In my last blog posting,(you might want to read that one before you read this one), I was telling you about how that many folks fail to achieve a home plan  that  excites them, even AFTER all of the items they want are designed into their home plan.  I talked about the value of placing yourself near the entry-way of each room (I called this the X-Spot) and create something that you see from that X-spot that would attract you to enter the room. We will call that a focal point.

     The placement of architectural items is likely more important than the item itself.  This is something amny folks fail to grasp.  As an example,  I may create a dramatic decorator shelf near the foyer, but the idea is that it had better be placed in a way that I would see it clearly when someone would enter the foyer.  If someone would have to enter the foyer , and then turn sideways before they would see this decorator shelf, we have lost most of the point of having the shelf to begin with.  When I enter a bedroom, I should have one main thing or a small interesting group of things that work together to focus my attention on. Moreover, this  focal point should attract someone into the room to invite them move toward that item of interest.

     I have not always realized this powerful device as fully as I do today.   Just like anything else, it takes a period of trials and errors, of really “seeing” what works and what you thought would work but does not.  Take for example, my Round Bay ranch design. I designed this home about 14 years ago.   I built a peaked archway (some call this a portico) in the midst of the great room.   My thought was that it would be a centerpiece to the room and a visual separation in an otherwise,  wide- open floor plan.   I had desinged a decorator shelf  over the entry foyer.  It seemed, on paper ,  to work except, in reality,  you never really saw the decorator shelf until you were going out of the foyer.

     A few years later, I built this same model again (well, not exactly the same. Every time I build a model, I try to improve and update the plan’s weakest points as well as refresh the decor ideas) a couple of years later. I tried to make the foyer a foot longer since I realized thatfo simply having the archway focal point placed somewhere in front of the X-spot was not enough.  The distance that the X-spot is to the focal point is critical, even if only by a mere few feet. The arch was embraced by visitors to a higher degree on the second design , even though I had only added about a foot and a half to the foyer depth. This version of the Round Bay ranch still had the issue of the decorator shelf being a pretty cool potential focal point , but it again was lost as it was behind the initial entry view.

    A couple of years later , in Muskego, I again had the opportunity to update and re-build this ranch. Now I opened up the foyer to a mini-vault so the decorator shelf was open on both the front (facing foyer) and the rear (facing great room). In effect, you walked under a “bridging” decorator shelf.  This improved the effect of this shelf but it still was not noticed by most visitors until much after their entry. The fact was, unless I was going to add about 5 feet to the depth of the foyer, this upper shelf was just too close to the X-spot to ever be noticed.  If you take the time to look at our home page’s photo gallery of our 2009 Parade ranch the “Little-Big House”, and see the great room’s rear wall, you will see what that Round Bay’s curved plant shelf eventually became.   I used this idea and transferred it to another home entirely.   I always loved this long ,curving (it was originally angled but later became curved in the updated Round Bay ) decorator shelf , and it just took a few years before I could fit this into the proper spot in the proper home design.  you will seeIf you visit the R1700 we have just completed for a client in Jackson, you will see this long curved plant shelf is  the star focal point of this room. 

    By the way, I DO hope you can find time to see this lovely customized ranch this weekend in Jackson since this is the last weekend this home will be open before the owner takes occupancy.  This is also the first home that we were able to convince the laminate wood floor installers to try a new curved design. At first they said it could not be done, but a little persistence paid off handsomely,…BUT I DIGRESS.

     Back on point, focal point that is, most designers and home shoppers instinctively make the great room’s fireplace their focal point. That is fine.  I do it all the time for clients.  I have been bored to tears with this device for a very long time, but I am designing for other’s desires, not always my own.  In an open concept great room, I try to have my fireplaces come to the view of the foyer X-spot  first,  BEFORE the big(and bigger) screen flat panel television screen.  For those who want to put the television over the fireplace(I have beeen doing that for nearly two decades), That can be tricky, inasmuch as the focal point may be now seen as your television.  I rarely meet even the most ardent fan of the tube who wants to shout to the World how seemingly important that screen is to their lifestyle.  Putting the television on the side of the great room so your first view of the room is sideways to the television works best in most cases. The T.V. feels less important this way.

