I don’t know of any builder who has a warranty that covers squeaky floors.  I  don’t know anyone who has built a new home that wants a squeaky floor in their home.  When you have a new home and the floor squeaks, it is is really seeming to squeek an annoying reminder that the home you paid for , is really not all it should be.  Squeaks are a constant reminder of lesser quality , and no one wants lesser quality.   I HATE squeaky floors!

     That being said, I can not honestly say that the homes we build do not have squeaky floors. I wish I could, I strive for the day that I can say “my floors don’t squeak”, but alas, my floors DO squeak(unfortunately…most unfortunately indeed).  I can however say that I think what I do to build our best quality floor system, I think results in us having the “least squeaky” floors you will find today in most any new home.

    Over the years, time and again, I have been momentarily excited that I had seemingly found the answer to eliminating the squeak problem.   But, after testing these solutions over time, I have found flaws in the methods I had thought were THE big solution, still had squeaks. Here’s a short explanation of my history with squeaks and what does and does not work…and why.

    My first homes were built using the “hey, everyone else is doing it, so it must be right” method.  I used 2 x 10 solid wood floor supports(floor joists) and then glued and nailed 1/2 inch plywood sheets to these floor joists. After the drywall was completed, I then stapled clean 1/2 inch smooth particle wood sheets to the (now) plaster spattered first layer of plywood. This system is called a double -layer floor and for a very long time(even for some today , it is considered the Cadillac of floor systems.)   It was costly to do this double floor since the clean finish sheeting had to be cut to fit around every wall and doorway. This top layer was stapled every 6 inches or so. The result was a floor which was an inch thick! I always thought this was an odd way to do the floor since it was still only 1/2 inch thick under all of the areas where the walls came in contact witht the first layer of floor. This seemed a bit unsturdy, at leat to me.

    I did use this system on my own “first” personal home. This was a squeak nightmare since , unlike a true inch thick plywood sheet of wood that is factory glued together, this is really asking for trouble by simply stapling two 1/2 inch layers together in the field.  The layers end up separating, then the squeaks really multiply. Once you have a squeak of this nature, it is very hard to even imagine how to repair it without taking off the carpet or ceramic tile, or hardwood, or whatever.

     The next big thing was to use one single layer of plywood sheet that was 3/4 inch thick. This too was glued and nailed. The newer nails had little ridges on them which helped stop the nails from backing out and squeaking over time. This was called a ring-shank nail. These floors  seemed to squeak less but they still squeaked. Many builders today are still using this method, including us on some smaller custom homes whos clients are demanding a lower price. We do fully explain the ups and downs of this before we sell it to anyone.

    The next big step I took early on to separate us from most others was to use a support system of floor joists that were less “bouncy” than a 2 x 10 system. I changed to 2 x 12’s and began to not maximize their allowable spans. If I just lost you, that means, putting  basement beams closer together  so I am not trying to bridge my floor over long distances. The less bouncy I make the floor system, the less chance of squeaks. the more a a floor moves when you walk on it (you may not notice it moving under your weight, but it does), it is more likely to eventually squeak.

    I am getting to the unusual creative solution, so stay awake.

     I then found out that using the common grade woods for my floor support frame could be improved. Most floor support joists are made of solid species of pine, spruce, or fir.  If I was to specify a more costly Douglas Fir, I would have to have the lumber companies special order and stock it just for me since no other builder was likely to order this costly upgrade.

     That is exactly what we did. The Douglas Fir was much longer grained and was much less flexible. The result was to get me a step closer to having that elusive squeak-free floor. To this day, hardly a home shopper seems to care about my Douglas Fir upgrade. Wood is wood, to most folks.  Even with my Douglas Fir “solution”, I still had squeaks!(Darn it!)

     Now it was the late 1990’s and I had just gone to Neu’s hardware’s factory rep annual showcase of tools.  I saw a very neat idea of a screw gun device. At this time, no other home builder ,I knew of , was screwing their floors down. I got on the phone to my main carpentry contractor, right at that factory-rep show.  This carpentry contractor did/does work for MANY builder’s in town and he has other family members who do work for many other Wisconsin builders. He tried  at first  to convince me to stick with the nails and glue. I didn’t listen and ended up buying two of these screw gun rigs and lots of screws. I had this carpentry crew use them on two of my models they were building. I remember them not liking it too much as they glued and screwed the plywood sheets to the Douglas Fir floor framework.

    I must mention, at this point, I had also seen that the traditional plywood was not as flat or stable a product as the more popular OSB (oriented Strand Board) commonly seen by most ordinary folks as chip-board or particle board. There was some snob-appeal to using “real” plywood, but beyond the plywood mindset, I could see no advantage to trying to get rid of squeaks and yet using a sheet of wood(plywood) that was already curling when fresh off the truck!

    Anyway, the screw system , once again, was NOT the answer, The floors still squeaked!  I was flabbergasted! I could not imagine what more I could do to get rid of the squeaks. It then occurred to me that even using the screw guns, the screws simply took a little longer to install. In this little longer time frame, the glue was drying , in some area,  before the floor ply was being screwed-off.

     Again,I had another “AHHA” moment! I would now use Douglas fir 2 x 12’s , glue, Screws, but first, before the screws, I would nail the floors first to get the glue to squeeze down first, BEFORE I used the screws.  At that time in our history, I was able to advertise, I was the only area builder using screws and Douglas Fir 2 x 12’s. A few builders heard my constant “bragging” on the radio and two years later, I started seeing others doing the screws. Maybe it was not really me who caused other builders to use screws, it may have just been that the time for this technology had simply “arrived”.

