge most showers have in the front?   This front edge is not  easy for older folks to step over and obviously does not work for a wheelchair. It is a tripping hazzard too.

     Why do folks seem to have no problem spending $20,000 or $30,000 more(more than the same size two story home, that is)  for a ranch home to avoid stairs but would never  even think of spending $20,000 for an elevator in a two story?  When you buy the ranch for that $20,000 more, you are still buying a 2 stories and a staircase (in this geographical area, that is called a basement).  Therefore, in any ranch, you must still live with stairs (even if it is only to put your storage items or get to the circuit breaker panel, or check the sump pump, or get to the rec-room).    If you had picked the 2 story with elevator, you now have totally gotten past the stairs issue entirely!

     I am thinking tonight about a visit I had with my Father in the local hospital earlier tonight.  He broke his hip a week ago and I was telling him how his aging has helped me to design better, more livable homes.   I was telling him how when he came to visit a model home of mine many years ago, his simple comment that their was no where to sit in or near the foyer, caused me to change my thought process on foyers. Today, I always try to find space in every foyer to fit either a built-in sitting area(see my Lake Bay design for a cute triangular foyer place to take off your boots), or a simple space for a chair or bench.

     My Father and mother have taught me so much about home design simply by them making some simple comment or by my seeing how they act when they visit one of my model homes.  My Mom’s knees are no longer working like they used too.  My Dad had a Kidney transplant years ago and his leg muscles cause him to always be searching for places to sit and rest.  When I plan my landscaping, I try to always have decent night lighting and a benches at  logical points between the parking area on the driveway and the front door.   I also like to have a spot to sit at the front door in case my Mom or Dad needs to wait for someone to answer the door.  I think of this all  as common courtesy design.

     This means lever-style door knobs instead of round knobs because they are easier to use. This means, taller elongated toilets instead of the common ones because they are more comfortable for every age.  This even means something as simple as designing the bathroom walls so reaching the toilet paper holder is easier for reaching, without straining.

    Her’s one last one for now.  Why is it that when folks see that most all of my great rooms have a spare closet, they ask, what would you use that for?  Don’t we all have board games, greeting cards, gift wrap, photo albums, old magazines, crafts and such that have use in a great room but no real place to be stored in most great rooms?

       I could (and will in the future blogs) go on and on about things that just seem to make sense , yet few seem to either care or think about.   These are, after all,  only a few observations that I think everyone might at least want to brieflyconsider when they design a home or look for the right one to purchase.  We singed a lot offer tonight for those very nice folks we went to dinner with last night.    Turquoise! (or maybe a medium teal to be more accurate).  If you don’t know what this means, read my previous blog entry.  Thanks for blogging with me. Your comments are always welcome.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

    If you have not read the previous blog posting on this subject, you might want to first read that so this posting can be put more in context. In brief, I am talking about the creative process that you might go through to solve an architectural dilemma.  In this case, the challenge is to try to see if employing some new,  untried idea could create a bedroom that could be easily separated into two private sleeping areas, with VERY little effort, so as to allow sleep to continue even after one spouse starts snoring, or reading with the lights on, or watching television.

     I explored the various ways that a bed may be automated to move apart and allow privacy.   I explored several ways to potentially have walls or curtains come down and separate the bed so that one spouse has peace and quiet while the other “carries-on” his or her “business”.

     Remember, this is, so far, just a mental exercise and one that is now far enough along to try and design and build a room to accommodate this new methodology.  The only practical way I have imagined to do the separation of beds (recall that we are starting with 2, twin/single beds, that are positioned with just about 2 or 3 inches between them) is to have (about) an 8 foot sound insulated, lightweight, (for lack of a better word) “door” which would slide out of the headboard wall and separate the two beds.  To make this happen and not look like some awkward contraption is a big part of this puzzle.  If the room looks odd when the privacy door is not being used, the design would not succeed.  The room MUST look somewhat normal when the doors are not being used.

     To start, that means you must first have a home design that has a logical, usable wall that would accept the 8 foot door to be pushed inside of it.  This is really just a very wide traditional pocket (sliding) door.  Making the ceiling track  for the door, and the wall “pocket” edge where the door’s edge will be seen when not being used, is tricky.   I want to mask these,  so folks don’t see an unusual ceiling track and a door’s edge on the headboard wall.  I put on my designer’s hat and found a nice way to design a semi-traditional wood (built-in) headboard and a simple wood beamed ceiling that would hide the track enough so that a visitor’s eyes would not see anything unusual unless they were looking for it.

     In use, lets say, your spouse is reading with his/her bedside light turned on. This light can now be easily blocked by just reaching over your head and sliding the 8 foot pocket door partially out , say 3 to 4 feet.  This is just enough to block the light.  When the reading spouse finally does turn-off the reading light, he/she could just slide the door back into the wall, with little ffort.   Moving the door panel , with little efort is the key. 

     Now let’s say, one spouse starts snoring loudly.  The awoken spouse could now pull the door all the way to the foot of the bed.   But wait,  the 8 foot door panel does not entirely go across , and separate the entire 12 foot wide room.  If only closing-off  2/3rds of the room does enough to muffle the sound to a tolerable volume,   great.    If the snoring is still just too loud, the awoken spouse may choose to get up and slide another (that’s a second door for those who are counting) 4 foot hidden pocket door form the foot side wall of the bedroom to meet up to the edge of the 8 foot sliding door panel.   This now effectively, separates the entire room in half.   If one spouse awakes and wants to get to the other side of the bedroom, they can just use the 4 foot panel sliding door as you would any other sliding door.

    As for the times when one spouse wants to watch television and the other is sleeping, the solution would be to have a pivoting television bracket which would be mounted on one side of the doorway separation line. and could be pivoted to be on the other side of the sliding door track.  If you like, another solution would be to simply have 2 televisions, one on each side of the sliding door track line. This means each spouse could theoretically watch different programs at the same time and not interfere with the other programs if the doors were slided closed.

     If you have any other ideas about creating your perfect solution for the split master bedroom privacy method, please let me know.

     I was out late tonight discussing a potential new home project with yet another nice couple who wants to build a Miracle Dream 2500 in Milwaukee.  Before our dinner meeting, we met at a most gracious couple’s home who had built with us about 2 years ago. It was just a lovely evening altogether and I hope the road leads to us being able to satisfy this client’s housing needs.

      Join me next time for more WILD ideas in creative home design where we delve into the concept of fun and water, and I tell you what is  the new “hot” color for 2010?  Any guesses? 

     It is always nice to hear your comments. Until next time….

    Blessings,

    Tom Hignite

     I got a little wrapped-up in the Green subject for the last 3 blogs, but I am now ready to return to the dreaming and imagining side of things that are fun to ponder.

    Several weeks ago, one of my sales staff came to me and asked essentially, “Have you ever thought about designing a master bedroom that overcomes the problem of a loudly snoring spouse?”

     I had one of those bright lights go on over my head as I suddenly realized that this problem is one that has been around for centuries and it seems everyone has either had this situation or knows someone who has it.  I always say that great home designers should be aiming at solving everyday human challenges through better design.  Once I heard the problem brought to my attention, it just seemed so obvious that IF this could be solved through some unique new room or materials design, I wanted to be the first to find the solution.

     The more I thought about it, I see it as more of a separation based idea. That is to say, there are times when even the most loving of relationships, need to , or WANT to have some sleeping privacy.   I know that when my wife Jacquie can’t sleep, she turns on her bedside reading light .  To help mask the light from waking me, (it still does, but I keep quiet about it) Jacquie puts a pillow between my head and the headboard so as to be a mini pillow wall.  I also know that no matter how bright the light may ever get from her reading, I don’t want to get to the point where we sleep in separate rooms.   At times, Jacquie goes to bed first and I stay up to do design work.   Jacquie often calls me to bed and wants me to do my design work in bed so she can sleep better. I guess having your spouse next to you has been seen as a comforting thing,   mentally.

      I may wake up in the middle of the night and decide to turn on the television at our foot of the bed.   The light and noise I know must bother Jacquie to some extent but she does not complain.

     I stay up late,  so I usually wake up later than Jacquie. She usually gets up very early,  so she tries to not wake me by turning on the lights in the bed area.  It would be nice to have that bit of privacy to allow her to do “her things“, while I do my bedime “things“.  I remember my grandparents built a new luxury home in the early 70’s, and they built separate bedrooms with a bathroom between the rooms.  This struck me as odd and I hoped when I got married, I would not get to the point where my wife and I had separate bedrooms.   My Grandpa snored.

     As with most of lives little delemmas, such as needing more space for groceries, then creating the huge walk-in pantry, like wanting a porch where you could sit on it without bugs, then creating the hide-away , roll screens, like wanting to paint a front door less, and creating the fiberglass door, I know solutions can be found to about anything.   This one was/is  tougher than most becuase it is taking two people who are relaxing together and separating them into privacy WITHOUT moving one into a separate room .  As with any creative problem solving technique, after the main problem is identified,  I move to brainstorming.  I throw out everything that is trapping me into conventional “boxes” and norms and try to re-think the whole thing as if I was the first person to ever design a bedroom. What would this bedroom have to look like IF I were to have one double bed that needed to instantly have a “wall” put through the middle of the bed to create two separated beds in two different rooms. 

     Let’s explore the possibilities.  What if, for example, we could make a remote controled bed, that , as soon as one semi-asleep spouse was awoken by a snoring spouse, a” magic button”  could be pushed on the headboard.   The bed would then deparate on wheels and motor itself into another near-by attached room and the door would then close automatically?  This is an example of a “blue-sky” idea that puts many realities aside for the moment and just takes wild ideas to see if those ideas will either work, can be refined, or will lead to another idea.  If this idea can not lead to any of that, the idea is dismissed and at least we now know that this one path is a dead end.

     Let’s look at the problems with this solution as well as the possibilities found in this solution.

     * The idea of finding an existing electronic gizmo/device to motorize the bed, is not commonly available. If it was, it would not be inexpensive.

     * If we could make the bed be motorized,  WHERE would it travel too?  Building an extra bedroom off of the master bedroom is in fact not solving the issues of keeping the spouses together. 

     * The cost of building extra square footage onto a home is the opposite direction of where housing needs to go to economize construction costs and home size.

     * This idea DOES do one important thing that is desirable. When one spouse is semi-sleeping and is awoken by snoring, if the annoyed spouse is forced to wake up and phisically move to another room, this can awake the “moving” spouse. The best solution would be one where neither spouse needs to become fully awoken or needs to get up. This solution requires  neither spouse to get out of bed to solve the problem. Technology has solved the problem for them through good design, and technical innovations.

     The next step is to therefore imagine NOT needing a separate room to move the bed into. This means not needing to make the bed separate and travel away.  What other directions could we make the bed move into in order to separate it and not make the room much bigger?

    We could use existing elevator technology and when a spouse wants to get away from the snorer and not move or awaken themselves fully, they could push a button and the bed could move up into a loft area in the attic , or lowered into the basement.

     Either elevating up or down is simply too expensive and potentially dangerous if the semi-sleeping spouse were to awake while being elevated.  So, moving the bed up or down is likely a viable technical solution, but not safe or practical. This solution does however, not require adding too much extra space, so this solution , while not the answer, is at least closer than the automated traveling bed solution.

     Continuing to think of all the ways a bed could move and not take up too much extra space, it occurred to me that the bed could pivot apart. Essentially, one bed could hinge away from the other and a wall of some sort could drop from the ceiling or come up out of the floor.

     This idea now ignites another concept. What if the bed were NOT to move at all, but rather the bed(s) were 2 twin beds which at first glance, looked like a huge king-sized bed. There would only need to be about 2 or 3 inches of separation between them for a panel, or wall to drop from the cieling and separate the one big bed, into 2 separated beds. 

    IF a wall or panel was to drop out of the ceiling, this could maybe be done using some existing type of garage door technology.   The effect however again, could be dangerous to semi-awake spouses who may roll into the path of the dropping panel.   If the panel were to arise out of the floor, the same situation of danger (not to mention the contraption getting in the way of the bed blankets) would be present. Neither a rising or dropping panel seems to be the answer.   Besides , this is still just to weird of a solution. It  needs  to be simpler and more conventional in appearance.

     This idea does not seem to work,  but it does stimulate another off-shoot concept that hold s more merit.   What if , instead of dropping or popping-up, the separation device slides  across the room like a curtain on a track. HEY, why not just have a curtain on a track? 

