If you’re thinking of starting a remodeling or building project, one of your worries might be how to control costs. This is without a doubt people’s biggest fear. Ask anyone who has built a house or remodeled one and you’ll probably hear scary stories about cost overruns and unexpected expenses. And they’ll tell you that you’re in for the same fate. But you could prove them wrong if you do two important things.

Cost overruns come in two forms. One type is due to insufficient planning before the project begins. Often people view hiring an architect or house designer as a luxury. But a good architect can help you define the project on paper before you sign a contract for construction. With many things undefined, there are ample opportunities for unexpected added costs to come up. Make you materials, finishes, and fixture selections early on so you don’t get unpleasant surprises later. Think through the entire project and try to anticipate as much as possible. Make sure your drawings and specifications describe the work to be done so there is little ambiguity. Unclear construction documents will open the door for extra charges from your builder. An experienced design professional can help you with this. It’s not just their skill you are buying when you hire them. You are also buying their experience.

The second type of cost overrun is actually more common and is self-inflicted. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know what your house should look like even though you don’t have a floor plan? If so, you might have the same question one of our readers asked me recently.

Luci wrote:

I know the correct answer for this, but I’d like to find out that it CAN be done differently – My husband and I will be building, (and by building I mean designing and having someone else build it) our retirement home in the near future, and I’ve found an “outside” that I like.  I don’t just like it, I want it!  I know you should design the floor plan first, then the outside, but I want to do it the other way around.  Any advice?

Thank you very much!

Luci

Here’s my answer:

Luci – Thanks for the good question. I have begun a number of projects with an image my client has found that captures the exact look they want. What we often do is to evaluate the plan of the house that has the “ideal” exterior and see how well that floor plan fits the program we’ve developed for the client’s Perfect House. Sometimes the plan can be simply adapted to suit my client’s needs. Sometimes it takes some clever redesigning to get things perfect. A good architect can even modify the exterior of the house to fit the revised floor plan and still retain the essence of the look of the house that captivated the client initially. The secret is that the exterior usually does not have to be a perfectly identical match to still look “just like” the exterior they had found and fallen in love with.

So don’t worry. Your Perfect House plan can usually be designed to give you Your Perfect House exterior look. It just takes some clever and creative thinking.

Best regards,

Bill

For more articles about home design, homebuilding, and remodeling, please visit my other site, www.about-home-design.com.

It’s winter and wood floors are shrinking. Here’s a question I received the other day about this common complaint.

Jean wrote:

Need your expert advice please if you can.  I have installed acres of 18mm solid wood flooring in all my rooms. this winter with the heating on it seems to be shrinking. Seems to be taking wooden studding with it, i.e., door frames fixed on top of it have moved too. Will this settle down do you think?  Many thanks in advance.

My answer:

This shrinking is due to the wood losing moisture content. The indoor relative humidity is usually quite low in the wintertime. As the air dries out, it draws moisture from the wood floors and the rest of the wood in the house, studs and doors included. When the weather warms, the relative humidity will go back up and the wood’s moisture content will increase. The wood floors, studs, joists, and doors will swell up again. If the wood was excessively moist when installed, it will never return to the original size. If the wood had the proper moisture content when it was installed, it will return to its original size. It’s impossible for me to say without knowing the condition at the time of installation. Read the rest of this entry »

Winter has arrived early and that brings up questions about pouring concrete in cold weather. Yes, it can be done. In fact, concrete is routinely poured in cold weather. But certain measures must be taken to ensure the concrete gains the desired strength and does the job that it was intended to do.

If you are pouring concrete in cold weather, weather where the average daily temperature does not exceed forty degrees farenheit, your concrete is considered “Cold Weather Concrete.” The American Concrete Institute has specific guidelines for how to pour cold weather concrete. Their document ACI 306 spells out the things that should be done. Warming the reinforcing steel, mixing the concrete with hot water, adding accelerating agents to the mix, covering the concrete with insulating blankets, and adding more cement to the mix to strengthen the concrete and speed up the curing time are all methods for overcoming the potential problems with pouring concrete in cold weather. Read the rest of this entry »

There are rules for selecting the correct size shutter for your windows. This shouldn’t be a wild guess. If you get it wrong, it will show. The window will look odd, even if you can’t immediately tell why it looks odd. Here are some tips to get it right.