      By the early 2000’s, the age of another floor product had also arrived. Everyone, except me was now using what many called the “Silent Floor” TJI (I beam shaped particle board and plywood shaped to an “I” shape)floor joists.  The big advantage was that this TJI boards were not supposed to change shape very much in the humidity and are each exactingly built to the same straight shapes. The other big advantage is/was , they could span longer distances without bending as much (deflecting is the engineering term). This means theoretically, less squeaks. I  resisted using this product , since my newest system, while still having SOME squeaks, was as low of a problem as I had ever seen. I was now having many several year old homes that were not squeaking at all.  Why would I want to change something that was working? 

     My urge to improve to a ZERO-SQUEEK level overcame me and I began to use  these TJI boards on one test home project. That model’s floors eventually  began squeaking so I swore-off TJI’s (supposedly) forever.  My lumber company continued to badger me to use these TJI floor supports.  They said, they would donate the product to another model home AND have a factory rep be present on the job to make sure we were installing them correctly. Whenever a product fails to perform, the factory fingers usually point to the installer.

     I AGAIN, used the TJI product and AGAIN, I had squeaks. They started from the day they were installed and I remember 5 experts standing in a wet , unfinshed basement of this new home all looking up and no one had any idea of how to fix the squeaks!(Darn, Darn it!) The best they could suggest was “use more screws”. We had already screwed most of the floor every 6 inches!

       I returned to my tried and true methods and kept on looking for that perfect 100% solution.  In 2006, I attended the World’s biggest home show for professional builders. The International Home Builder’s Show.  Here I found my latest , newest “thrill” in creating the perfect non-squeaking floor. Boy was I excited. This was an idea no other builder had likely even heard of. This was my big chance to finally get rid of those squeaks FOR GOOD.

    I will tell you the “big” secret solution in my next blog.

     Lots of happy home shoppers out there. I continue to get a great kick out of seeing the excitement we are creating in so many lives!  It definitely IS NOT about the money that makes doing what I do worth jumping out of bed each morning.  Boy, I LOVE this job!!

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     I just returned from our first Miracle Lake House Weekend and , if crowds are any indication of the housing market, this market is on a huge upswing!

     We had nearly 75 visitors at our Lake house we are building on Okauchee Lake and I had about 40 visitors at the Lake House property I was showing on Golden Lake. We also had solid attendance  at our Monterey and Ixonia models HOWEVER, I really must apologize to those of you who went to Ixonia only found this home not open. We had a scheduling error which caused our sales person to accidentally  go to a different home and was quite late in discovering the mistake.

     I believe I have several appointments set to visit lake house lots to design homes on these lots. Thanks to all who made today a busy, productive day for us.

     While I have you , I want to share a quick creative idea with you about home “presentation” that I noticed today when I was seeing folks visit the Lake home I was in.  If you are looking to sell or show a home, consider appealing to as many senses as possible. Most folks only think about making sure the house “looks” as good as possible . While visual is the strongest sense we need to appeal to when home shopping, please don’t forget the other senses as well.

     The smell of a home is very important. I had purchased a few Glade brand plug-in devices with the “fresh linen” smell to let the nose subconsciously relay that this home is “fresh” as a new load of wash. I also, turned on the pot belly cast iron fireplace to give off an aroma of fire.

     I even had one visitor reply that they knew I had a fire in the fireplace because they smelled it in the air outside as they drove up. This is a gas unit, so what they probably were smelling was the piles of leaves which the current home owners had burned just the day before. They were trying to spurce-up the property in planning for the open house.

     Another big sense to appeal to is the sense of touch or “feel“. For this sense, it is mostly all about the temperature. On a hot day, folks love to feel the immediate sense of air conditioning coolness as they enter a home. On a briskly chilled day like today, I wanted the heat to immediately relay a sense of coziness and warmth.  Folks were drawn in by the fire, as this home happens to have the fireplace in a visually good focal point area for seeing from the entry door. I had several folks stand in front of the fireplace as soon as they entered.

    As for taste, I always want some candy laying around so visitors can feel at home and get a little treat. In this case, I put a canister on the Kitchen counter full of individually wrapped hard candies. I always keep a few bottles of water in the refrigerator in case someone is thirsty.  In one case this weekend, one lady was coughing and seemed to have a tickle in her throat. This water stopped the tickle to a good extent, and I appeared to be the “good” host.

      As for the sense of hearing or “sound”, I like to have a background music that seems in harmony with the home I am in. I used three cuts of music on a CD player which were sweeping seaside reminders.  A classy orchestration of strings and horns in an upbeat melody.  We want folks to feel good about being in this home, and music is a powerful influence to this. Music also allows several visitors to feel free to talk at the same time. When there is no music, the showings seem more like a library.

      I always say to my sales staff that I don’t want them to get to a home and just let people come in before the home is properly “turned-on” for presentation. If I would just walk-in, this home would have no lights turned on, no music to hear, no fire to set the smell, and the heat would still be at 55 instead of a cozy 74 degrees.  I would not yet have opened my bag of candy and had everything looking , feeling, smelling, hearing, and tasting ready for my visitors.