      * The curtain might be too odd looking,   like out of a hospital.

     * The curtain would work inasmuch as  being inexpensive and uses easy technology. It could be motorized like a movie curtain, so it would not require the semi-asleep spouse to do too uch awakening to accomplish the goal.

     * The big problem is that this curtain idea is probably not going to provide the kind of sound-proofing we are looking for.   I t would however be a good device to block-away  reading or television lights.

      The next step is the big breakthrough!   A solution simpler , more discrete, and easier to use than all these rest of the ideas that preceded  it.   It would also cost less to construct and separate the noise and light.  What is it? Just like Howie Mandell on “Deal or No Deal“, I will tell you about it after our next “break”.  I want you to think what the solution could be and join me next time here on the blog for the innovative new solution that could be the next big thing in master bedroom design.

       Creating home ideas is fun. If you want to get a peek at our new Hybrid Ranch” creation,(read about it in my first blog entires)   my sales staff now has preliminary art for the home and would be happy to show it to you this weekend at either our main site in Monterey, or our homes in Jackson(on Sherman rd in Sherman Parc subdivision) ,  or Milwaukee (91st and Good Hope). We are open this weekend from 1 to 4.

    On another big creative item of this past week, I am pleased to say we found a way to bend laminate floors into an arch design edge. The installers say they have never seen it done before and with a little (or a lot) of prodding,   after they broke a few pieces of flooring trying it, IT GOT DONE!  C’mon out to see what I am talking about this weekend in Jackson. We have a really neat sneak previewing  of this client-owned- home , that is nearing completion.   This home also has the first exposed chimney pipe I have seen in any conventional fireplace ranch home.   The pipe comes out of the Mantle top and goes all the way , 12 feet high, through a plant shelf, to the ceiling! This is just so cool looking and , the fire place installers say they have only seen this done before  on pot-belly stoves. 

     Get your creative juices flowing and come to see us this weekend.

    Thanks for joining me.  I will solve the snoring problem next time.

     Blessings,

    Tom Hignite

     It has indeed been another busy day here at Miracle.  Last night I was up until 4 am drafting plans for both clients and our 2 (yes..2) new ,  totally NEW, model homes.   This afternoon,  we added yet another excited client to our happy Miracle  “family“.  This evening, one of our folks helped another great couple (seems I just met them a few weeks ago) put their offer together on a nice lot in Menomonee Falls.  If all goes well with their offer, we may sign and start the permit process next week!

     Before I get to my third and last (and last,for now) few words on the subject of building “Green”, I  wanted to mention some news that the media has been highlighting heavily for the last 2 days.  The new home sales numbers for America , for January were released yesterday and the number of new home sales across the country is the lowest January number in the LAST 50 YEARS!  Worse yet, that means the last 3 months in a row have all shown declines.   The seminars I attended at the International Home Show in Vegas a month ago had experts predicting this years sales would be UP 25% over last year’s sales and (looking to 2011) next year sales would go up 50% over this year. That was very good news indeed for my ears and America’s  ears as well.  

    I can tell you that according to my bank sources, while a few builders are showing acceptable sales, most are simply , as one put it, ” still dead in the water”.  I can truly thank God that somehow , we have had the strongest February since the good times of 2005!  Go figure.  I could say it may be because of our heavy advertising during the recent January Expo.  I’m sure this helped BUT, a big part of our success in sales I think goes to the relatively new product designs we have developed in our Dream Series.   Our “Rent Busters” , with $199,000 lot and 4 bedroom new home packages ( you get to choose your own lot about anywhere you want to build for $60,000) has been a red hot value and the homes DO NOT LOOK INEXPENSIVE, but rather quite “cool” and high end.  If you want to see a prime example , c’mon out to see our Dream 2000In Milwaukee, near Menomonee Falls by 91st and Good Hope. That home is nearing completion and we are keeping it open only a few more weeks until the new owner’s move in.  Trust me,….REALLY cool andit has a finished basement with wet bar. Open this weekend 1 to 4 in Oak Hills subdivision.

    Back to “Green”, as I have been explaining in my last 3 blog postings, I think green is great but so much of it is being used to hype home sales using people’s excitement about the “save the Earth” , Energy Star-type movement.  I am here to say, beware!   Not everything that seems to be a good/green idea, is cracked-up to be what you thought it was. 

     Take for example, how easy it is to get a “green certification on a home today.  The builder must fill out a worksheet where points are accumulated by checking-off what green items or practices you have used in building the home.  You do not have to do all of the items to get your home certified as being green.   You just need to get a certain number of points.  Did you use re-cycling with respect to your dumpsters?   Did you use at least one re-cycled product in the home?   Did you use Formaldehyde-free insulating products?  Did you use I-joist supports in your floor instead of solid wood timbers?

     Let’s take 2 of these items I just mentioned and apply them to reality.  One builder who builds in some  subdivisions that we build in, uses the re-cycled dumpster idea.  Instead of having a dumpster company drop-off a huge metal dumpster with tall walls, these re-cycling folks use a smaller, lower, open- topped,  plastic cylinder trash “can” on steroids.  These dumpsters are bigger than a trash can but so small (compared to a dumpster)  that I commonly see them over-filled and trash is usually piled next to the receptacle. The builder is able to get his green certification points because these dumpster folks separate various materials when they come to the site to pick-up the trash.  They essentially, hand empty and sort the trash. This sounds good and green.   We used this service for two prolonged periods in the pat 8 years. Both times, we discontinued using this service because we felt the reality was not matching up to the perception.  The point was that the debris that were put into this small open dumpster ( all of these I have seen are usually cracked and in terrible  shape for holding anything much at all.)  quite often is left stacked in the open air.   At the slightest wind, small trash debris go drifting near and far.  When the guys come to empty and separate the trash, they do not seek out the wind blown rubbish.  The work men throw their fast food bags and cups into the general direction of the open dumpster and it too, blows far and wide.  I am convinced that I am hurting the environment less by having a container that actually holds the trash than just throwing things next to a small container.  The re-cycling trash company said they had improved the process, so we tried them a second time.   The results were the same.  I think of myself as being a pretty “green” conscious person and I just could not get myself to knowingly allow trash to be thrown next to dumpsters and blown into the enviornment  just so I could put a check on a green certification sheet.   Does this kind of “greeness” make sense to anyone?

     If you went to the Parade Of Homes , for the last several years, it is hard to find any builder who still uses solid , dimensional,  ”real” , old-fashioned lumber for floor supports.  Lumber companies have been pushingthe floor supports that are manufactured out of  re-cycled wood chips and wafers.   You may know these “I” shaped 2 by 10 , or 2 by 12 engineered wood products by a common  manufacturing name of “Silent Floor”.   One of their main attributes is that they are made very uniform and do not usually change shpeas much as solid wood, due to humidity,  or temperature,  or aging.  This could mean les floor squeaks.  I can show you, however, that that claim is not true in practice.  The cost is just a little more than using a common grade Spruce, Pine, or Fir solid wood 2 by 10.  I-Joists can span (support) longer distances than many common grade solid woods.  

This all sounds good  AND I get to have more green certification points when I use them.    So…, what is the “problem”?   For years, one of our main concepts was that Miracle was trying to use better quality products than commonly seen in builder homes. We wanted to provide a more “custom” level of products for no extra cost.  We did this in everything from using higher wind-rated roof shingles, more steel in our basement walls, quieter bath fans, 8 Lb. carpet pad instead of 6 Lb. , copper water pipes instead of plastic ,  AND we used Douglas Fir solid wood floor joists instead of those 2 by 10 common species of wood, or particle I-Joists.  The lumber yards would actually have to order and stock it just for us since no one else used this expensive upgrade.  Because it was not common Fir , but Douglas Fir, it had a very long grain and thereforewas harder and a stifferwood.  We specified it to be double kiln-dried so it was not prone to such shrinkage or changing of shape.  The house was as solid as a battleship under foot.  Every time that a vendor tried to convince me to use the particle I-Joists to save a buck since “everyone else is doing it” I relentlessly resisted the temptation. Quality usually wins-out in the end, I  still believe. 

    When we developed our Dream Series of homes, I finally relented and agreed to use the Particle I-Joists.  I used to occasionally have someone ask what type of floor supports we used and they were usually glad to her my story of quality Douglas Fir 2 by 12’s.  It turns out that the big “problem” with the I-Joists is that in a fire, they burn….rapidly!  Kent Wainscot of Milwaukee ABC affiliate channel 12 had 2 extensive investigative reports on their news program  that showed fire fighters trying to get this product banned for home construction.    They showed how in a mere 15 minutes,  these I-Joists were resulting in collapsing homes. The solid lumber took several hours and allowed the firefighters to have less risk in putting the fire out.   The I-Joist’s rapid rate of burn collapse makes it entirely possible that by the time a fire is realized and sleeping families awake, the floor is already collapsing.  My sales people tell me that, even today,  they have model home visitors who ask what the floor construction is while they are first entering the model’s  foyer.   Inevitably, these visitors are either fire fighters or know of this publicity.  You may ask, why we are therefore offering this product on our Dream series.  I ask you to remember, we are building  our cleint’s choices, not our own desires.   All I can say is that many buyers apparently do not think this fire issue is either real or will be a problem for them in the future. It could be improved by simply putting a few more fire detectors in the basement to give an earlier alert to any basement fires.

     We are currently givng “free” upgrades to our homes floor joists that substitute solid lumber for these I-Joist floor supports.  The down side is that , once again, I will not be able to use this to get points on my green certification sheets.  I can livewith those missing points.  The bigger point here is that  I could go on and on about other work a green items that either don’t work as   well as traditional items OR simply are NOT truly green in practice. 

     I want to quickly bring up the subject of a “Wild idea” I have been working on for Master Bedrooms. I have been “teasing” this new subject but wanted to  respond to a request and touch on the  subject of “green”.  I don’t commonly promise anything unless I can deliver but, I PROMISE, my next blog will start with an unusual problem in the Master suite.

      Blessings,

      Tom Hignite

     In my previous blog posting, I started onto the subject of what I see as some builders who seem to use selling “Green” building methods and/or products much like the Snake Oil traveling salesperson from the old West.  They play on the general public’s Green and Energy Star appetite,  putting all else aside.  I mentioned how I have attended many of the same expert energy seminars as they have,   I read the same trade journals and go to the same energy product shows they go to.    I have come away finding the subject of being Green or using earth-friendly products chiefly being used as a marketing ploy. 

     I hate to be the one to tell the “emperor that he has no clothes “, but no expert has yet to show me the math that makes Solar Panel electricity generation, or solar water heaters,  or Krypton gas filled windows pay for themselves in any resonable near future after installation.

    I am not saying that these builder’s are purposely deceiving you, I AM saying that these builders like the idea of going hi-tech so much, they are blinded by the realities.   They really believe the stuff they are talking about with all of their heart.  Any product will pay for itself if you plan to live in a home for decades.  Since most people live in their homes for shorter periods of time than this, the real question is whether the item you are looking for will pay for itself in say, 5 to 7 years.  So, what green or energy star items do work, or are worht the investment?

     The best thing you could do to build the greenest home would be to build the smallest home.  Even the suggestion of mentioning that a family of 3 may want to consider building a 1,500 square foot home instead of 2,000 , turns a lot of home buyer’s off. I usually keep my mouth closed.   If  they really were concerned about saving our Earth’s resources, the best place to start is by simply using LESS of these resources to start with.  Sadly, there is no award for green given for figuring out how to build smaller, more livable, more efficient homes.  Besides saving raw materials,  it takes less fuel to heat a small house over a larger one.  It takes less cleaning products to clean a smaller house, less lights to light the home, and so forth.

     The second best thing you can do to be “truely green” is to use natural light to light the home wherever possible, yet limit the windows to the least number possible.  Again, most people want a lot of windows, so watch my words  on this as well.   Did you know that while most home owners are trying to get an R21 (the higher the R factor, the better the insulation value) or higher for their walls, they are getting only an R3 or R3.5 window glass.  While this may sound like something in need of improving, an R3.5 in a window is not reason to panic or upgrade.   You could spend three times as much as these normal windows to get an R5 or R7, or even an R11 window, but the costs to get this are going to take just too long for most people to ever see the savings come back in energy savings.  I have seen well meaning , studious home buyers get caught-up in getting the highest R-factors just for R-factor sake.   It becomes a contest to see who can spend the least each month on their energy bills.   These savings may surely make them feel good each month, but I could just as easily show you how saving your money and putting that savings into a bank would pay you more than those energy savings, IF you just want to feel good each month. 

