Tag:Tips
The Benefits of Building a Custom Home
The Benefits of Building a Custom Home
When it comes to choosing your next home, you may be torn between buying an existing home and working with an architect and builder in order to build a custom home. While pre-existing homes offer the ability to move in right away, they may contain hidden costs, like the need to upgrade appliances, renovate or build additions. Custom homes, by contrast, are completely move-in ready with all the features and square footage you need to make your home comfortable and functional.
1. More Home for the Money
Custom homes can offer more home for the money. When home buyers purchase preexisting homes, they often need immediate maintenance and upgrades. At a bare minimum, you’ll probably find yourself gutting the kitchen and the bathrooms and completely replacing them, which adds to the overall cost of the home. Likewise, the existing home may contain features you don’t want and exclude features you do want.
When you build a custom home, you are only paying for the square footage, features and customization you want in order to maximize the home’s flow and function.
2. Built to Your Specifications
Custom homes can be built to your specifications and your family’s needs. Most preexisting homes include one or two bathrooms and two to three bedrooms. If you have a large or growing family, own your own business or work from home, an existing home may not be able to meet your space needs. Custom homes can be built with as many bedrooms as you need, modern kitchens with all the right materials, home gyms, offices and great rooms and/or gathering rooms that are large enough to entertain friends, family members and clients or coworkers.
3. Better Energy Efficiency
Older homes are not as well insulated and do not typically contain as many green features, unless the previous homeowners have performed extensive upgrades. By contrast, custom homes can be built to your energy-efficient standards. Instead of fiberglass insulation, you can request spray foam insulation. You can request energy efficient windows, doors and roofing, and you’ll be able to choose between standard hot water heaters and tankless hot water heaters. In some instances, you may even be able to install solar panels on your new energy-efficient roof in order to further reduce your new custom home’s ecological footprint and save money on your energy bills.
4. Appliances Included
Custom homes include the appliances, and you can negotiate with the builder to include upscale or luxury appliances instead of the standard builder-grade appliances. When you purchase an existing home, if the appliances are included, they are often several years old, outdated and may not include the features you desire.
5. Better Privacy
When you decide to build a custom home, you can choose your lot and the style and orientation of your house. This gives you more privacy options than purchasing an existing home. With a custom home, you have the option of setting the home further back on the lot, orienting the home’s design and layout and customizing your landscaping in order to maximize privacy.
6. Move-in Ready
Custom-built homes are ready for you and your family. Once they are finished, you do not have to worry about making upgrades or repairs for several years, and many new, custom homes come with home warranties so that you can have increased peace of mind.
Crenellation
You never know where Culver will pop up. The picture to the right, taken at Culver Academies, appeared in the Mar/Apr 2016 edition of Indiana Preservation Magazine from Indiana Landmarks. The magazine is always a good read and comes free with your membership. Click on over and sign up!
Mixed Materials Fence
I noticed this fence in Wabash, Indiana and after driving by it for a year or more, I thought it was interesting enough to stop and snap a few pictures. Since seeing it in Wabash, I noticed a similar mix of materials inside Texas Roadhouse in South Bend. There they used it as a booth back at the end of a row of booths. The mix of wood and industrial metal is an interesting contrast that I’m starting to see more and more.
The fence in Wabash is a screening fence for a back yard. No one was home, so I didn’t get permission to look inside, but it would seem to be a great application for a pool. It has the slight limitation of needing to be level, but if that fits your application, I think it’s a creative use that should prove to be durable.
I liked it well enough that I’ve incorporated it into the Sand Hill Farm project. I plan to use this as the dumpster screening wall. It should be durable enough to serve that application well. Dumpster pads are generally level by design, so that limitation won’t apply here.
Dumpsters are a necessary evil, so I thought I might as well make the screening as sexy as possible. It will still have a chain link fence gate, but I’m kind of excited to see how the rest of the surround comes out. As the saying goes, Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, so I’ll be going for Sincere Flattery in lieu of pursuing Original Design in this case. Swing by and check it out when it’s complete.
Creative ADA Railing Solution
Illustration from www.access-board.gov 505.10.1
Often we’re asked to provide railings for ramps and stairs in public areas. We usually have to explain why the railing used for fall protection is not sufficient per code to meet “handrail” requirements. This is particularly true in a situation where you are attempting to meet ADA standards such as for a ramp. Handrails have specific diameters, heights, returns and extensions that must be met. You can read all about them here. The illustration to the right was taken from that document. Railings for fall protection have different height requirements, have requirements for spindle spacing and often due to the need for lateral strength, have a heavy, reinforced top rail. That top rail often doubles as a protective cap if the railing is wood. This makes the top rail far to wide for a proper grip, even if the other requirements are met.