     This is one big reason why I often leave the music playing n a loop, the temperature turned-up, and the candy out AND a few key lights turned-on when I leave a home which is for sale. Who knows, if we get a sudden call from a broker who wants to show the home, and I can not get to the home before the broker does, at least some elements are ready to show without me being there.

     The more senses you can appeal to , the better the remembrance and the more sales will likely follow.  There is definitely something to having the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven that has been rumored to have sold homes in the past.

   Thanks for blogging with me. Until we blog again…

Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     Hello blog readers,

      I am heading out the door very shortly to our big MIRACLE LAKE HOUSE WEEKEND.  Even if you are not looking for a lake house, join us in Milwaukee(91st and Good Hope), Ixonia(a Sneek Preview of our $199,000 Rent Buster Ranch, now entering finish stage PLUS two other early- construction homes a few blocks away), our Monterey main site that has 2 luxury Miracle homes to see, as well as our two lake houses, one in Summit which is an existing home(I’ll be there), and a customized version of our “rent Buster” $199,000 two-story home. This one is NOT $199,000, but you can see how we can customize our standard home to be about anything you can imagine).

      Get the details on our home page, linked to our other Lake House Weekend at the top of the page.    Hope to see you there!

Blessings,

   Tom Hignite

     Tom Hignite

In Part 1 of this blog, I mentioned how I have been fascinated about how we humans all seem to get caught up in taking the same paths again and again. With patios and Decks, we all think the only place for them must be the backside of the home, and I was simply questioning WHY do we think this way? 

     One of the reasons is the privacy that the back yard affords us from the front yard and the other is that the best views of our properties are usually on the backside.  I went on at length about how many folks find a great building site with a great view,then put loads of windows on the rear of the home to capture the view, then  proceed to block half of the effective view by sticking up a deck with a hand rail that blocks our vision. Have you ever tried sitting on a deck and seeing past the hand railings?

    I then went on to discuss the merritts of applying a new concept I have been pondering about how to diminish this handrail view-blocking effect.   In this blog entry, I want to bring up the newest “wild idea” I have been having about  the actual placement of the deck or patio.  In the past few years, I have thought more about the matter of creating several steps as you exit the rear of the home onto the deck/patio.  In this way, the deck railings are brought down and away from the window blocking issue.  When feasible, I have designed decks to work with the main window view of the home. Let’s say, you have a major view to capture, say, you are suspended over a hill , and want the view to see both the sky and the ground. This means, NOT putting the deck across the rear, but rather across a rear corner of the home, so as to get that view blocker out of the way of the great room windows.

     Another idea that has really picked up a lot of my pondering space is putting the patio or deck onto the side of the home. I have been so excited about this concept, that I spent a good part of last week designing a possible home for our upcoming Parade Of Homes to have a side deck. The side deck idea, eliminates any possibility of the blocking of a rear view off the home. My design starts with putting the great room along one whole side (front to back of entire home) and then having patio doors (doorS as in plural) along the side of this great room, and big windows viewing to the rear of the great room.

     Remember, if the deck spans also from the front of the home to the rear of the home(across one entire side, all 31 feet of home depth, but it could have just been the rear side of this area), the deck is still enjoying a rear view of the property. This deck could still be entered from the rear corner of the home if desired. Now, let’s take this concept up another notch.

     Folks love a front porch.  Why could we not attach this front porch to this side patio/deck so as to allow folks to stroll from front to back of home?  Let’s get a little “crazier” yet.  Let’s say, we have side yard issues of privacy. So, you are living on a lake lot or other such close neighbor lot. You might want better side yard privacy from the view of others. Why not consider putting a wall across the one side of this deck/patio?  What I designed was a classic looking old Victorian influenced home which ran the porch roof line past the side of the home, then around the side of the home but did not actually have a roof over the patio area. There was nothing stopping me from also putting a roof over this area, and putting porch posts or lattice work to support the roof. I chose instead to use a mansard(google that, but it is sort of like a McDonalds-style fake roof that surrounds a flat top building) roof to go around the parameter of this side deck/patio, and then conceal a full trellis sun slat board ceiling over the area.

     The more I designed, the more I discovered.  This is often the case for experimenting with new twists.   I could have a two sided fireplace or an outdoor fireplace to further create this outdoor “room” effect.   I brainstormed a whole lot more concepts on this wonderful patio/deck arrangement, but I must leave a few surprises for you to ask me in person.

     This weekend, is our first (and , who knows, maybe our last) MIRACLE LAKE HOUSE WEEKEND.  I have designed and built a great twist on our popular Dream series DT2000 which we are building for a second-time Miracle client in Oconomowoc.  This Okauchee Lake home is just entering the finish carpentry stage, and is looking quite interesting.   When doing a lake home, my first desire is to get all “custom” and spread my imaginative wings.  This client however, had a tighter desired budget.   Sure, they could afford more, but they wanted to keep it simple.  In keeping with that idea, if you log onto our homepage and see the exterior photos, you will see the essential shape of this home remains a salt-box.  The client allowed me to use differing colors, and dividing frieze boards to give some under spoken design elements to the identity of this unique home.  The end result also saw us eliminate some upstairs rooms in favor of a two-story great room, and a 12 foot tall basement that resembles a basketball court in size. What I was particularly pleased with is that the price was kept around the $200,000 price tag.  When you add a great lot that needed an out dated home replaced, the total package for a lake home was still around $500,000, (not including the landscaping or decks).  See our home page for open times and details.