      The reality of these high R-value windows are that those R11 or R7 windows are only rated that if the window is non-opening , stationary.  When you have the same windows built as ones that do open, they drop the R-values dramatically to about R7 and R5 respectively.   The upgrade cost for these high R-value windows may be $4,000 to $9,000 .  IF those windows saved you an extra $40 or even $50 a month ,(unlikely they will)  those $4,000 window upgrades would take you over 8 years to pay for the windows!  If the energy savings on these $4,000 upgrade windows were only $30 a month, that’s almost 10 years. 

      The first thing to tackle in saving energy is the wall and ceiling insulation.  Investing this same kind of money in this area by putting in foam wall insulation and R55 ceiling insulation (instead of R38 common ceiling insulation)  will pay back your savings in about 3 or 4 years. That, is a reasonable return time for most. 

     Spend your money in sealing the home properly.   I use Tyvek-type house wraps and they work fine, but if you want to do a better job of keeping your little flaws in wind-driven temperatures, tape all the seams of the exterior wall foam with the right tape.

    I used to get into debates over wall construction with builder’s and shoppers alike.  My position today is that we will build whatever kind of wall you want.  2 by 4,  2 by 6,  gosh I will even build 2 by 12 walls if that what makes you happy.  Most wall systems work.   Some work better than others for different applications.   If you want a stronger wall, use the 2 by 6 method and put plywood or strand board on the exterior.   The big issue here is that such a wall is quite poor for insulation value.   Sure you can stuff the 2 by 6 cavity with an R21 insulation but the cold will come in the home fairly quick though each wall stud.  Remember, you have solid wood(no insulation)  over most all of your windows(called headers).   You also have 2 or 3 adjoined studs next to each other for window supports or wall corners.  The state of Wisconsin says that a general figure for these wood areas is that 25% of today’s homes walls are non-insulated wall stud areas. Since wood has about R1 per inch, those half inch thich plywood walls and those 5 and a half inch thick studs 2 by 6 studs are only givng that wall an R6 over every window and each stud edges.   OVER 25% OF YOUR HOME WOULD BE ONLY R6. 

     The solution is to use foam 4 by 8 sheets over the wall exteriors. The Foam costs more than the wood, BUT it is MUCH better (1 inch of polyurethane foam has about R7 when you add that to the 2 by 6 wall stud areas)  in providing a superior insulated wall.  With the R3.5 foam sheets instead of wood sheets, you are now getting an R12.5 over 25% of the home. That sure beats the R6!

    Again, if you were really concerned about being green and saving the earth’s resources, I might suggest that you would not build with 2 by 6’s at all.   You could choose 2 by 4’s instead and save a few trees. I prefer 2 by 4 wall construction  because in my own home, I would spray the walls with interior expansion foam . My 2 by 4 wall could then achieve a stellar R27 or R28 rating.  I would use an inch and a half thick foam on the outside walls and hardie plank(cement sideing) over it for strength.

     Another big item that is surely not as “flashy” (or expensive) as Solar or Wind power, is making sure that all of your siding nails are nailed only into the wood studs and not nailed into open wall cavities. This is another reason why I am not personally (Remember,my job is to build to my client’s desires, not my own)  fond of using wood sheets on wall exteriors. When you use plywood or particle board for exterior walls, EVEN WHEN YOU ARE COVERING THAT PLYWOOD WITH  A SECOND LAYER OF FOAM SHEETS, it is very hard for the siding installer to know When he/she is nailing into the stud(as it should be) or nailing into the just the plywood/particle board.  The goal is that when your siding is done, and before you insulate,  you should not see ANY nail shanks poking into the areas that will be getting the wall insulation.  IF you are going to fill those cavities with expansion foam ( by the way, we have had this wall foam standard for about 5 years in our standard series homes) , protruding nails are not a problem.  If you are using most any other kind of insulation, these nails will attract the cold exterior temperatures directly into the relatively warm wall insulation areas and can be the start of  moisture condensation  and the (dreaded) mold.

     As you may now know, I could write for many chapters on energy efficiency in home building and by now, most people who are caught in one of my model home lectures are having their eyes “glaze-over”.  

     I will pick up next ime with more good practical ideas in going Green.  I may even finally get to the Master bedroom “wild idea” next time.  Thanks for blogging my way. I enjoy reading any comments you may have.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

   As Kermit the Frog is quoted “It’s NOT easy being green”,  I want to take Kermit’s spin and pull it into a reversal.   For the 17 years I have been building (thousands) of homes,  I have had a passion for building safe, environmentally – conscious homes,  when the word “green” was only a name of a color!  I have an old brochure where I was passionately tyring to convince home buyers that they needed to be conscious of using materials that may cause mold in homes.  It was like beating my head against a wall in trying to get the Milwaukee media to take these “green” issues seriously.  Today, I doubt there are too many things that are being offered that I have not researched or built in this realm and I say to those of you who are serious about “green”, be CAREFUL, very careful.

      Every builder today is trying to jump on board this green-painted bandwagon and many of them, to my way of thinking, are using green to their advantage.  Their motivation seems honorable , but it is probably not to save the environment or NOT  to save you energy dollars, even though it may seem so.  Just like the snake-oil salesmen of the old West era, they are finding one key item that the public seems to care about, and are exploiting the public’s perceived need, into a greener (every green article is required to use the green=Green money pun at least once in each article, here-gos ) bank account for that builder.

    No where did I see this dynamic taking place more than at the last (August 2009) Parade Of Homes.   I had not seen this mis-use of information happen since the recent Waukesha “Trend House” was built and promoted as the next “big coming” of the future of green.   In the advertising business, the mis-use or exaggerating of information is known as ‘puffery”. That is to say, that real facts are used and then blown up to huge , over-the-top proportions.  The theory is that if the public has a worry about a certain ailment, the Doctor who has the best(or most )  ”cure(s)”,   makes the most money.   Those who are the sickest, (or “think” they are the sickest), will pay the most amount of money for the cure.  And the smartest Doctors of these naive consumers, always has the most number of cures and pills to sell.  In the interest of saving space and words, and at the potential cost of making my life a little tougher at the Metropolitan Builder’s Association meetings,  I want to lay a few things on the table that you likely will not hear from most any other area Home Builder.   

    First, green is not all that we are making it out to be.  Sure, it is important, but that being said , there are so many other building items that  are much MORE important.  let me say that most every builder in the area can , and does , have the ability to offer the  exact same  gadgets and gizmos as the most super “self-proclaimed” greenest builder.  We all use pretty much the very same subcontractors to install these very same green items.  I am talking about items like hi-tech insulation, windows,   solar power, water heaters,   Geo-thermal,  recycling, non-off-gassing products,  and the like .   This blog today is NOT to tell you details about any one particular green item, (I will save those for future blogs) , it is to explain  what, to my way of thinking,  is the unsavory way some builder’s are using this legitimate concern of others to turn a quick, bigger  dollar , or get folks to build with them rather than “take a chance” with another less green builder. 

     These builder’s are often the same builders who often have little else to offer, so they micro-focus on advertising “cleaner, safer, or healthier, homes.  Check their record. Many of these builders have been in business less than 5 years.  5 years is the magic number for builders since most builders who are going to fail at this high risk trade,  fail in the first 5 to 7 years.  I found this out when I used to have a good number of interested home buyers choose not to use me in my first 5 years in business.   I could not argue that they wanted to just make sure that their builder was going to be around for the long-haul.  Sure, I had been around for years in the building industry , working for other’s, but that was not the same as actually being the boss of my own business.  Knowing HOW to build and knowing HOW to operate a home building business were two very differnt things and not everyone was (or is) willing to chance their biggest investment to a good but short track record.  But ,  this is a side-bar.

     A few months ago,  I attended yet another of the many annual Builder Association green seminars they hold to teach the builders how to be the best at the leading edge of green.  I know what to look for and what sounds good to many but is not practical or really saves money.   To me, one prime example is Solar power.   Solar, , while it sounds good and is definitely green,  no one has yet to be able to show me a formula that works.  At the end of the seminar, there was a portion for audience questions.  I did not want to cause a scene, so i came up to the speaker afterwards to pose my questions.  He literally, had no answer to my querry.   Another builder was listening on and was thinking the same question as to making the math work.   It did not.

       At the Parade Of Homes (2009) we had an “all-green” Parade.  We all were Energy Star and Green certified for every home.  As my headline on this article says, IT’S SO EASY TO BE GREEN“.  We did not have to go far to get our certifications.    One big news item for the Parade was the two homes that had some form of solar power.   One used the solar to heat the water and one had a whole roof and solar tracker (a unit that looks like some Army field Radar screen that is computerized to track(follow) the sun to capture the maximum power of the sun. )   I deeply respect the builder of this home and what they were trying to do to try to make solar just one step closer to being cost effective and to becoming a real part of our lives in the future.  They had a difficult time getting the home to appraise out because the appraisers  will only put a small fraction of added value to their numbers for solar.  There is however a HUGE differnce in this  statement of praise to the builder, and in actually believing that having solar power today is an idea that it’s time has come.   It has not.  Even the builder’s own handout at the Parade showed that unless you calculated the gas savings of using an electric car into the  energy usage of the home (really, imagine  including your gas costs into your home operation cost .  Does this make sense to anyone?) AND, unless you used a figure to calculate how much energy costs would go up each year (hey did anyone notice that natural gas came DOWN last year?), The figures just do not work .   At least they do not work TODAY, the solar panel suppliers will even  tell you this much, but not the builders.   The problem with solar is that when the cost equation eventually does work, the tens of thousands it will now cost to put an electronic football field on your roof,  will make todays technology in solar panels absolutely obsolete! 

Ask Yourself This.

Would you really want to be the guy who thought those Sony 42 inch flat panel televisions were so neat that they were worth the $10,000  that Flanner’s, or American  had posted on their 2003 display models?   The era of those flat panels were not really here just yet.  Today, those televisions are bigger, much better, thinner, and cost WAY less.   I doubt you could get close to $1,000 for that $10,000 television on Craig’s list.   Anyone want to buy an 7 year old television for 10 tiimes as much?  Anyone who is looking at solar power today  is truly looking at the very same dynamic . I am here to tell you that putting this technology on a 30 year mortgage is verging on foolish.  As for myself, even if someone were  were to literally “give” you solar power with a home,   in 4 or 5 or 7 years when you go to sell that home, that roof- full of unsightly techno-panels will be about as attractive to re-sale as having a front projection three-tube tlevison , Beta video recorder, or cassette recorder.  The technology in solar panels is advancing so fast that , just like those flat panel , better, bigger, cheaper  flat televisions  of today, the time WILL be right to go solar. Just not today, or probably  not tomorrow either.

    As for another recent real- life example,   listen to this.  I have a solar panel house located right next door to a spec home we are building in Milwaukee.  This home has a big sign in the front yard saying “solar powered“. It is just under 2,200 square feet in size.  It has been for sale for many months before we even broke ground on our smaller 2024 square foot home , located immediately next door .  My home has a 3 car garage, theirs has only a 2 car garage.  Both have 4 bedrooms but theirs has a nice big upstairs loft that mine does not.   My home was priced at $269,000.  Their’s was over $275,000(as I recall) ,when it was first listed(remember, before we broke ground).    After we broke ground, it had  been reduced to $249,000.  It has been at this low price  for several months.  Ours sold a few weeks ago (we were still in the drywall stage) for close to  our asking price, and we had several interested parties at the time.  Each had said of the neighboring solar home,  they were scarred of the technology being “dated” by the time they would sell this home.  I did have a few shoppers who thought this might be a good idea but would rather it had nicer cabinets or counter tops instead of the solar technology.

     The bigger point is that when the market finally does see solar  makes mathematical and re-sale sense,   solar power will already be mainstream.   For those who wish to be on the front edge of this technology, our heating/cooling vendor are the same folks who did that neighboring home, and the Parade solar models as well.   The little secret is that even those who provide and install the productsto the builders  have whispered that the technology, if  strictly on a pay-back basis, is not the reason to use solar powered water heating or whole-house solar.  For those who want to do good for the  World’s resources  , we will gladly install them, and give them our thanks.  The difference is that you should be buying solar or any green product knowing the whole story and not just  the wishful ones.