Once you know the requirements, it’s pretty easy to spot the failed attempts. It’s amazing how many public buildings have these issues. There are several I’ve noticed at municipal structures around Marshall County. (Though fortunately, nothing as bad as the one to the left!) What’s particularly sad is when an obvious attempt at compliance has been made, but the execution has ended up subpar. A contractor is hired without checking references and a “plan” is created based on assumptions, resulting in partial or limited compliance. This often means expensive installations are completed that don’t meet the requirements. Many compliance officers are not as versed in the requirements as they should be.
Custom metal railings can be expensive. Ditto for some of the piece-together plastic systems found online. Because of the varying slopes, and direction changes of ramps, often the specific angles that are needed are not available. I found a creative handrail at the Round Barn in Baroda, Michigan this weekend. In general, wood railings are installed ignoring the code requirements for looped returns at the ends of the stairs or ramp. In this case, the installer mitered a wood railing together to provide a looped return.
I think they can be forgiven for not leveling the railing at the end. The ramp is pretty low slope. The only possible negative I see here is that the bottom corner could still provide a catch point for clothing and the rules would say it should either close the loop or return to the wall. Technically it does close the loop so it may meet the letter if not the spirit of the regulation.
But I want to commend them on finding a creative and cost effective solution to the railing requirements. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” [Charles Caleb Colton] and I will keep this installation in mind in the future when I need a budget solution to the railing requirements.
If you have an ADA compliance situation that you would like us to check out for you, let us know. We are well versed in the requirements and are not too proud to refer you to an Architect or other expert in cases that are outside our expertise and experience.
Shady Rest Home
Easterday Construction belongs to Indiana Landmarks. Their recent email newsletter includes some pictures of the Shady Rest Home on the east side of Plymouth. For anyone one interested, the County is looking at options to repurpose this facility since Bowen Center‘s decision to cease operations there. The following is an excerpt from the Indiana Landmarks site regarding the home.
“In the days before welfare and social programs, and before the establishment of hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted-living facilities, people in need often had nowhere to turn. In 1848, Indiana passed new legislation requiring every Indiana county to “provide a public place wherein the unfortunate poor might have care.” Eventually, all 92 Indiana counties established “poor farms,” where able-bodied residents worked to offset the cost of residential care.
Local fanfare accompanied the Marshall County home opening in 1893. As the architecture makes evident, the county intended to create a quality home for their neediest citizens. Wing and Mahurin — a firm renowned for its Romanesque Revival public buildings — designed a grand Superintendent’s Quarters, with living and work space for the director and residents. Originally called the Marshall County Infirmary, the place earned its “Shady Rest” nickname from the many shade and fruit trees planted on the property.
Shady Rest Home today
Unfortunately, demolition has claimed a majority of Indiana’s historic county homes. In continual service for more than a century, Shady Rest is an anomaly. The county sold the facility in 1998, but it continued to serve as the Otis R. Bowen Center Shady Rest Home, a private residential center for adults who suffer from mental illness.
The Bowen Center closed Shady Rest this summer, and Marshall County commissioners are looking for ways to put the campus back in use. The five-acre property includes the main building, a large c. 1893 barn, a 1920s well house, and a garage.
The main building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, which could make it eligible for Federal Rehabilitation Tax credits. Check out the National Register nomination for more interesting history about the Marshall County home. For more on efforts to find a reuse for the property, contact Marshall County commissioner Kurt Garner, 574-936-0613 or kurt.garner@gmail.com.”
Easterday Construction completed some renovation work on the facility back in the early 80’s. I was a plumber’s helper on part of that work, so I got to see some of the facility at that time. Unfortunately there wasn’t much effort to document projects at that time, so I don’t have any real details on what was done. I remember demolishing some nasty showers though!
It would be sad to lose this piece of history, though repurposing the facility may be challenging. Generally a buildings highest and best use is its original use and once that use has run its course, change is difficult. I’m sure with a little creativity, the County’s Committee on repurposing the building, currently being lead by Commissioner Kurt Garner, will find a suitable third life for this historic building.