    If you want to talk about design or decorating or any such home subject, you can meet me at another lake home we are showing in the town of Summit.  This is a cottage-style Summer home which could easily a year-round home or a replace and build-type package.  We did not build this home, but I hope you will stop by and visit. This home is a super value!  . We also have our $199,000 lot and home package sample home open in Ixonia, and our final 2 luxury Miracle Models open (and for sale) in Monterey. All of this, this “lake country” area, special weekend.

     Don’t miss the fun!

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     Hello all,

     I am just now posting my replyto the passionate comments made by a blog reader on my recent commentary about Solar Power.  I apologize now for my brief comments taking way too many words.

     If you want a good (long) read, first read Brandon’s original comments, than you can read my reply.  I would appreciate your comments if you wish to join the conversation. What are your feelings about solar power if you were buyng a home?

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

I will continue the Decks/Patios subject next time.

    We had another huge weekend of home visitors at our various models.  If the market is not yet “back” it is doing a pretty good job fooling me this past 2 months! We are having about as good of a prolonged growth period of sales than I have seen in the last 5 years!  During this past prolonged home sales slump, I have seen a few weeks where we get encouraged only to see the sales suddenly go dormant again. These were false signs of prosperity and I have become most cautious of proclaiming the home sales slump days are over.   But,   now with 2 (well almost 2) months of having home sales every week, I am about a month or two away from making my “proclaimation“. By that time, everyone else will already know the good news from media proclaimations.

     The home builder is truly on the front lines of this economy recovery. The media only finds about the housing market news a few months after we already know the news.  Folks, if you are even remotely thinking about building a home, really, REALLY, now is THE time to pull the trigger before the rest of the World sees this becoming another seller’s market.

     I want to tell you about another home design “wild idea” I have been thinking about this past week. The concept again is just me re-thinking the way builders build “normal” homes and asking …WHY?  For example, When builder’s have a sloping lot, which allows a walk-out basement, the normal process is to have a deck suspended across the rear of the home and have a set of steps going down from this deck to the lower (basement level) patio. Why do we all seem compelled to put the deck or patio on the back of the home?  I asked myself this question and pondered the answers.

     The decks or patios we place on the rear of an exposed (walk-out or look-out basement) is because we want the privacy and view that a back yard usually affords us. We also like front porches, but many times folks don’t spend as much time sitting on the ol’  front porch as they do in the rear area of the home.  The biggest drawback to having the patio or deck on the rear of the home is that the railings  which encircle a suspended deck inevitablyblock the view of the folks who are sitting in the house.  Go ahead. If you have a rear deck , think about what view you are seeing when you sit in your living room or dinette (assuming these rooms are facing the rear of the home) and decide to look out the your rear windows. Do you see the pretty view of trees or the lake you have in your back yard ? No. You are usually just seeing the railings of your deck which is hiding your real view.  Sure, you can look up or stand up and see over the rails, but seeing  down is a huge part of seeing the natural way we humans like to view things.  Try standing on top of a mountain and blocking out the bottom of your view so all you see is the upper part.  If I had a lake house, I , like many, would plaster the entire back of the homewith abundant windows. Then I would put a big deck across the rear so I could enjoy the lake view from my deck. In doing this most normal design process,  I have just negated about half the value of having bought the lake lot in the first place, I have cut my inside (and many outside) window views in half!

     I was asked to design a 6,500 square foot homewhich looked out over a huge expanse of trees onto a small private lake which had a small private island in the middle of it.  What a unique, captivating view!  The owner’s had another home designer draw some plans which failed to excite them so they called me in.  They showed me the first design and I pointed out that despite all their huge windows, the deck  and the deck railings would be blocking their view.  They could have used glass railings but these folks wanted a traditional design and felt glass would look too contemporary.

     I suggested they mix glass railings with ornate forged custom iron work railings and feild stone pilasters with lanterns atop each pilaster. The look was surely old world yet the mix of strategically placed glass panels afforded them a great view from seating areas.  When you are seated on a deck, the railings are even worse since you can not see over them.  My answer was to work with staggering the heights of the deck so as to bring the railings down and out of blocking the seated view. How is this done?  Here’s how I did it.

     Paint a mind’s eye picture of a large 16 by 20 foot deck with the 20 foot side against the home. When I look out the inside seated great room view, even with NO railings on the deck, I would need to see past the 16 foot of  deck board flooring which stops me from being able to view downwards. If you add the deck railings, I now have those darned railings entirely in my view.

     Now imagine that same deck takes the 16 foot depth and sinks down the outside 3 feet of the boarder of the deck so you now have a 3 foot sunken walkway going around the deck on the 3 rail sides. You have now lowered the railing from a required 36 inches to a visual 28 inches. Now when I am seated on the 13 foot by 14 foot deck, I can see over the railings.  I can also see “better” over the railings from the inside of the home. Yes, this COULD be  a tripping hazzard but a few,  well placed planters along the perimeter alerts guests to the step down. There may never be a reason to actually step down into this area, it is just a device that protects you from falling over the deck side. Now imagine taking this 2 steps down. All this extra step requires is another 10 to 12 inches of space so instead of having  3 foot of “wasted” deck space, you have 3 foot 10 inches of “wasted” space. BUT, you now have a great view over the 36 inch high railings because the visual top of rail is only 20 inches high! I would argue that this space is  NOT wasted at all since it just provided you with an opportunity to see the view that you could not see any other way(unless you resort to more costly glass panel rails.  Let’s really dream now and imagine doing this 2-step down deck rail system and then doing these railings in those glass panels. WOW. you now get a real view since the step down does more than get rid of the rail obstructed view, it also maximizes the view since you can now look downward. This is something that glass rail panels alone can not do. You could take this 3 steps down but then code would require you did a safety set of rails for walking down any steps over 2 steps.