     Judging by my word count,  I have now posted my longest blog yet.   I have so much more to say on the subject of being sold green for the sake of green.  I told you in my ending to my last blog that I would do a story on a “wild idea” for the master bedroom.  I will try to breifly wrap this up and start that segment in my next blog.   My apologies for going all green on you.  I will summarize what I do feel are the real green items to look for next time  we meet.

       Thanks to those who came to visit me yesterday at our “secret blogger’s” day at my Milwaukee model.   We will have to do that again some time soon.   I had fun, and hopefully, so did you.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

Hello,

If you have not yet read my first and second Blog postings(this is number 3 if you are counting) let me quickly re-cap. In blog 1 I gave a passionate plea to consider the many new possibilities in building a Hybrid Ranch (aka 2-story ranch). Remember, ALL ranches are 2-story if you have a basement. In blog number 2 I went on to explain a new way to have a walk-out basement(sort of)  , in a flat lot building situation. These two subjects are just two elements which I believe dovetail with this 3rd installment , and all three of these connect to my recent visit to the International Home Building Show in Las Vegas, a dozen days ago.

This Show, is the biggest show I can imagine , and half the reason to go to the show is to attend the long list of seminars. No matter the home subject, sales, green building, construction supervision, financing, or(my favorite) home design.  It always seems I have some new home idea or concept that is keen on my mind and in this case, and for the last several months, I have been really captivated by the notion of creating a whole new generation of homes.

Honestly, I am getting downright sick of visiting new homes and seeing the latest home trend plan books and not seeing anything that is truly “different”. I am sure that some guy at some time got tired of always washing towels to dry his hands with and then decided there must be a better way. He invented the paper towel. Now that we all use paper towels, they are nothing special. When the first television or automobile was invented, they were probably such radical  ideas, that it must have excited the pants off those riding on horses or listening to radios for entertainment. I am sure that when the next really big break in home design comes along, it won’t take long until it will revolutionize the industry and everyone will look at that design and wonder why we didn’t think of it before.

I am convinced that the basic concept of designing mostly squared rooms, made out of lumber and drywall using pointy peaked roof, and putting cabinets on the floor with wall cabinets on the…well…wall, and putting first floor laundry rooms, ceramic tile floors, hardwood, carpet, fireplaces, bathrroms, ALL of this will some day cahnge, just as sure as when the first out- houses  were brought indoors and folks must have thought how brilliant that idea was. ALL of what we know today as a house could change. ALL of this SHOULD change. And when it does, folks will ALL look at each other and say, gee , why didn’t we think of that before?

A few years ago, I drove by a home in Kenosha that looked a lot like one of my own  design.  I knew it was not but it looked so familiar. Every father knows his own child so I got out of the truck and went inside this new home which was about midway through construction.  This 1600 square foot ranch had balck and white copies astrewn all about the home. These photos were of MY model home.  Similar things like this have happened before, and even though Wisconsin has one of the toughest (best for builder) copyright laws in the book which could get me potentially tens of thousands of dollars for such an incident, I  just didn’t want to going through the mental anguish again.

The emotions of that moment caused me to decide to begin all over again and start designing even newer, even more unique, even more cutting edge designs that, if I have my way ,  will never be mistaken as anything but an original Miracle design.

I have heard it said that there are only so many ways to design a certain sized or type of home. I strongly disagree.  If you check out my Kinsey Bay design, you will se the home I designed immediatly after this incident. If you could see what I have been working on in the last 6 weeks(a 1500 sqare foot Hybrid Ranch) I think   you would see something totally new, bourn out of my circumstances at the time.  Now let me connect the dots from the International Home Show to today’s design subject of homes from 2012 and beyond.

I heard upwards of 7 famous home designers ,speaking at the show, all addressing  the same subject of what the new generation Y (also called New Millenials) will want in a new home. Here is the bullet- point synophsis I took in my notes at the seminars.

1. We need homes that will address the social happening that generations of  all ages are now beginning to live together longer. It is not unusual to see retired folks living with their kids or a grandmother taking primary care of the grandchildren, or a son or daughter living in the parent’s home until they are married or even after they are married. New designs need to better addressing private spaces and be flexible to allow co-living.

2. There is a distinct price shift taking place. The age of the McMansion is over and price is more important than size. In fact, home sizes are shrinking and developers had better realize they need to lower their restrictions of size for new developments.

3. Everyone wants ”green” built homes but very few are willing to pay mcuh to get it. Green is good, extreme green is not. A new buyer will pay only about $35 more a month on their mortgage  to get Green features.

4. The new generation Y considers the outdoor fireplace or fire pit to be the new essential and things like a whirlpool tub or three car garage, dining room, study, and formal living room  are not.  Many surveyed said if they could only have one fireplace, they would choose to put it outside and sacrifice the inside fireplace.

5 Generation Y will want more uniqueness, less opulence . More contemporary than ever before. They are the age of Ikea(I hope I spelled that right) shopping and designs need to be bolder.

6. Generation Y is not desiring large families and many will opt for no children.

7. Technology will be huge and homes need to allow for all the new tech toys.

8. Outdoor social areas will be as important as the interior rooms. New furnishings and cabinets, are coming to make outdoor feel like indoors.

9. They are not about owning new “things”. They will not need all the bells and whistles in the homes but whatever is in the home must be nice and workable/functional.

10. Lot size is far less important than the location of the lot (proximity), it should be near shopping, entertainment, or near work.

11. More Generation Y people will work out of their homes. Even so, the need for an office(unless folks will visit the home for business) is low. They would rather work at their couches in the living room with a laptop.

12. The maximum time they wish to travel to their workplace from home is 27 minutes.

13. They will want multi-function spaces.

14. Female will continue to have the buying power. This is the fastest growing segment in the U.S. We will see lone females buying homes.

15. 55 years old(plus) is a whole new world. Older people are looking/feeling/living younger. 50 is the new 40.

16. People will work longer, pensions are gone, big becomes less important for them.

17. Big traditional families are becoming the minority. They are still the most important segment because they are the segment that needs and wants to move.

18. They prefer single detached homes rather than condo living.

19. 1500 sqare feet is heading into being the new norm for size.

20.They want a social hub, open floor plans, high ceilings, combined living and dining, and (again) outdoor spaces are going to be HUGE(popular not big)

21.The new buyer has and wants LOTS of clothes.

22. Generation Y is extremely brand concious. Sampo is not as favored as Sony for example. Quality is king.

23. Structured wiring is the norm.

24. New Millinials want products that represent their change oriented culture. They are less concerned about the illusion of wealth.

So, what does all of this look like. Stay tuned to see my current designs(or give me a call ).

Unless you think this is not real, these buyers will become the next , most massive home buying segment to ever hit America. A few stats  show that 82% of these Generation Y folks think it is important to buy a home. 50% say they will buy in the next 3 years. Once this group enters the marketplace in 2012, they will dominate the market through 2051. 86% list price as the most important thing in making a home purchase decision. 14% think size is important.Home sizes will run 1428 to 1728 square feet in size. 70% of these buyers want designs that meet their needs, not luxuries.

In my next blog, I will talk about a few new items that I am including in our next generation of homes that is pretty off-the-wall. Please let me know your thoughts and let me know you are out there.

As I said, I may not post every day, but at least several times a week. I hope you will check back.

Blessings,

Tom

I am blessed to be  alive in a time where (once we get do get through this home market downturn), I will have a sense of perspective that I would never have had if the road never got so bumpy. When a home builder, such as Miracle Home Builder’s , who is used to seeing several new home sales a week , can go several weeks without a single prospect, …what a week!   When we get used to getting so many sales phone calls on any given day that we need to literally pick and choose who to call first, then turns to not getting more than a call or two a day,…what a day!  And , when my life, which ( business speaking) was revolving around and was so connected to zooming to the top of the Home Building  “heap”, suddenly finds the flurry of mind-numbing decisions and frantic paced interaction with a whole building full of a giant workforce, turn into some empty desks and a mostly blank appointment calender,  a fast-forward life is seemingly put into slow-motion and pause, …what a life!

The foxhole mentality (you know, the one that finds God most needed when the artillery shells are blasting closest) , the mentality that you had only seen in other ’s lives, comes  very close to my own home.  Each week that passes, makes this new slower pace seem more normal and acceptable,  making that faster pace seem like it may have been just a dream.  Existing in this “new” housing market , if nothing else has given a 20/20 perspective to just how good we , as home builders, really had it.  If only we could hold on to this perspective, that would be a very good thing.

Unfortunately, I know that once this home sales roller-coaster starts rolling upward again(all roller coasters do, you know) I will likely see these past few down-market years as a distant memory, an awakinging  to re-start that frantic pace once again.  As much as I want to keenly remember the lessons of frugality that this tough home season has taught, I know that humans speak of learning from history but few really do. Look at 911 for example. Look at the death of a loved one.  No, we never forget the pain or history, but as time passes, the pain does not sting as acutely as living in the day.

Tonight, moments before this posting, one of my sales folks nexteled me to say that he signed some very nice clients to building a new home.  I was naturally happy, both for us and the client(really, I do still get a legitimate high out of seeing other’s happy, and I wanted to share and hear about those folk’s smiling moment). Yesterday, I went to Office Max and purchased a big dry-erase board to put congratulation notes in our foyer for the 5 other homes or lots that were sold last week at Miracle.  In the past several weeks, I have seen a dramatic positive up-turn in our home building business.

I spoke to a friendly competitor (I do have a few legitimate ones) today, and he expressed that he too , had signed a new home contract last night, and had a good January.  When this whole down-turn came, I didn’t see it coming. Fortunately,by God’s grace,  we were able to weather the storm better than some builders who had big investments in land and lots.  If you don’t know, as a custom builder, we don’t own land. I saw many small builder’s buckle under the pressure and change professions. I saw several big name builders go out of business or come close to it.  When this market starts to make it’s come-back, I don’t think I will see it coming any more than when it got here.

I  look at the data on how many website visitors Miracle is getting each day and I see a spike since late December which has climbed higher, ever slightly higher, day by day, week by week. Does that mean we are now out of the down-market? I am feeling that old fast-paced excitement creeping back, at least for this week, and the last few.  I dare not even guess whether this is a trend or a blip on the radar screen. For now, I am satisfied that we are doing quite fine but I sincerely doubt we are out of the woods just yet. Unemployment is still down but all the experts (boy, did I see a lot of those financial-type-experts at the recent International Home Builder’s show/Vegas) confidently say, the worst is behind us by several months. Home values are coming up. Wisconsin should see a 3.5% increase in home values this year alone. Wisconsin home sales should be up 25% from  last year and 50% more next year over this year!  Interest rates are still down to about as low as anyone has ever seen, and consumer spending confidence is up as well.  Add that to another huge home buying/building “first” that the government is paying folks to buy/build homes, and we might just have the “perfect storm’ of home buying happening.

I  do kind of feel like the car dealer who ALWAYS says NOW is the best time to buy a car. If he always says that,  it seems dishonest.  Even so, it can not be denied that this is far better than I would have imagined even several months ago.  The biggest trouble folks have of needing to sell an existing home first ,before commintting to buying a new home we addressed a while back in our current promotional offering.  But this blog is not meant to sound too “overtly” self-serving, so on to the bigger point.

The bigger point is that tonight I feel a giant smile inside me . Not because of tonight’s sale(that certainly helped…a bit), but because I feel that the days, and weeks, AND years, of this down-market has given me a re-born appreciation of just  how special it truly is to build homes and make people happy in the process.   That smile is for a deep satisfaction that, for me,  I am in the right business.  I have seen the best and the worst and would not trade a minute of the worst since it gives a deeper appreciation of the best.  Good or bad, I am having a blast designing and creating some some of the most awesome new home ideas!  ideas that I might not have thought of in a great market, only in a poor one.  Thank God for the blessing of creativity.

On another note, if you want to see some pretty neat new photos of my Ellison Bay model ranch we had in Kenosha, our webmaster just added them to the photo gallery and to the Ellison Bay page. I am always interested in your feed-back.

Next time, I will give you some of those new neat ideas and try to stay a tad less preachy. Thanks for allowing me to share some reflections.