     If you read an earlier blog I wrote about an idea which “started in the Mall”, I have found another way to create a great room focal point in what might otherwisese be a common room.  Other simpler ways to create a focal point would be to use color and light.  When I used to design trade show booths, I found that folks are instinctively drawn-into bright lights.  It is sort of like a bug to a light bulb.  If you put a lot of windows on the wall which is in view of the X-spot, you get a focal point impact.  I was designing a custom home for a cleint and this client wanted me to shift the windows in certain rooms.  They were looking at this plan , as most folks do, from the 2D perspective.  Always try to approach plans  from the X-spot, 3D perspective.   I had a window directly centered on the bedroom entry door X-spot.   They asked for it to be centered on another big wall in the bedroom.  I know from a strictly appeal of decor design, the window worked best in the original position but most folks who would not be using the X-spot technique, would naturally agree with these home shoppers.  By the way, the home shopper always gets their way.   I only suggest, they  get to decide.

     One thing you can do to create an inexpensive focal point is to “wash” the major focal point wall in electric lighting.  Many times, I will paint only this one wall with a differing color from the other walls in the room.   Remember, this wall is the one that is directly in front view of the X-spot when entering the room.  This one wall being colored slightly (or boldly if you prefer) different from the other walls will instinctively draw you into the room.  When decorating, be careful to remember which wall is the important focal wall and not create too many other distractions on other walls. You can decorate ALL the walls if you wish, for example, with framed art.   Just make sure the biggest, most significant art piece is on your focal wall. The other walls  should simply compliment that focal wall’s art.

     When I am creating one of our heavily themed bedrooms, I try to still make my focal wall have something significant on that wall.  I did a Disney themed bedroom where everything, everywhere was Disney displays.   My focal point became the Mickey Mouse headboard shaped bed.  (See my Grand Bay photos).   A piece of furniture can be your focal point, but then make sure the room’s windows and walls will allow that focal furnishing to be showcased from the natural view from the X-spot.  I cry a little inside when I see a great, expensive piece of furnishing forced to fit into a room where it can not be the focal point.  Just a little forethought would make all the difference. 

     Let’s take one home area as an overall example.  In a finished basement, what is your focal point?  I like to approach it in phases.  From my first x-spot at the top of the stairs, what makes me want to come down those stairs?  Perhaps a wall hanging with a light on it would attract me to want to come down the stairs.   If you check our photo gallery again for our 2009 Parade home, you will see I designed an interior wall made of rustic stone and an eyeball light at the stair landing in the basement. The light played shadows on this stone wall and really was a strong focal point.

     When you get to the basement stair bottom landing, you are now at your next X-spot. What wall do you see next and what will you do to continue to attract the eye for that position?  In this 2009 Parade basement, I then had the carpet seamed to curve a color , toward the right , which mentally gave direction to where I wanted the next focal wall to be.   In this direction, I placed a Baby- Grand piano on a round, raised platform with suitable wall art and a crystal chandelier in a dome over the piano.  This whole thing worked in a compact area and became a second focal point to see. After you came into that area, I saw another X-spot as you would come around a corner, so another focal point is needed to continue the effect of always surprising, delighting, and drawing you to come into the home further.  The cumulative effect of doing this multiple focal point method creates a powerful impact that is most difficult to duplicate, unless you first approach the design with this methodology from the start.

     This same logic which I give for the basement would come into play in every room, as you travel thorugh the entire home.   In the Master bedroom, you have muliple X-spots when you enter a master closet, and master bathroom, perhaps even when you enter the private toilet area.  Sound difficult? Sound daunting?  Like anything, it becomes second nature after you work with this a while.  In my experience, this type of detail in home design is what separates the men form the boys.  Frank Lloyd Wright realized this and that is why you feel transported to a different World, when you enter a Wright design.  This is why you feel one way when you enter one builder’s home and another way when you enter a similar quality home design from another builder. 

     This should give you a start on some basic understanding of focal points and X-spots.  I gaurantee, there are a lot(if not most) home designers out there today who have never even thought of these elements as part of their job(if they have heard of them at all).   In future blogs, I may revisit the subject in even more detail, since there are so many creative ways to bring excitment into a home with water, fire,  cielings, wall texture, glass and more.  In my way of thinking , I want every home to have enough pizazz in the diesign where folks say , “This is wonderful, I have never seen anything like this before”. That goes for ALL home big and large, price is never an excuse for a lack of excellent design

     One last note. I will again be at our Milwaukee Dream series home near 91st and Good Hope road this weekend from 1 to 4(Oak Hill Subdivision). This home just got the counter tops installed and was carpeted yesterday.  It is almost done. My Sons even brought- in a couch and love seat from our warehouse,  just to give you a sense of room size.  This home has a finished basement and has an extraordinary amount of detail for a smaller home.  (check out the plaster-like crown mouldings, and inset wall panels in the dining room).  If you happen to have a custom plan, bring it along.   I  lovelooking at  plans.  I guarantee, you will walk out of this home with at least a few new ideas.

     Thanks for blogging with me. Until next time…

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     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