     If you think this is a neat idea, SO DO I! I have never seen this idea used anywhere except in my mind’s eye. If you have seen anything like this sunken deck rail idea, please let me know. Often times, we humans (that’ me) have a way of seeing something then forgetting we saw it and think the idea is our own.  I hope I am not inadvertently doing that here.

     The more I thought about this deck and patio placement norm which we all have come to accept as the “only” place to put a deck, my next blog will tell you about a real, far out “wild idea” that I spent the day designing into a cool new model design.  You blog readers will be the first to be told my newest deck placement “secret”.  I get excited just thinking about it and I can’t wait to share it with you ….next time.

     Note: I had a pretty interesting comment about my most recent blog entry about “solar Power..Or Not”. Look for this  hot comment and my answer coming soon. Look for  this comment and my reply under this “Solar Power  …or not” recent blog entry.  Check it out!

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     The home I was in for open house today was located (in Milwaukee) directly next door to one that has a front yard sign that proclaims in yellow and black, “Solar Powered”. It goes on to say something about saving money on energy bills or such.

     This home is in a small  Milwaukee subdivision .  We have built about 7 or 8  homes in this subdivision and are about to dig for 2 more.  I am amazed at how these homes, in this subdivision seem to sell quite well.   This home has been on the market longer than I can remember. It was there long before we dug and sold the home which is right next door, of which I previously mentioned. This home started, as best as I could tell, with a price tag of at or slightly over $300,000.  I saw this home tick-down in price until it finally hit bottom at $249,000. 

     The same folks who this builder uses to install his solar panels, I commonly use for doing my heating and cooling work. Many builder’s use many of the same sub-contractors and suppliers.  I asked this installer, how much the solar equipment would cost IF I were to build a home and use the same set-up as is on this home.  He told me $45 to $50,000 would be an approximate price range. I was not surprised since we have quoted solar homes time and again for client proposals. We have yet to have anyone parchse solar power, but we certainly have THE vendor in Wisconsin who has the most experience in doing this kind of work.

    Let’s look at his solar home and our non-solar(but energy efficient/green) neighboring home.  His home has 4 bedrooms, so does ours except ours has all walk-in closets while his does not.  His has a nice play or rec area upstairs. Our’s does not.  His has a 2 car garage. Ours has a 3 car garage. His has 2159 square feet on the first 2 floors, with an unfinished basement.  Ours has a lesser 2024 square feet on the first 2 floors but has 500 extra finished square feet (with wet bar) in the basement.  Our front may be a little fancier, but his looks fine. His currently has a better curb appeal since his has a concrete drive and grass while ours WILL have those but they are currently not installed.

       The biggest notable difference between the 2 homes is that his has solar power and ours does not AND ours has more detail and a higher level of trim items. For example, ours has plaster crown moldings in the great room and wood crown in the dining room. We have a nice distressed-look wide plank hardwood floor in a lot of the first floor.  We also have walls and ceilings of old-fashioned looking inset panels and fancy mouldings around those panels(dining room). We have a 3 ft. by 3 ft. transom window over our master bedroom door which you can see from the foyer when you look up into the 12 foot high upper hallway rotunda.  We also have pretty upgraded dense carpets, ceramic tile foyer, a fancy vessel bowl sink in powder room(added by the buyers of the home), a huge walk-in pantry, and interesting architectural items with built-out drywall frames(back-lighted-see my blog entry about seeing this “at the mall”), and all solid wood 6 panel doors with many trim pieces made extra-wide of Maple.

     When I built this home, I had the benefit of having worked in this subdivision selling a number of homes and seeing/honing my designs until I knew what “hot-buttons” this client base was looking for.  This builder had MORE experience in this sub-division and has had a fancy model here much long than me.  In all the many home shopping groups who came through my homes, many asked for fancy crown molding, hardwood floors, and 6 panel doors. Not one home shopper asked me for solar power.

     I think you know where I am going when I say I know why I think our home sold WHILE IT WAS STILL IN THE DRYWALL STAGE, while ol’ solar- power sits and sits.   This morning, the builder’s  for sale sign came down and an outside sales agent’s sign went up. I know when this builder has difficulty selling a home himself, he brings in an outsider to do it for him.  The most notable thing about all of this is that while his home had come down to $249,000, our home was priced at the 270’s and we did VERY little negotiating. Our home seemed clearly worth the money and the buyer told us he had really studied the area homes for sale and ours was giving the most home for the dollar.

     If I was to give this builder any advice(not that he has asked for it), I would say to put-away his “Solar Powered” sign and not tell folks it had this feature until they had seen inside first and talked to an agent who could try to convince them of the product.   I actually think this solar power technology is holding this home back from being sold.  I had a visitor today who told me he was going to view this home by appointment tomorrow and asked me what I thought of this solar power “thing” on that home.  I asked him to first tell me what he thought.  This police officer told me that he would prefer if it did not have it.   At very least, he was not willing to pay any more to get it and maybe wanted some discount because it had this unwanted feature.