Blessings,

Tom Hignite

Hello ,

     It is quite late and if I want to make this a Tuesday blog entry, I had better type quick!

     I spent an invigorating morning deep in designing what I see as a new-age backyard.  A few years ago, I had the crazy notion (especially in cold Wisconsin )  that folks don’t spend a lot of time outside when relaxing. Socializing, yes.  Relaxing after work or when no one else is around, no.   Sure, you might garden or have the oft cookout outside, but with bugs ind humidity or wind blowing stuff around, really…hanging outside is not the most relaxing place compared to a bug-free, television-ready, temperature -custom , bathroom close-by,  couch inside the home.  Besides, the smaller lots today have potential issues of privacy , both visual and” noise-wise”.

   Despite all of these obstacles, I have become fixated on a crazy notion of asking, seeing, exploring, whether it is possible for me to think outside the box enough to get past some or all of these problems.  If you bring up(on the website photo gallery) our 2009 Parade’s Little-Big House, or check out our front yard photos of our Homestead 3 Special Edition 2-story, or see our Sand Bay front yard, you will see I have been experimenting with this outdoor living concept for some time.

    There is nothing that teaches better than carefull thought, careful design , then  just building something and seeing how it works. I have observed how these outdoor areas functioned and I have seen the deficiencies in each exterior area I have designed and built. People loved our Little-Big House front porch more than they loved to sit on our Little-Big House  back patio. The patio had more room, good privacy, and even my first new invention of an outdoor television, that was quite watchable after dusk. I think folks liked the front porch better because it first, had a roof which gave it better sun protection, and second, it had better furniture. But, unless you had someone outside to talk to, or a television or computer , you might easily get bored and want to go inside.

    On this particualr front porch idea, I had the most comfortable padded love seats that you could want. I had designed the landscaping to have pretty good privacy so you would not feel like you were relaxing in front of passer-bys on the street. I had even thought of including that  most relaxing element  of splashing water in a  which was to  mesmerize and draw you to the area(and it did1)  But alas, even all of this  was not enough to  make this area  preferred for relaxation sake over an interior couch.

     I took all of this into account and have been designing my heart out to get the next attempt right. If I had an area where folks could have laid on a couch or bed, that would have been a big , MAJOR,  first step in competing with the inside couch area.

    I remember, my Grandparents in Glendale had a back porch and they spent lots of time in that area watching a small television, eating on a small table, playing cards, and…laying down for a nap on a couch. This porch had a small bathroom right off of this  porch, just inside the home. It had fantastic privacy from passer-bys and it had all screens so it could enjoy the breeze and the sounds of nature. ( Grandma fedd and watched the birds and Grandpa had his b-b gun ready in case of squirles) I t also had a train track just behind the porch by 200 feet on a hill, but even that noise was  was not powerful enough reason to detract from this being a most desirable area to relax.

    My Aunt and Uncle  in Cedarburg too have a back enclosed porch and they use it all the time. We built a lovely back porch with an area for a hot tub on one home last year and they use that area a lot,  so I hear.

     Am I advocating back porches? …yes and no. I have a grander plan of making the front porch just as attractive  as these rear porches and I think I  have found a way to start by finding a perfect balance of open railing and short wall pieces to give the porch a sense of privacy. I have come up with a method to use hide-away screens to protect the area from bugs. I have porch ceiling fans to keep it cooler. (here’s where I get a bit extreme) I have gone so far as to find an aesthetically pleasing way to have a large weather-protected television and  a heating fireplace both on this front porch. I also have a huge set of french door on the front porch that leads a few steps away to the inside dinning table AND even a concealed refrigerator. Yes, there are places to have couches and you can see  passer-bys if you sit up but are totally private if you lay down on the couch!

     There is a dynamite sound system, and even a quick access into the garage if you have the need. I am working at putting a bathroom close by but that may not come to fruition.   But that’s not all.   As wonderful as this big 10 by 18 front porch may be, the back yard concepts are even cooler, wilder, and I have not seen the vast majority of these  ideas   done before anywhere(which always excited me!).

     I will share some of those “ back yard “rooms” ideas in the next blog. Here’s the big deal on what I am doing with this design, ( First, the whole house has all sorts of new ideas I have had percolating in my head for many months and I could write  pages on every room ,    really).   Second, what make all this so much more exciting for me is that designing this kind of stuff into a home that is 2,500 , or 3,000, or 4,000 square feet is easy enough for any novice  designer to do.   I always say, anyone can throw money at a design and make it wonderful to behold. The real fun and challenge comes in doing stuff like this , to make the home FEEL like a 3,000  or 4,000 square footer, but do it in what some would see as a “small” square footage home. This home has everything but it is part of my “Hybrid Ranch” (see my first few blog entries for the general scoop on this idea). This, folks, is a 1,500 square foot ranch that I bet will fool even the most savvy home shopper into thinking this is twice the size. A home that blends outdoor “rooms” with inside rooms in ways that blurs the line of indoor/outdoor.

    By the way, today, we posted a whole group of photos from our Lake Bay and Ellison Bay(and others) on our home page’s photo gallery. I hope you will take a look. I hope you will check back to see what I have in mind for the backyard “rooms”.  Thanks for reading. I missed my quick part of my headline, I missed my midnight deadline to post this, but I hope I did not miss making these ideas “sweet”.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

I have just stayed up all last night (until 5 am) to design a unique finished basement. I awoke a few short hours later to spend the day working on a re-design of a 2-story home, so at 5 pm I could meet these nice people and show them the plans in South Milwaukee. I sure enjoy taling new homes with nice people! The dinner was good too, but I digress.  I tell you this as my “excuse” to keep this rather short. I realize I have an obligation to keep my blog updated but this is not the night for length so here-goes.

      In my previous posting I talked about the passion I have for trying to design outdoor spaces that are a continuation of the interior of the home. If I had my way, my designs  would remind you more of being an actual outside room rather than just a deck or patio or porch.

     I wrote about my ideas I am currently designing into my “Hybrid Ranch ” design(see my first blog post). In showing any home, I think it best to approach it like a play.  That is to say, there needs to be a proper introduction or anticipation. This is the look of the home from a distance. I might say “curb appeal” but that does not take the concept far enough. The mere shadow shapes or silhouette of a certain home in the distance(before “curb appeal”) should , in a perfect world, be distinct enough to have viewers be drawn to the building for the sheer architectural interest.   Take, for example, a castle. The mere shape draws you into an anticipation to see inside.   Now, take the closer approach, as the viewer moves-in for a better look.   This is the curb appeal. Not all homes have the appeal of distance but most have some degree of closer curb appeal.  A simple shaped home could have a certain detail (a front door or real working shutters, or a fanciful roof shingle pattern) or a more sophisticated home could have a fountain or intricate masonry, or perhaps a sidewalk that allows visitors to walk over a waterfall(an extreme but real example we have done ).

     As you go onto the front porch, you have now moved into the storyline of this living “play” I am referring too. The porch should reveal more surprises or details. This is telling more of the story.  Maybe a real wood porch floor, or some railing patterns that are unique, or a different type of furniture or fresh flowers. Moving into the foyer reveals the next act of our home’s “play” and as you progress through the home, each new area should tell another part of the whole story of who the home’s occupants are.  As I blog further into the future, perhaps we can discuss the best ways to make each room speak clearly and have a singular distinct message all it’s own.  As you get to the end of the home(usually the backyard or basement, you need a grand finale for your play. I once had a home where it was feasible that the grand finale might just be the basement guest bathroom!  Now for some folks, they might end their visit in the basement theatre.   If that was the case, the theatre was indeed a great grand finale spot to visit.   But,…what IF the visitors last new thing/room they viewed was the basement bathroom?  If the last impression (as important or more important than the first impression) is not strong, the home’s overall impression will not be strong and the great rooms,  or story we are telling becomes   watered-down,  or weak, or just not letting the play end  with a “bang” of memory.  I had to make sure that for those ending their visit in that last room, they had something worthy of being their grand finale. I decided to make this bathroom opulent-extreme,   with a real claw foot tub, rounded walls to follow the tub contours, and all real wood wall panels(painted white) with a huge/long  sink area wall but done classy with only a small bowl pedestal sink and arching themed twin  cabinet towers with simple oval mirror and twin wall sconce lights. The result was enhanced by a special music track which played exclusively in that room  sounded like the finale!

     In many cases the back yard is the finale and this needs to be treated as the most likely grand finale, final act of our “play“. This is where my energy has expired for the night and so, I will continue this tomorrow morning when I find the refreshed power to give this outdoor decor report my “grand Finale”

      Thanks for reading. I would love to hear your comments to see if anyone is reading my ramblings. We did sell another home today and I am feeling overwhelmed by the number of homes we are now selling in the past week(s).

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     The day was spent visiting client homes we currently have under construction. If you know the wonderful feeling it is to see your own home being built, (trust me, if you have not had that experience, it IS wonderful), then you can imagine how I must feel looking at multiple homes we are building at any one time. One of these today was a home we are building on Ochauchee Lake .  This is actualy the second home we are building for these nice people. This one has a 12 foot high basement where the concrete floors were just poured yesterday.  I sure love seeing progress and making notes or suggestions as to how we might make each home a little better.  In this case, I am particualrily happy to see a lake house that was not as custom as some we have designed.  In this case, these folks took an existing simple design we had and modified it so it works and looks great but only costed a fraction of what a scratch-custom would have.

       In my last 2 posts I have talked about creating outdoor spaces that are as nice as indoor spaces, or at least TRYto make them as preferrable as indoor spaces when it comes to simple, after-work relaxation areas. As I mentioned previously, my years of attempting to achieve the perfect outdoor living spaces have been a journey of discovery. That is, I build them in a model, then observe the public reaction, then observe if the new owners actually use these spaces. Sadly, creating an outdoor space that rivals the indoor couch/T.V. combo, where you can control bugs, noise, privacy, and temperature, is tough to do. Who wants to come home after work and relax outside only to find it is too hot, bugs are flying around your head, and the neighbors are outside forcing conversation when you are tired from the day? 

      I wrote how I tried to tackle all (or most) of these challenges when I designed my perfect outdoor front porch, complete  with weather enclosed television, couches, screens, even a built-in fireplace and refrigerator. But creating great outdoor spaces are more than amenities, they must also be “user friendly“. This is to say, that if access is available only by walking up or down a tall flight of stairs or walking outside the home using an unnatural path, you can have all the frills and amenities you want, but the area will NOT be highly used in everyday living.

     The perfect example of this is the family who builds a large dedicated home theatre but then only really uses it for special occasions or weekends. The basement location for this theatre was simply not “user friendly” to the kitchen or living room and took an effort to get to that theatre area. To avoid such placement issues, a wide set of front double doors can open up the entire front porch or patio to the rest of the home. But, what about the bugs and air conditioning escaping or entering through the wide openings?

     One device which is used in commercial operations is called a wind screen. A wind screen actually creates a wall of air flow (wind) that starts at the ceiling and blows in a sheet of wind to block the outside from the inside even with doors open. The next time you go to  a theme park like Great America , or Disney, look at the many door-less shops they have that still mange to stay cool inside on hot days. That cold air is being (mostly) held inside with these invisible walls of wind.   With a wind wall, you can easily walk from inside to outside without worrying to much about getting small bugs  or cold air conditioned air outside, or inside  the home’s interior.

     Another way to keep the bugs out is to simply use screens, but that requires opening and closing screen doors and will not keep the temperature inside the home. On the perfect weather day, or if you use a nice system of cieling fans to keep air moving, you can make screens work.  If you are planning to really use exterior “rooms” in your everyday living and don’t have a wind screen system, try designing the home so the great room(Kitchen/seating/eating area) is all in one area and is zoned so the rest of the home is on a separate heating/cooling zone.  If you have the great room zones so you can turn off the air conditioning without turning off the rest of the homes air conditioning, you must also have a way to door-off the rest of the home. Designing in doors that close off the bedroom hallway are not difficult to do IF you have the forethought to do it.

     The patio area or backyard area of the current design (again it is my “Hybrid Ranch” design and , AGAIN, you should read my first blog entry to see more on that exciting development) I am working on , approaches the idea of creating the perfect outdoor “rooms”.  In my ideal world, this area would be more than an oasis or get-away, it would be all the rooms you need to live in, but outdoors instead, AND, doing things you ould only do outdoors. Here’s how I am doing this.

