Imagine the knock-down, drag-out arguments. Owners of this house clearly couldn’t agree. One demanded a traditional brick city home, the other a rustic cabin. In despair, their architect negotiated a mashup to satisfy both parties. Why else would formal brick and precast be mixed with rustic stone, timber, stucco and even log construction? Continue reading Design Tips: Choosing Exterior Finishes
How Your House Works: A Visual Guide to Understanding and Maintaining Your Home, is a great idea. The book’s goal is providing homeowners with simplified drawings and diagrams of home systems, including written explanations of how each system works. For common problems, simple fixes are proposed that anyone can accomplish. Drawings are informative. Written explanations are typically integrated within the drawings or succinctly itemized without unnecessary “writer’s” fluff. Continue reading Review: How Your House Works
Are Today’s Homes Bright Enough?
According to new research, they’re not. Psychologist Kenneth Wright and a team of scientists from the University of Colorado, Boulder recently discovered today’s homes don’t include enough sunlight to kickstart the body’s clock. Combined with too much artificial light at night preventing sleep, these scientists argue designers simply don’t respect that humans are light-sensitive animals. Continue reading New Research Says Homes Need More Sunlight
The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home is billed as “a step-by-step method for managing home construction”. This isn’t a “how to” manual for self building. Instead, these pages help the complete greenhorn avoid sounding clueless when hiring subcontractors. For instance, construction images of foundations and framing look technical. In reality they’re simplified for clarity and don’t explain construction’s true complexity. Still what information that exists is timely and relatively accurate. Continue reading Review: The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home
Buildwise editor Todd Remington, wins the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) – Best in American Living Award.
From the press release:
Architect Todd Remington wins the Best in American Living™ Awards (BALA). The residential building industry’s premier awards program spotlighting the most creative and talented builders, architects, designers, developers and land planners who redefine design excellence for homes and communities throughout the nation and Internationally.
Remington’s dedication to the research and design of residential architecture is transforming the industry. As Executive Editor for Buildwise.org, Remington provides valuable insights about home-building and design for homeowners and professionals, delivered as entertaining kernels of wisdom.
Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate, is a unique and previously impossible look into the home buying market by two Zillow insiders. Author Spencer Rascoff is Zillow’s CEO. While coauthor Stan Humphries is Zillow’s Chief Economist. Utilizing the company’s vast information about home values, the authors debunk common real estate assumptions. This data driven research also uncovers previously unknown patterns or rules about today’s home values that aren’t always intuitive or obvious. Continue reading Review: Zillow Talk
From the Buildwise Unauthorized Dictionary
Common Definition: A person who employs mathematics and scientific analysis for the design of building systems.
Unauthorized Definition: Engineers get excited about things no one else does. They love solving problems you didn’t know existed, in ways you don’t understand. Engineers solve these mysterious problems by performing precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by architects and builders. Continue reading Featured Term: Engineer
Buildwise editor, Todd Remington, wins Best of Houzz Award for 2017. He has won this award three years in a row.
From press release – Todd Remington specializes in the art of traditional architecture. His award-winning homes and retreats integrate timeless patterns of design with cutting edge technology and today’s building science. That’s why people from all over the world voted his designs the Best of Houzz for 2017. And why he has become a design leader in residential architecture. Remington also writes about home-building and design at Buildwise.org. Whether you’re a homeowner or building professional, Remington’s posts shouldn’t be missed.
Pocket doors slide inside a wall. When closed, they can look like other doors or provide a dramatic focal point. Either way, they’re hidden when open. Which means they don’t waste space or swing into toilets, cabinets and furniture. Since they slide on tracks (instead of swinging on hinges) pocket doors can service larger openings. For these reasons architects and designers rely on the pocket door as a versatile design tool.
Sadly, pocket doors aren’t a panacea. While they look good in pictures and usually work right after installation. Designers are long gone before the pocket door’s shortcomings become painfully apparent. Continue reading Review: Pocket Doors
After the new room is painted, furnished and finally ready. You sink into the couch and turn on the television expecting a blissful evening at home. Instead you’re accosted by a nasty echo. “No big deal, I can ignore it”, you murmur. But soon you’re acting like a torture victim. What seemed like a minor problem is destroying your life. Continue reading Room Echo is Annoying and Unhealthy