      I went on to agree that, to some ,this technology has appeal but to most, this seems like a technology that is on the rise so fast that this huge, not so lovely, roof of hi-tech looking panels will become as desired as a front projection big screen television would be to us today.  Today, folks don’t know where to get rid of their old “hi-tech” bulky televisions and no one wants them. I guess you can drop off your once-expensive big television at the dump while on your way to Walmart to buy your new, better, fraction-of-the-cost, flat screen 1080 hi-def television. 

    The lesson here is that technology is changing so fast that the best time to buy some exotic new hi-tech item is AFTER it is no longer so exotic or new.

     Stop by our Milwaukee Model near Good Hope and 91st Street in the Oak Hill subdivision. We are open this weekend from 1 to 4 pm.  I guarantee you will see some great new items. We even had a load of decorating items and furnishings brought-in so we can take a few photographs, before the new owners move in. This is really an eye-poppingly beautiful home.  The base version can be built on any $60,000 lot for a Rent-Busting package of under $200(without all the upgrades and goodies, but still nice…AND NEW!)

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     Putting Brick and stone  where brick and stone should not go, is the topic on my mind lately.  I often drive around Southeast Wisconsin going to one destination or the other and I often get sidetracked when I spy some new subdivision or interesting architecture on a home or building.  I have even been known to pull over to the side of a road and just try to absorb  architectural details.  I particularly like the details found in real old world craftsmanship of German brick layers.

     Today, new homes are mostly siding of either wood, aluminum, vinyl or cement board. Often these “mostly sided” homes come with a splash of brick or stone somewhere on the front of the home.  I have noticed that some brick or stone treatments look very nice and some just rub me the wrong way. The other day, I even came across one mostly brick home that was just SO WRONG in the way they used the brick. Let me try to explain what I saw.

     I was near Big Bend (that’s a town , I believe) driving around to see whether this might be a good place to build a spec home to sell.   I was driving through a fairly new subdivision and while I never have really seen any one’s “jaw” actually drop in real life,….MINE DID.   I was talking to someone on my cell phone at the time and I interrupted myself saying “H O L Y  C O W , I can’t believe what I am looking at!”  This was a contemporary home that seemed unsure of whether it really wanted to be a contemporary or a colonial design.

     The front had a front facing 3 car garage comprised of a single and a double door.   If you can imagine, these 2 garage doors were very expensive solid cedar, stained to a golden tone. The problem with this was that , first, nothing else on the home had this golden toned varnished wood and second, one door was much taller than the other causing the roof line to be off-kilter(higher on one side than the other) making the house seem to lean to one side.  To make matters worse, the peak of this garage faced the front so the leaning was in your face.   Worse yet, in the middle of this peak was an octagon shape which you might at first,  mistake for an octogon window, except the shape was twice the size of a normal cute octagon window and , on second veiw, it was not a window at all.   Remember, this is a brick faced, very expensive home, with the fully bricked garage having a brick peak with an unusual octagon shape filled- in with , get this, lannon stone!

     I don’t like to make little of others architecture but , in this case, I will make an exception since this home just was so well built of such high quality materials, and was simply so stunningly “bad” in such big ways.   Now I can’t brag that all of my homes I have designed have been masterpieces, in fact, some of my early attempts might rival this home for traffic stopping interest, but the subject today is the use (or mis-use) of brick and stone.

       The brick and stone of today is what is called thin-stone/brick. It is mostly “cultured” which means man-made cast or molded bricks/stone.  Most of it can not be differentiated from the real bricks and stone. The biggest advantage is that this cultured product is much lighter in weight and therefore does not need the additional cost of providing a brick ledge molded into the home’s perimeter or a special foundation built under the fireplace to support the heavy chimney bricks.  Real brick is real heavy. Remember that for my next points.

     The goal of using the cultured stone/brick should be to use it in a way that makes this product imitate real brick/stone.  For example, real Stone and brick would not be able to come up to the bottom of a window without some type of a concrete, Stone or soldier course of real masonry product.  If you stopped under a window,with real bricks, you would see the holes in the tops of the brick.  Therefore, if you use cultured brick/stone around a window, the proper illusion is to use a special imitative Stone ledge at the sill area of every window.  Many cultured brick/stone homes just wrap the product to the window with no thought of doing a sill like real brick would have.

     Using cutlured stone or brick with reckless regard to reality is a hazard I see every day(sadly even on some of my lesser priced homes but only when I know I have carried the illusion true in the main areas of the home) and I used to see it most on corners. Brick or stone , in reality , can not easily just “end” at a corner and run into a corner board. Yes, brick does commonly end at corner boards when it is cultured and it screams ..”I AM  FAKE!”  Cultured brick/stone should wrap around the corners of a home and many architects will demand that such cultured stone/brick must end at an inside corner and not simply in mid-wall.   As for me, I try to have brick which ends at corners at least wrap around the home by the thickness of a real brick or stone. Not doing at least this, makes the product look “lick-N-stick”. 