1. I wanted to have multiple rooms enter/exit onto this lower (walk out basement) patio area. The two guest bedrooms, the upper great rooms (via stairs to lower level), and the lower great room (rec-room) all enter/exit onto this backyard area, making it accessible to many.

2. There is a brick paver pattern and concrete pattern that are curved and curve right into the home’s interior. The brick/concrete patterns actually flow through some main doorway so that the pavers come nto the home. The effect is to make a statement that these outdoor areas are the same as indoors for use. We want folks to not step from carpet onto concrete which instantly tells them, “I am now outside”.

3.  Since it is hard to live outside without having a kitchen, a kitchen was created around the idea of the cook-out, or grill area. Today, some new style kitchen cabinetry , that you would swear are luxury wood cabinets, are being amde of resins to be weather-resistant exterior cabinetry. In the future, don’t be surprised to find complete wood-styled kitchens outside along with exterior grade appliances! My small efficiency outdoor kitchen will have hot and cold running water and a refrigerator. I am designing it to have a commnon wall touching the home so hot water is not problem and inexpensive.

4. The outdoor living room needs to have pleanty of outdoor furnishings (again) that look like indoor furniture styling. Most important, we will have a 60 inch flat panel television set. To make this feasible, I am taking a simple large clear glass picture window and putting it into the home’s main body looking out onto the patio living room.  This window is sized to the size of the television screen. The television (here’s the tricky part of my little invention) is actually not outside at all. It is inside and it faces out of this window so it is seen only from the outside!  I will use exterior grade surround sound speakers and exterior grade sub woofer speaker ( some in the shape of rocks and others attached to the home)to have a sound that will “rock” the backyard for everyday living or an awesome garden party where you can invite Jimmy Buffet or whoever you wish on concert DVDs.

5. For eating areas, I have designed several areas ALL with fans overhead to keep bugs away. Some are on dry land areas and some of these tables are in another one of my inventions I call the “flooding patio”

6. A flooding patio is something you could only do outside and I have done several of them before. They are a concept where you have a portion of the main patio(in this case, 18 feet by 22 feet) sunken a step or two or three below the main patio.  When dry, it appears as though you have a sunken living room on your patio. It is a conversation pit look. When the days or nights get hot, you can flood the patio area to fill with water. You can mingle your feet in just an inch or two of cool water or you could choose to have as much as 12 to 24 inches of water for a great kid’s wading pool or floating around the patio on an air mattress or tube.  In the homes I have built them in, visitors are instantly attracted to these shallow fun pools and in moments remove their shoes, no bathing suit required. Some folks have issues with bathing in a hot tub with others, or swimming at a party, but no one I have met has had any qualms about sitting on the (non-rusting aluminum framed) furniture while splashing their feet. What fun!

7. This outdoor living area series of “rooms” are separated visually by plantings or outdoor art paintings suggesting walls. As for a ceiling that may protect against sudden rain storms or such, one of the big features has the home’s main roof structure covering most of this oasis. A system of screens can be rolled down to enclose most of the backyard rooms.

8. As for the bedroom or bathroom outdoor “rooms”, I needed to address this as well. If  a bathroom was needed, I wanted to design a fun compact “yacht-style” bathroom which was both adjacent to the outdoor rec areas, as well as being available privately to the outdoor bedroom area.

9. Did I say  outdoor “bedroom”? Yes I did. What it appears to be is a covered gazebo or cabana which is pool-side(flooding patio side, that is) . The entire cabana is sided in french doors and hide-away screens.    When you wish, the area can be used to lay out on the covered outdoor queen bed/futon  or sit on a few chairs. When the temperature is too hot for some but right for others, this cabana’s doors can be shut and air conditioning from the home fills the room. Both the bathroom and this bedroom touches the main home only on one corner and (at a casual glance) appears to be separate from the home. In  Winter, this room can be a cozy guest cabana with attached bath. Your guests would have to walk outside to get to the cabana but the huge main room over the rec area does give cover going to and from the main house.

10. The shape of the home and the extra landscaping gives total privacy from any neighbors who would desire to see you in your outside rooms.  We even have, of course, the outside fireplace in a perfect area to give heat to the living room on cold nights watching the outdoor television.

     If this sounds interesting to you, please contact me because I am looking for all of the feed-back I can have for this first-ever concept. I hope , with the kind cooperation of the bankers of course, that I will be able to unveil Wisconsin’s first indoor outdoor home. I have never seen anything like it anywhere and…that makes it all the better and fun to do!

     I hope to unveil it at the 2010 Parade of Homes , this year, in my home town of Richfield.  At that time, again, I will sit back and see how people accept and use these outdoor rooms.  Once again, I am sure I will learn form my latest plan and go on another day to re-think and re-design the perfect outdoor living area.

I am also building a throwback to the age of farm houses and I will talk about what I am doing that no farm may have ever done.  I hope you will visit this blog again to join me for more wild , creative ideas.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

I spent a good part of my day this Saturday covering some open house hours and client meetings for one of my sales staffers. This staffer was out to attend a funeral and I am happy to pitch-in. I went to Milwaukee and met with a few extremely nice groups of clients and visitors.

The home I was at was located at was on 91st street  and Good Hope,  in the Oak Hill subdivision.  This is a newer development quite close to Menomonee Falls and has a community full of police officers, teachers, and fire fighters(mostly).   Anyway,  we are building one of our Dream 2000 two story homes and it is now in drywall AND the drywallers were plastering their “mud” today while I showed the home.

In a previous post, I mentioned how I love to attend the big International Home Builder’s Show each year to see what new ideas or products I can discover. This year,  I found a great drywall product that makes it appear like the effect of a very old or classic home. I used many new drywall effects throughout the home but my favorite is the front room’s effect.   This room is located off the foyer so it could be used as a Den.  This room is equally convenient to the back located kitchen , so this room could also be a nice formal dining room if you prefer. In today’s “generation Y” design trend style, this multi-purpose room  (it could also be a parlor or tot’s play room)  is a hot button for allowing folks to use it as they wish. The 11 by 14 foot size is perfect for so many uses AND it is located directly accross from a bathroom so it could also be used as  a guest bedroom if desired. All of this IS NOT the new idea.  I am , slowly getting to that.

I had fun showing the new idea to the visitors today and they seemed to really like it.   The effect is that of having an old fashined room with inset panels on every wall and ceiling too. To accomplish this, I first dry-walled the entire room in a single (normal) layer of drywall. Then, if you can imagine,  I had 6 inch wide and very long, strips of drywall cut and these were put around the room to form picture frames around the  newly created  rectangular inset “panels”  .   I tryed something like this on our Parade 2009 master bedroom(see the home page photo galery of this home’s master to see it) but the difference here is the new edge shape I had applied to the raw drywall edges that formed these panels were a fancy chair rail colonial shape.    The effect is truly stunning and would normally be found only in homes costing much much more.   Until now, this effect would have needed to be done using fine carpentry. We also did this to the cieling and it looks fantastic even in this early state.   I knew I was going to try this, so I decided to really take the design up a notch by building an 6 foot wide by 6.5 feet high alcove into the predominant 14 foot long wall. I could do this because the other side of this wall was against the garage. This meant,(you won’t see it on our Dream 2000 floor plan) I could cantilever this alcove protrusion into the garage and not need to have a foundation under it. I gave an arched top to this alcove so we can put a dining hutch or perhaps a bereau(if used as a den) inside this alcove.   THEN on either side of this alcove, I made two floor- to- cieling rectangular inset panels AND added two ornate wall light sconces(with mini lamp shades) to finish the old world effect.

In the great room, I added crown moulding but NOT of wood, but rather of a new hollow plastic drywall moulding!   What fun to do something so simple that adds so much charm and warmth and not spend an arm and a leg in doing it.   I also used a new drywall corner that is neither square nor round but BOTH  round AND square at the same time!   I will try to explain this in my next blog.

I met the folks who have actually purchased this home and loved showing them around. I feel like a proud Father.   The problem was we had our showing cut a little short because another super couple (and her Dad) showed up and we had a wonderful time dreaming about building a bigger 2-story a few miles away.  I sure love my job!   Lastly, I had a lovely time showing some folks the home and taking an “imagination tour” of our new upcoming “Hybrid Ranch” which I have discussed here on my very first blog entry. I had the Hybrid Ranch design with me in my truck so we took a very brief look. I have a new radical wild idea I am going to introduce in this new design and I can’t wait to share that idea (soon) with all of you.   It is so novel an idea that once I thought of the concept, I honestly can not look at any kitchen cabinet layout without visually seeing a ton of wasted space.

As always, thanks for imaginating with me. If you want to see the drywall ideas I am talking about AND MORE drywall ideas I have not even mentioned (as well as a nifty finshed basement that is sooo simple yet sooo roomy) , stop by the Oak Hill house , 1 to 4 this weekend.   I gaurantee, you will see things you can not see anywhere else I know of!

Blessings and thanks.

Tom Hignite

     A few blogs ago,  I “teased” that I had been working on a new idea for what looks like a farmhouse. If you are not the farmhouse sort, don’t worry, the general concept could work for you even if “country” is not your thing.

     Let me say from the outset that at times I have gone  down the planning road only to find a dead end when financing is not available for the project. Unfortunately, in order to see if something will indeed appraise out at the needed dollars,   I must take the project through the full design and estimating stage. I DO have a pretty good feeling about this one, so      here it is.

      I am seriously looking into doing our “Hybrid Ranch“  (see first blog entries) in Richfield’s new Reflection’s Village development. This is looking like it may be a part of the big annual Parade Of Homes. This development has “miracle” written all over it! This is to be an old fashioned walking neighborhood complete with lots of amenities such as quaint shopping area, fishing pond, swimming pool house, community band shell, a park, and tremendous walking paths. What better place to have a ground breaking new design than this ground breaking new development in Richfield. I have the Hybrid Ranch design actually planned for inside the development in a prominent spot.   The demands of the subdivision is that all architecture must look like something out of an old neighborhood, perhaps leaning somewhat victorian in style, but not required.

     Just across the main street from the subdivision enterance is what looks like a poor,  less than desirable  parcel of land with a small building site possibility, on a somewhat busy road(Appleton Avenue/HWY 175). The backyard abuts up to existing/older backyards of other homes.   In the middle of this lot,  is an old farm silo and part of a buried foundation for a long gone barn. The roof of the silo is mostly gone. There is an old out house near the road on the front corner. It is NOT quaint. It is NOT private.  Anyone interested in this lot?     I thought not.

     Despite it’s unappeal, I looked into what could be done to make this unattractive lot work.    First, as in any design challenge, I wanted to identify the problems. The busy road could be overcome by designing a home that was long and perhaps “C” shaped with the open part of the “C” facing the backyard.   The rest of the privacy concerns could be overcome by extensive landscaing with well positioned trees.   I considered tearing down the silo (breifly) but the wild idea struck me as to how that silo could be used to be an asset. Since it was positioned on the lot about half way back,   it was possible to have some kind of building in front of the silo. Instead of ripping down a bit more of Wisconsin history,   I decided to see if it was possible to build a barn in front of the silo. Out buildings on such a small lot would make this barn seemingly impossible.

     Not wanting to give up on a good wild idea without a fight, I thought of perhaps finding a way to attach this barn to a popular home design I had already previously designed , for which I had wanted/needed  to build a model of that home.  If you check out web site’s photo gallery(bottom of home page)  of our 2009 Parade Of Homes “Little-Big House“, you will see why we are getting a lot of requests to see this home.   Unfortunately, ( did I say UN-fortunatly?)  the model was sold during construction and now we have to show other similar homes we are building for others.  SIDE NOTE; SEE ONE IN JACKSON- Just finishing.   The ideal model to have right now for us would be this “Little_Big House“.  I would , however not want to idealy have it inside Reflection’s Village since I would want to show it with a simpler exterior than Reflections might allow.

     The idea was to build a simpler , leaning -but not really-country-style/craftsman  (Think Grandma Moses meets Little House On The Prairie , meets generation Y ….”simple“) model home then connect a 45 by 50 foot barn to the home via a breezeway/hall to the garage of the model.  If done well, I can use landscaping to hide the fact that these two buildings are in fact “one” adjoined structure. This completely avoids the issue of having an allowable outbuilding.   The barn can be done in such a way that it is not really a traditional barn in appearance , but rather a modern/simplified Generation Y barn done in designer browns and perhaps grays.