Shutters used to serve a functional purpose on a house. They were opened and closed regularly. Wooden shutters increased a home’s security when closed and allowed light and fresh air to enter the house when they were open. Shutters were usually closed and latched at night to make the home less susceptible to break ins. And, glass was very expensive. It needed to be protected during storms to prevent breakage and shutters served that purpose, too. Shutters were a key part of the function of the windows. Read the rest of this entry »

If you enjoy reading short, witty, and often humorous musings, take a look at my son’s blog.

Dan’s blog is called Sometimes, Sometimes Not.

Dan has a Dave Barry-ish way of writing and looking at things. He writes about everything from Home Improvement to Goats (Not his goats. He doesn’t have any, thank goodness). And life with his two kids, Bella and Grey, and his lovely wife Melissa, give him plenty of material. Like any typical family, odd things happen, both funny and distressing. And you can count on Dan to give it a spin that keeps you reading.

Take a look and let him know what you think. I’ll bet you find your self bookmarking his blog or subscribing to it and coming back over and over to see what going on in the Dan Hirsch household.

Why do manufacturers of synthetic wood interior doors insist on stamping a wood grain into their products? Doors made from pressed board are the worst culprit. The door panels in traditional wood interior doors are planed and sanded as smooth as possible. If you bought a solid wood door and found it to have a raised and prominent grain, you would send it back as being inferior and unacceptable. Pressed board doors are certainly less costly than solid wood doors and have the advantage of not swelling and shrinking as much as wood doors. The panels do not “pull back” from the stiles and rails so the paint does not crack away at that point. But the raised wood grain can make them look cheap.

I do know why manufacturers of pressed wood and synthetic wood doors favor the embossed wood grain. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you notice the direction hardwood flooring runs when you walk into a house? It can make a big difference in how it looks and how it behaves over time. Rule number one in laying hardwood flooring is the wood boards should run perpendicular to the floor joists below. This allows the boards to “span” from one joist to the next and be much more solid. If the boards were run parallel to the floor joists, most of the boards would sit only upon the plywood subflooring and not on any of the joists. The plywood is flexible and will “give” fractionally when walked upon. This is a recipe for squeaks and large gaps.

But another rule in laying wood flooring has to do with the aesthetics or look of the flooring. Read the rest of this entry »

These days, with lower real estate values and the economic uncertainties, reinventing your house may make more financial sense than building a new one. I hate to admit that. Being an architect, I love building new houses. But I understand that selling a house these days can be tough. Real estate commissions, fixing up your old house to get it into condition to sell, and the costs of moving can add up fast. But what if your family situation has changes?  What if your children have grown and left home and you need a house to retire comfortably in that is easier to take care of and will remain accessible even if you should lose mobility? What if your  bathroom is outdated or simply old and you want a new look? Read the rest of this entry »

How much room do you need at the bottom of the stairs? How big should your Foyer be? I received this question the other day.

Jackie asked: 

“We are reconfiguring our stairs and would like to know what is an adequate space to have from the last step to front door?  It is currently 74 inches – w/ the new configuration it would decrease to 60.  Is that enough room?  Thanks for your time.”

My Answer:

“In average-sized houses, 60 inches should be adequate. If the stairs are offset (off to the side) a bit from the front door, as they commonly are, this is even better. Either way, 60 inches is enough to greet your guests without having to stand on the stairs to do so. If your house is quite large in its other aspects, then this might seem like too small a space relative to everything else. 

You might try mocking this up. Lay a box or something the size of the first step in the position the new steps will occupy. Then try coming in the front door and see how it feels. Also try going to the front door to answer it as someone enters. This will give you a good feel for the appropriateness of the space. If that feels right, then it will work fine.”

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.