      Yet another BIG mistake I see all the time is having brick or stone go over a garage door and then often proceed to go entirely up into the peak of the gable over the garage door.  There is a good reason why this is never done with real brick….it is incredibly difficult to do this in reality using real brick/stone so you should rarely ever see this done.  Do you realize the sheer size of a steel beam you would need to support a full wall of real brick  stacked high over a 16 foot wide garage door?!  It verges on “silly” to imagine this could be done. To me it is like seeing brick put on a roof instead of shingles, just because you like the look of brick so much.   Sure it could be done using cultured stone and a lot of rubber membrane, but WHY?  Are we not trying to use these imitation products in ways that seem real?  Unfortunatly, many times we are NOT.   Then let’s please consider taking reality into account before you simply decide that it might look nice to put brick around a suspended bayed or boxed-out window (another thing I saw on my first home example in Big Bend).  If this was real brick or stone, what would be holding this product up? It defies the laws of gravity , not to mention good design. You might as well have glued  bricks on the garage doors if y0u really love brick that much.

     I used to think, a full, real brick home was my ultimate dream home. I used to think the more brick or stone, the better.   I have now gotten to the point that I would rather see a vinyl sided home that paid attention to making that product look as real as possible than seeing a fake , badly designed brick home.

     If you have seen any examples of bad masonry in action, I would like to hear about them. 

    Thanks for letting me blog-rant.  I feel so much better now that I have saved the World from bad design.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     I am mostly a “big picture” person in my everyday role of overseeing my(and my wife’s) Home Building company.  When it comes to the little things however, I am mostly a nit-picker on certain aesthetic details.  I am the right person to be a home builder but I am the wrong person to be the client of a home builder because I would likely drive that builder nuts! 

     I obsess over the littlest of things in home design, construction, and decorating.  Take this small detail for example. The common door bumper. You know, the little springy hardware “thing”  that is usually mounted to a wall or base board to keep the door from slamming into the wall when you open the door.  You know, the thing that makes that springy vibrating noise when you tweak it with the vacuum cleaner or mop when cleaning.   That spring-thing that is always just a little in the way when you are cleaning.

     There are some doors in every home that just are not situated to open onto a wall so to make sure they don’t  hit another door or appliance, or piece of furniture,  you might use one of ,what builder’s call a hinge stop.  A hinge stop is the thing that attaches onto the pin of a door hinge and stops the door from opening all the way. These are adjustable using a screw method inherent in the hardware’s design. Look on the top hinge of some doors and you will see what I am referring too.

     One detail that drives me nuts is that , in my book, a hinge-stop should only be used in an emergency case.  In cases where there just is no other remedy to halting the door from opening all the way.  In cases where there is no wall to mount the spring-bumper door stop common method.  Most of my staff and carpentry subcontractors know I watch certain detail things like door bumpers. Yet, I still find hinge stops where a door bumper would work fine. The reason this probably annoys me is that I relate the use of hinge stops with carpenters who don’t really care, or are lazy.  I hate to think I have any such traits in my subcontractors.  Installing a hinge stop is a minute or two quicker than if the carpenter took out his drill and screw driver to install a “real” door bumper on a wall or on a base moulding.

     One of the most creative details I have seen is in this nit-picky area of door bumpers.  One of my original finish carpenters, Randy, many years ago, let me in on a secret which I rarely see any one doing , except in my homes.  I have my door bumpers NOT mounted to a wall or to the base mouldings.  I want my bumpers mounted onto the door itself. This little gem of an idea is very useful because when you are mopping , or vacuuming next to a door mounted door bumper, you can easily move the door a little to get under and around the door bumper.  No more twanging the spring when you pass by cleaning your floors!

     What amazes me is that even though most all of my carpentry subcontractors know of this neat logical door bumper method of instalation, I never see them do it in any one else’s homes. When I go to the annual Home shows and Parades, I look for these door mounted bumpers and no one is doing them!

         I know this is a very little detail and not as exciting as some of my blog topics but, gosh sometimes a guy just has to ask, “If this is such a great , simple idea, why is no one esle doing it?”  Does anyone else out there have their door bumpers on their doors, or am I all alone?

     Thanks for reading the blog.  We had a great weekend of new guests at our homes (especially at our Milwaukee and Jackson locations).  This next Saturday, we open another home to see in Ixonia.  Tonite, we got our Hybrid Ranchdesign (read my very first few blogs for insights on this new concept home ddesign idea)  approved by the Richfield Plan approval board.   This is for the MBA Parade Of Homes in Richfield. This is only one hurdle, since obtaining the finance approvals is the next hurdle. We are approved for our credit worthiness from the bank(A new one we have not worked with but is giving a great rate for the Parade builders  of 3.9%), but now we have to see if the appraisal will come out at the proper numbers, before we can see if we can afford to build it.  If anyone wants toget in on pre-buying this home, let me know.

     As always, I will keep you posted.  Feel free to comment. I answer all!

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     IF you have been reading my blog, you know I have had some pretty “wild ideas” at times, that I try to share with you.  In this blog, I have both a few Wild and one practical (I will call this a “mild” idea) idea to share about toilets.  I will try to make this short. Wish me luck!

     In the arena of Wild first, most such ideas stem from some life incident that happened to me or someone I know.  I usually look at such “happenings” and ask if I could possibly design a home idea which might solve the dilemma-du-jour.  Here is the life incident and this time, it happened(and still happens) to me.