     A single driveway will service both the “barn” and home’s garage sides with what appears to be a 35 foot wide separation between the two buildings.   Both buildings (actually …err…it is ONE , connected building,… I forgot) have side entry garage doors which face each other.   I have even designed a small bathroom into the 8 foot wide by 35 foot long breezeway that connects the two/one building(s).   I hope you are getting the mental picture.

    The visibility of this homestead would be fantastic and if you ever wanted to hold a rummage sale or sell items out of the home OR work out of the home OR  have a great workshop OR build the interior to act as a guest house (dare I even suggest duplex in usage for the right situation), or just have a few boats, campers, or “toys” to store or work on, this is the perfect house to do any or all of that!

     As for a model,  folks can easily see the normal house model and the extra storage can be used for a few years by myself to eleviate some of my warehouse storage space needs ,  saving me monthly storage payments. Since it is right outside of Reflections,  home /lot shoppers can’t miss seeing this home.  If done with good taste, it could be a landmark home for the area and a nod of respect to Richfield’s farming past.  A way to preserve.

     Do you want a bigger storage building than allowable on your lot due to outbuilding restrictions, this could be your answer. If you want to see the concept on paper, just drop me a line for your own private “sneak preview”.

   I can’t let tonight pass by noting that yet another fine client  family was added to our happy Miracle “family” just an hour (or two) ago.  I got to know this family a little when we went out to dinner last week.   Last week was a record breaking sales week for our company.   A sales period that saw 7 sales in a period of under 10 days. I have not seen that happen since the housing market took a sudden decline about 4 years ago! Today, we had another happy thing happen.   We have just re-hired a staff member who was s superstar with us for many years but left to pursue other passions .   Times change and we are thrilled to have him back .  One of my happiest moments of the day was , while I was diligently working to design a 5 bedroom version of a T2500 for a client, I heard children loudly , gleefully, playing in our office’s  video arcade room.  I know it is hard to believe, I know it sounds fake to say this,   but  I truly like making( or seeing) people happy , more than anything I can think of.   The desire to make folks smile  is why I wake up every morning.  I don’t always succeed (that is for sure).

     Thanks for reading the blog.  Please  e-mail or call me with any of your questions or comments. Until my next WILD idea ,….. 

      Blessings,

      Tom Hignite

     About my last blog regarding the two buildings joined together as one building,  I have heard I was not being complete enough on explaining just how the “barn” and house would be connected yet visually separated. Let me breifly explain.

      From the road, it appears as though these two buildings are about 30 feet apart but they are connected by a 30 foot long (by about 8 foot wide) breezeway/hallway. The hallway is hidden by tall shrubbery and landscaping. I know it may be hard to envision but only Part of the breezeway is left revealed and this part appears like a protrusion from the barn that has an entrance door on it.  This door , which is on the front of the breezeway(adjacent to the barn) has another door on the immediate backside of the breezeway. This door arrangement allows folks to pass from the front “court yard” through by the garage/barn main overhead door area to the backyard of the home/barn area.

     On  this land, I mentioned that an old farm silo is present. This silo is viewed from the street to be adjacent to the rear of the barn. In fact, the silo is 20 to 40 feet behind the barn, and is in no way connected. From the street vantage point, observers could not tell exactly where the silo is located.   It “looks” like it is attached to the barn.   My kids want me to finish the silo to have it become a neat fort with spiral staircase going up to the top look-out tower.   I said we could make it a “camp-out” bedroom get-away and fit the inside with a glass roof top and a big round mattress to lay on and look up toward the stars . I think the money end of this deal will dictate it be left for the future owners to do as they  wish.

     I was out in the field today driving around to see some of our homes under construction.  The lake home we are building on Ocauchee now has the staircase to the walk-out basement finished. The basement has 12 foot high ceilings!  We did this so the sloping lot would be used to it’s best advantage and cost the least to build. If we would  have done a standard 8 foot high basement, we would have had to fill the site with about 4 feet of stone. This probably costs just a little more to build the walls 12 feet tall over the cost of filling the 4 feet of stone but consider the benefits two ways. You get a taller, more dramatic basement(get the basketball hoop!), and you get to walk out of the basement and not have to build so many stairs to get down to the lake level.

     I thoroughly enjoy designing full custom homes for any project but this  expensive lake lot left less in our client’s budget for building the home.  I love a good challenge and a creative solution was in order.  The first part of the solution was to take an existing plan ( our 4 bedroom Dream series T2000 and re-design it to work.   I did not want it to simply look like a re-design, and when we are finished with it, it won’t.  We started by making the side of the home, into the front of the home.   This made the home a comfortable 30 feet in lake lot width.   But the creativity was just begining! 

    Next: Lake house supreme on a less than supreme budget. The creative solution. I have some exciting weekend news coming, so …stay tuned!

     Thanks for reading the blog. Comments are always welcome.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     Today as I was driving about the countryside  evaluating  potential lots  for  potential  client homes to be built on,  I was thinking hard about the funny things we have all convinced ourselves are important in a house, and asking why?  There are so many things in homes that we all just take for granted are needed.   Why do roofs have to always have pointy peaks?  Why do luxury minded folks insist on having two master sinks but only one toilet?   Why do so many folks like the idea of having a whirlpool tub in the master but only end up having the kids mostly use it?   Why  does siding look better going sideways and not going  vertically?    But, the question that stood out to me  today  , (I have thought of this many times before) is why do we all want , and seemingly need, a  door on every room? 

     If I may do my immitation of Andy Roony for a moment, “Why do you suppose people want a  door on , for example,  their master closet, then they never close it except when someone comes to visit, or to get it out of their way so they can get to the hanging clothes  that are obstructed behind the door?”   When I am sitting across the table and designing  homes for people, I have been asking just that question. In your current house, how often do you close your master closet door?  For folks who have non-walk-in  traditional closets, they usually answer they always close the doors. For folks who have a walk-in closet, they comment they hardly ever close the door and this door is actually , constantly, in their way and obstructing something in the closet. 

    I know, I know, the hair on most people’s backs just raises whenever I suggest any off the wall  “wild” idea like letting go of a pre-conceived, well accepted  notion that just seems so right.   The natural human reaction is for  folks to quickly start to self-examine why they would not like to change their perceptions.  They try to justify the reason for staying in their normal ways and resist change, even if it makes their lives easier and costs less.  Keep in mind, I am NOT just talking here about one meezly master bedroom closet door, but rather a whole host of other doors that , like this one, may just be hindering our lives and not enhancing them.   The usual reaction in defending this door question is to claim that,  without this door, any potential visitor would see their clothes which are deemed(rightfully so) to be of a “private” nature.    Some say, they don’t want to see their own “mess” in their closet and don’t want others to see it either. 

    In my past blogs, I have explained how I believe good home design trys to always identify problems then go about the task of finding a better way to creatively design ” to move past”,  or to solve the problem.  At some point SOMEONE had to say, why are we always opening two doors and searching through closets when we could just open one door and walk “into” the closet?  Thus, the walk-in closet is born. Today, the walk-in closet is normal and well accepted, even demanded.  When they were first introduced, I bet the public thought the idea “odd”.  Today, they just make so much sense.   My grandparents  “new” modern Glendale home in the late 70’s,  or my own  6 bedroom , family’s home I grew up in , (circa 1968) had loads of closets but not one walk-in. 

    So………….let’s again identify the ONLY problem I have ever heard about    WHY in the world we are still putting doors on (for this example) the master closet?   The problem is privacy or keeping things looking neater and out of sight.  On the flip-side, NOT having doors means not having to bother with opening and closing doors.  NOT having doors means less initial cost in the home, less matenence, less germs from dirty door knobs,  not cleaning or dusting of the door or oiling a squeaky hinge(that was stretch) , not having to move a door to get to whatever is behind it, and MOSTLY, just making living in the home a very little bit , easier. 

     Let me suggest that if you are thinking about how life would be if you simply took the door off your present closet, I agree, that would likely not look too good, since your home was not designed to work/look good without doors.   No matter how neat you are , seeing hanging clothes is just not visually agreeable to most people.   You DO need a way to not have guests see your “stuff” and a door seems the only logical conclusion.  It is not.  While this may not work on your present home(or for that matter, most any home I have seen in those new design/plan books), it certainly can work if you design your home to work with a door-less application.  If you have not yet guessed where I am going with this, here is the solution.

       For drama and to understand the solution, take the drama up a notch in asking what if  I designed a bathroom that had no door on it? Your saying “WOW   Tom,  I may have been with you on this closet thing but now you’ve really flipped WAY out”.   Now ask yourself,  the last time you went to the Milwaukee Midwest Airlines Convention Center , or any modern movie theatre, did you need to open a door before you walked-into the bathroom?  I am not suggesting (at least not today)that  you do a doorless bathroom.   I am suggesting you think of how you walked into that movie theatre bathroom and then apply that same method for getting into your closet. This is called creating a “blind alley”  hallway.  My newest designs are just now applying this  “wild idea” and they are working quite nicely!  I have yet to se or hear any other designer exploring this “doorless” concept.   These closets are now totally private from you and your visitor’s views but, just like those theatre bathrooms are SOO EASY to just drift in and out effortlessly.  C’mon, just remember how easy it was in that movie theatre!  No messing with doors, no doors in the way, no germs , in short,…easy living WITH complete privacy.

    Now let’s put that same idea to work in your foyer closet. Imagine how pleasant (not to mention , memorable to your guests) to have guests flow into the hanging area for hanging their coats.   Take this a step further and now apply this to a kitchen pantry.  Why would you want to open and close ANY door if you did not have to.   I  envision a day when every bedroom closet , front and back hall closet, as well as pantry, will be door-less. It will cost less and life will be just a very little bit easier.

     Before I close the door subject (close the door…almost had something there) for this blog, here is another quick idea for your consideration. Why do all of our exterior doors open into the home?   If you want to have a screen door, that may seem the only way to go, but on a commercial building fire safety dictates all exterior located doors MUST open toward the exterior.

      Just like in my last real-life observance about why we need doors  on closets, this will be the next thing you might want to consider if you are really thinking “green” and safe.

   In closing, if you really want to build your next home to be ahead of the curve in what is new, find a designer who has the passion to think ahead of the trends.  If you can find the guy who invented that walk-in closet,  hire him (or her)! Imagine building a new home then 2 years later finding door-less closets becoming all the rage or the new normal.

     This Friday, I will be telling you something on the blog that I hope is special just  to you blog readers.  There is so much to be thankful for here at Miracle. Our sales continue to stay quite, unusually, high.   One of our “old timers” who left us 2 years ago is back and making even happier Miracle clients.  I am in the midst of  innovating some new “top secret” home  inventions exclusively for our newest generation of Miracle designs.  This will make door-less closets pale in comparison!   I just met with the Parade Of Homes people today and we are working toward our involvement with this late Summer event.  We are also working on bring together our bigger Miracle Tour Of Homes  to once again, precede the Parade.   If someone wants to be a part of owning (building a home below, ((yes , I said BELOW)) builder cost) our most exciting new home design  in Richfield , get a hold of me fast.  I try to make these blogs non-selling so forgive me if I slip every now and again.  I hope you are enjoying some of the new Wild Ideas  here on the blog and look forward to your comments , corrections, and observations.

    Blessings,

    Tom  Hignite

     N

Hello,

In blogging now only for a few weeks, I must say this whole thing still is a bit of a mystery to me.  I have been writing/posting, but my gut tells me these postings are maybe just a tad (or a lot) too long.  If you agree or disagree, please don’t be afraid to leave a comment.

I was thinking today about the ideal location and the ideal features of the ideal laundry room.   As in my last blog,   so much of what we each expect in a home is just because we are creatures of habit.  It takes someone to be the first to introduce some new  twist in home design before it can catch on and   (if the new twist makes sense or is attractive enough)   before it can become a “norm” of the industry.   For example,   how did we ever go from having ranches with all of the  bedrooms on the same side of the home to today’s “norm” of having the master secluded on one side and the other bedrooms on the other side of the home?   This split bedroom is so common that no one gives it a second thought.   As I said in my previous posting,  who ever decided that instead of opening the doors on a traditional closet,  we should “walk-into” the closet?   For years the “norm” in doing laundry was to have the machines in the basement.   Who was the first to think of bringing the laundry up to the first floor?  Microwave range hoods, laminate flooring, private toilet rooms in a master bath,  I could go on and on.

For the past few years, one idea that has been sputtering up the “norm” ladder erratically, is the 2nd floor laundry room. If you have a 2-story or a master on first floor/other bedrooms upstairs  design, the upstairs laundry is getting quite popular.   Years ago,   I knew someone who had a luxury lake house and had the laundry upstairs.  I was just breaking into the home design and building business and this idea immediately intrigued me.   So , I asked how that family, or to be more precise, the Mother (she did all the laundry for that family of 4 boys), how she felt about having her laundry upstairs?

She did not particularly like it.   Keep in mind, today,   I design and build a lot of 2nd floor laundry rooms.  ( If you are a ranch person,  stay tuned) .  She explained the drawbacks to her was that yes, while the dirty clothes ARE generated upstairs (assuming all bedrooms are upstairs), she spends little of her non-sleeping hours  upstairs.    Therefore having to do laundry upstairs means having to be constantly climbing stairs to do the various phases of the laundry routine.   Imagine the routine.  Put the clothes in.   Go downstairs to work or relax.  Go upstairs a 2nd time to take the laundry out of the washer and put them into the dryer. Go downstairs to relax or work.  Go upstairs again to see if the wash is dry. Oops, it still needs 10 more minutes. Go downstairs again to relax or work. Go upstairs to take the laundry out of the dryer and put it away.  The door bell rings or the cookies are done and once again you must go downstairs unexpectedly only to immediately go back upstairs to finish putting the clothes away.  Now,  you finally can go downstairs to relax or work  (mostly relax after all of this).

On the plus side, Mom probably saved money by not needing to buy a treadmill! Now imagine Mom is going to bed and when she had the laundry on the first floor, she would have always put a load into the washer first.   Or, in the morning, Mom gets up first and used to decide to do a load of wash. When the laundry is near the bedrooms, she now needs to consider delaying putting those clothes into the wash in fear of waking up the rest of the house. When it was downstairs, she could do the wash without regaurd to a sleeping family.

If you have been reading any of my blogs, you know I think great home design comes from evaluating the pluses and minuses of a particular design challenge then methodically getting past those problems by using a little creative problem solving.  The problem with an upstairs laundry is , firstly, noise. Secondly, needing to make trips upstairs to do the laundry.   Third, potential water overflowing may mean flooding a lot of the home if an accident was to happen.

We can surely (and easily)   really only adequately solve two of the three problems.  The flooding is easily solved by opting to put a pan with drain under the washer.  This is a mini -shower floor in it’s appearance with a drain in the pan’s   floor  middle area.

The privacy issue can be solved by using a heavy dose of creative placement in the design of where the laundry will be located upstairs.  The laundry could be placed in a location that is far away from the bedroom’s bed walls and then it could be sound (and even vibration) insulated.

As for solving the multiple trips,  short of installing a stair lift or elevator, there is no easy answer to this one.   One solution may be to have a staircase that goes up half way from floor 1 to floor 2 then has a flat transition landing. At that landing, the stairs then change directions and continues up the 2nd  half of the flight of stairs.   The laundry room could be located to enter NOT on either the first or second floors but rather on this landing between the levels.

The up and down routine becomes even more of a hassle if you have the master on the first floor and have some family members sleeping upstairs.  For this,  I do have a new “wild idea“ I am aching to share with you which will also work wonderfully for you many ranch people. It is an idea so simple, that like the first guy to invent the walk-in closet idea, you may find the solution at first odd but then (hopefully) agree it may be exactly what every house should(and someday might) have, that makes old laundry room ideas obsolete.  Think outside the box and see tomorrow’s blog entry.   As I started this blog today, I am trying to cut-back on my length  so I will cover these further laundry “wild Ideas” to make your life easier, tomorrow.

An hour ago, one of Miracle’s long time staffers informed me he had received an offer on one of our Jackson spec homes we are just roughing.  The roof just went on this home today!  I hope we can accept this offer because I know these good people have  grand kids living right next door to this home.   I can only believe this will be such a blessing to this family and serve to enrich folk’s lives  (makes me smile to think about improving living for folks any way I can).  About 5 minutes ago, another long time Miracle staffer came in and had just signed a contract to build a home for some nice  folks in Palmira.   I have not yet put this new name to a face but I can’t wait to meet them.  It is unusual that I have not met someone we are building for before we get this far,  but praise God they apparently have an adequate degree of trust in us, without me having had the honor to meet them first.   I will do all I can to be worthy of their trust.    I hope we never forget that, as a builder, we are having a huge honor thrust upon us each time someone selects us to build their home. Oops! here goes that sales-sounding stuff again.   Sorry.

I do have a special announcement to share with you blog readers tomorrow. Until then….

Blessings,

Tom Hignite

This weeks blogs I have mentioned a few times to watch for a blog surprise this weekend which I would announce today. Here it is.

If your read about my current project of passion the “Hybrid Ranch“, you know I think this new concept is the best thing since ..well… walk-in closets or  split bedroom ranches. If you don’ t know what my “Hybrid Ranch “check out my very first two blog entries. Its on Milwaukee’s west side (near Menomonee Falls) .  It is in the Oak Hill subdivision just northwest of the intersection of Good Hope Road and 91st street.  This subdivision can also be accessed by using Calumet and weeding around Calumet going Southwesterly past 91st street. Once you are in the area, it is not hard to see from Good Hope.

Usually, before I introduce a new design, it is kept under wraps until the home is opened.  In this case, I will bring along a rough set of my art concepts and MAYBE (maybe) even have some copies to hand out.  I am telling my sales staff  that I will cover this one home by myself, so feel free to come out and talk about this or any other design or decorating question.

This home has some new drywall trim items that I guarantee, you have never seen done before ! This home also has a great finished basement , and a new wall building decorative idea, again, I just “invented” so you won’t see it anywhere else!

Take a quick tour of these new ideas and then be the first people outside of this Miracle roof to lay eyes on the Hybrid Ranch.  If you want to talk off your feet, I will bring along a folding table and somne chairs.

It’s not one of our glamorous decorated models, but you just might enjoy it this way, before the glitz.

As for the second part of my big secrets on (part 2 of my last blog) laundry rooms, I will get to that in the next blog, tomorrow.

Hope to see you all there tomorrow from 1 until 4.

Blessings,

Tom Hignite

     I just returned from the Oak Hill secret blog day , where I will also be tomorrow.   Thanks to those who took the time to visit with me.   I heard quite a few good ideas!  If you are wondering what I am referring to,  just read my previous blog.  I will have more “Hybrid Ranch” design hand- outs for tomorrow.   If you came early,  I was a little late,  as I was meeting with a nice (we only build for “nice” folks) couple tying up some details on their upcoming home project.  As for those of you who read my blog posting from 2 days ago,   HERE IS PART 2 OF OUR LAUNDRY MYSTERY.

     I have been telling you about the ups and downs of having a laundry upstairs when building a 2-story.   I firmly believe that in the not too distant future,  laundry room locations will be changing to an entirely new concept.  When I was recently in Vegas , listening to a slew of  national “expert” seminars at the International Home Builder’s Show,  I heard  several big- name home architects discuss this subject of the upcoming Generation “Y” buyers,  and what they will be demanding in homes built between 2012 and 2052.   Get ready for another “wild idea”.

     To set this answer up for impact,  go back a few decades to the time when bathrooms were outside of the main house.  When the first bathroom was put inside the home, the general public reaction (seen in an old news article) ,  was that this was a bad idea since getting rid of human waste  was something not fit for doing inside the home.   Shortly , after the inside bathroom became  the common “norm”,  someone suggested 2 bathrooms would be better than 1 , since everyone had to use the bathroom as a daily occurrence ,  each doing so many times each day.  This was seen as an outlandish luxury to have 2 bathrooms in one house.  As you know, having 3 or 4 or even more bathrooms today (counting one in the basement) is now the current “norm”.

     This  same thought process was attached to the first attached garages. Having a single -car,  attached garage was seen at first as an over-the-top outlandish luxury.    Imagine,  just walking out of the back door into the garage!  Most families only had one car back in the 50’s when this attached garage idea made it’s first appearance.   As families started to have more than one car,  the garage size grew and again,  anything bigger than a one car size was viewed as strictly a frivolous luxury.  Current trends have seen the 3 car garage become the new “norm”   (but surveys say, that is trending away to smaller 2 and a half sizes).

     I am convinced that if a new “wild” home idea does not strike the general public as a frivolous luxury when first introduced,  it probably is not fully realized.   If you have not guessed where I am going, let me” lay it on you” here .  The day of multiple laundry rooms is very close and may already be here for some.   Just like the bath room history I just mentioned,  who in your home does not generate laundry?  Just like having only 1 bathroom , let’s say,   on the first floor(we have all seen older homes with this layout), it is  simply more convenient to have laundry roomS, near each bedroom area. The fact is that most ranch homes now have one bedroom on one side of the home and the other bedrooms on the opposite side(often called “split” bedrooms  ), and  many 2-story homes homes now have the master bedroom on the first floor and the other bedrooms upstairs.  In some two story homes, there is another bedroom in the basement.  The first impression you may have when I mention putting in a second laundry is that this is a luxury and it would cost too much money that many folks might not want to spend.  Doesn’t this sound exactly like what the folks in 1960 would have said about having a 3 car garage? 

    We are NOT talking about having a full-fledged laundry “room” in 2 locations, at least not yet.   The new Generation “Y”  buyer will start by putting a simple closet right in the shared secondary bathroom or in a small closet located between the bedrooms, just  off the hall.   The cost of a small apartment sized stack washer/dryer is not expensive, and running a few more plumbing items directly next to the bathroom, is not expensive either.  Think of how convenient it would be for those in the secondary bedrooms to just plunk their dirty clothes directly into the machine each time they go to the bathroom .  The alternative is to plunk the dirty clothes into a hamper, then lug it across the home.  Which is easier?  Which makes more logical living sense?   In the  morning,  the ease of grabbing something out of the dryer would be wonderful.  And,  what about the shorter traffic path of only going a few feet from a laundry to get to the dresser and closets for putting the clothes away?

     You may be saying “What is this world coming too?   Are kids getting lazier that they can’t take all their clothes across the home to the main laundry?”  I might say, “Are we all getting so lazy that we can’t walk up a flight of stairs to use a bathroom?  Are we not healthy enough to put on a coat and walk outside to the garage?  Are we all so lazy that we can’t spend a few quality moments doing the dishes, or scrubbing our dirty clothes on rocks? (O.K. that last example crossed the line..a bit).   Do we really need a machine to wash our dishes for us?  This, of course sounds  silly today,  but I bet you this would have been the common response to the suggestion of these new “wild ideas” , back in those days.

     Today, I am designing more and more bathrooms that are shared exclusively by 2 bedrooms.  This is called the ‘Jack And Jill” bathroom arrangement.   5 years ago, THAT would have been a “wild idea”.  I can imagine taking that same shared bath idea and putting a laundry attached either IN it or directly NEXT to it.   I , for one , can tell you that I am designing my newest series of homes to have this as an a pre-designed option, not an afterthought.  By moving 1 wall,  the laundry can be put right between the 2 master closets, or into the back hall area.

     A home designers main goal should be, first and foremost,  to design  homes that meet their client’s requests.    Their second biggest goal should be to pioneer new innovative ideas to make lives easier for those living in their homes.  In the last 3 years, I have designed and built at least 6 homes  that had 2 laundry areas.  They are 2 story homes that have a first floor master with a small stack unit near the master bedroom and also have a bigger laundry “room” upstairs.  It just seems to be an easy-sell to the right clientele.  If someone does not want this, my standard arrangement would have a closet near the master bedroom main door, just into the hall.    If they  do ever want to do the stackable, the space  is alraedy there for it.

     I have enough new “wild ideas” to write a few more blogs on laundry rooms but this is enough for now.  In my next blog,   let’s shift gears and talk about an idea for the master bedroom that I am sure will resonate for A WHOLE LOT of people.  When you hear it, you may think it too is a frivolous luxury or you may say, “Wow, why has no one ever done THIS before!?”

     Stop out and see me tomorrow if you want to see some neat “before the decorating”  drywall ideas and the early concept of the new “Hybrid Ranch” concept.

     Blessings,

    Tom Hignite