     Whenever I and my wife Jacquie go to bed at the same time, I can never “go” to use our private toilet area unless Jacquie has “gone” to it first.  Since my usage may render it unpleasant (read between the lines here) for her to use the toilet, she wants me to use it AFTER she does.  I have learned to cope with this, but it is frankly an inconvenience at times. 

     The master bathroom has seen an evolution where the toilet is now commonly found located in it’s own toilet compartment.  The master sink area has evolved to become the master sinkS(plural, as in two sinks) area. Let’s focus on the reasoning.  WHY do we possibly need 2 sinks in a Master bath? Are we so inconvenienced that one spouse can not wait for the other to finish brushing their teeth  before they can use the sink to brush their own teeth?  Anyone who has a double- vanity in their master bath would be hard pressed to give it up. Two people sharing one bathroom seems to make sense to have two vanities.

     So I ask, are we really so inconvenienced that we need our full privacy when using the toilet in front of our spouse?  YES!    I want (maybe not NEED) my privacy, and so does my wife.  Here’s how I see toilets compared to sinks. If we don’ want to wait for our spouse to finish with the sink, so much that we created the second sink idea, what is holding us back from having two toilets just like we have two sinks? 

     Think of it this way, I would rather have two toilets and one sink if I had to make the choice of having two of something and one of the other in the bathroom.  If  we had one sink and I waited for my wife to finish, the worst I would have to put up with is a little water not cleaned up by the sink area. I could immediately use the sink when my wife was finished.  Relate this to the toilet.   If I had to wait for my wife to finish her use of the toilet and she had rendered it “difficult” to get near due to smell reasons, unlike the sink, the toilet is now rendered hard to use for some time after the first spouse’s usage.  I could find a solution by having us both agree to use the toilet in the hall if we were going to make a smell issue. In the same way, I guess we could just use the sink in the hall bath if we both wanted to use a sink at the same time too!  Ladies and (mostly) gentlemen, is it not time that we all started putting the same OR MORE emphasis on twin toilets as we do on twin sinks?

     I am seeing more and more couple’s asking for twin shower heads , why are we overlooking the only bath item which can not always be used immediately after the one spouse has used it?  You might say it could be a matter of price but a toilet just is not that expensive.   As for the plumber, sure it would cost more, but it would be less than installing that second  sink since we don’t have hot water run to a toilet.

     Now for the MILD idea.  When I built my first house 20 years or more ago, I thought it was logical that all of the doors would be a full 3 feet wide. Today they have a name for this called “universal design“ . This “universal design” idea also has you thinking about placing electric outlets higher and having at least one exterior door being flush to the ground level so as to roll a wheelchair if needed.   Today, it seems whenever I sit with some one to do a custom design, when the 3 foot extra-wide door subject comes up the client immediately warms up to the idea.  They usually say this might be handy if either they or someone in their family ever needed to have a wheelchair. 

      My next question is whether they wish me to make one bathroom to be wheelchair accessible or at least wheelchair “possible” in the future.  I explain what this entails and I rarely get any takers.  What are we thinking here?  We are putting in wide doors in case of a wheel chair in the future but lets hope that wheelchair person does not have to use a bathroom?!  This make no sense to me.  Let’s see what it takes to have a wheelchair friendly bathroom.

     A wheelchair takes about 5 feet to comfortably maneuver and turn so if a common bathroom has a 3 to 3.5 foot travel path in front of the sink and toilet, you should now have 5 feet of a travel path in front of sink and toilet. That makes the bathroom 7 feet wide instead of 5 feet.  C’mon folks, you can always squeeze in a 3 foot door in most openings but putting 2 extra feet in your bathroom would be a huge , expensive task to do after the home is completed.  The second big thing that is needed is you need about 30 inches of open space next to the toilet so you can park a wheelchair NEXT to the toilet and off-load onto the toilet. That means instead of having a (code required for normal non-wheelchair toilets) space of only 30 inches of wall space for the toilet, you will need to have 60 inches of space. This would make the normal 9 foot long bathroom with 4 foot vanity 11.5 feet long.  Again, this is hard to do later, so think about it before the nails start pounding.  If you had a 4 foot vanity next to the toilet and later wanted to reduce this vanity and put another  30 inches on the toilet area, I suppose you could achieve the wheelchair space BUT, you would now only have a tiny 18 inch sink/vanity.  Think ahead.

     I do have another quick WILD  toilet idea I will leave you with. I just saw an idea I had thought about for a few years , which is now actually being manufactured!  Imagine a toilet that has the back tank raised a little higher and the top is off of the tank.   Nicely moulded into this tank ’s top opening is a nifty hot and cold water sink faucet.  You wash your hands directly over the toilet tank!  This is a VERY “green” idea since you are re-using your gray water(which you created when you washed your hands) for flushing the toilet. For cost savings, you would not need a vanity or counter top.  I envision this idea working best in a very limited space OR in a space where you want a sink in a private toilet compartment so you can wash quick before you touch the door with germs on your hands. 

    Keep reading the blogs. I have enough Wild and Mild ideas to last a very long time.  I hope to see you at either Jackson (last day open is tomorrow), or in Milwaukee tomorrow from 1 to 4pm.  We had a great day today and the housing market continues to feel like the “good-’ol” days of 5 years ago.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

Whewh! 1297 words for this blog. I beat my 2000(+) of my last entry but still quite long. I will try again next time to make this shorter. Comments?