Modern Rustic Homes

Michael Grant and David Grubb

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Home & Garden
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05/07/2024

The Spaces We Live In Part 2

Along the same lines is that, so people are in their homes; they’re remodeling; they’re trying to expand maybe into outdoor living spaces. How have policies in, zoning, affected, adding on new living spaces? That’s its own topic. And it’s a very significant one because that’s highly regulated by zoning practices. And that can be if you’re doing an addition to an existing home, or you’re trying to do something that’s referred to as an ADU, which is an auxiliary dwelling unit, which is typically detached. Those types of things are all highly regulated by our county or city zoning restrictions. So it’s not as easy as you might think. And I really want to defer that to another podcast, because it’s going to be a much greater discussion about what’s going on. And while we’re having issues with housing today that we are having, Well, a couple of other areas. You mentioned the ADUs, but also duplexes and apartments are also impacted by these policies. But as you said it’s an entirely different topic, I have a couple of exciting questions for future podcasts. So you know who could afford living space? We talked about having different rooms for our living spaces, but who can afford to have all those rooms? And what are some ideas or techniques to optimize our current living space? I really feel like we could spend an entire episode just talking about those flex rooms that you talked about, and how can we get the most out of our rooms. Michael Grant Well, I think your whole concept of the space being flexible is the way to do that. Something I’ve been doing with a little more frequency is what I call a pocket office. And that’s a very small office, it could be four feet by six feet. It could be a closet converted into, and I’m talking about a reach-in closet, not necessarily a walk-in closet, but it can be being converted into a workspace. So after you’ve done your work, you can simply close that door. And you have left your office for the day. But we need those types of spaces where we can lay things out and work, so we can close it up until we need to come back to it later. So we need to rethink how we’re using square footage, because we don’t need an 8 by 12, 8 by 10, 8 by 12 office, or 10 by 12 office. We don’t need a big desk and credenza, so many people work off their notebook computer. Most people are storing things in the cloud today so that they don’t even need storage for their paperwork. But it’s become an important aspect of how we’re going to live in our homes today because of the frequency in which we need to work from home. So we’ve created a small space for an office, you know, think about if you can’t go to a gym to do your workout, maybe all you’re getting is a yoga mat, and you’re laying down laying that out into the linear space to be able to, to do you, your yoga or your stretches or whatever it is that you’re doing to get some, some exercise in. But we have to think about it differently. We just cannot afford to build bigger and more elaborate homes. I think we have a lot to learn from the Japanese, who have been doing this for centuries. You know, they don’t have a room necessarily solely dedicated as a bedroom. They’ll take a living space. And at the end of the day, they will take out their sleeping pad and lay it out on the floor with their pillow and so forth. And that’s where they sleep and the next morning when they wake up, they fold it up, put it back into his closet. And that space is now converted into a living space. So we’ve got a lot to learn, and we’re going to have to be more mindful of that because building a home today has gotten too expensive. So you made me think about a few other things, one of the things we discussed, that’s a strong trend today is how we’re using finishes inside our houses. And again, as a consequence of the pandemic, people are much more concerned about hygienic surfaces. And we see this in bathrooms and kitchens. I think that’s one of the reasons why synthetic stone or quartz, as it’s often called, has become much more popular because it doesn’t have the absorption that you get in a natural stone like marble and even granite. So because of that, we’re not trapping germs in the stone. And you can have more dense material that does not allow the germs to stay in place, you can wipe it off easily. And you’ve got now a much more hygienic surface. And of course in this quest to stay healthy. We just simply need more vitamin D, so sunlight is the easiest form of vitamin D. So huge trend, more windows, more doors, glass doors that yield more sunlight in the house. A very, very specific trend. I think it’s also quite interesting what we’ve seen with color, and it’s kind of gone in opposite directions. We’re seeing a lot you know, there are 50 shades of white, the two shades of black, and somewhere in the middle of, there are 50 Shades of Grey. But we see a lot of very light surfaces and a hugely definitive trend right now where there are much more moody colors than there are darker. And you know, black is no longer Black is now black, blue is black, green is black, brown is it’s just morphed into a variety of different shades of black, I happen to like it, I think it’s very calming, you know, rooms that are very light and color are more excitable to me things are more lit up if you will. So it’s a definite direction and color that we’re seeing, we’re seeing it on the inside. And we’re seeing on the outside a big trend where we’re using a lot of very dark finishes on the outside of our homes. And I happen to like it. The ones I like most are where you’re seeing a combination of both texture and color intensity, you’ll see a house that literally has a shade of black as its siding material. But it will be complemented by a limestone wall that is very light in color. And there’s usually another third color added into that that sort of brings those two together and blends them somewhat. But this is an interesting trend that we’re seeing today. And again, I happen to like it a lot. David Grubb There’s so much here we could continue to talk about, and I wanted to just kind of reiterate some of the things that you said and also mentioned a couple of items that we’ve overlooked. Houseplants have become a big huge trend, along with air purification. Michael Grant Spot on about that, you’re exactly correct. And thank you for mentioning that because the huge botanical theme in your homes today is full of color. So botanical, nature’s favorite color is green. So we’re seeing a lot of shades of green. We’re also seeing it in wallpaper that has these really oversized, almost super graphic scaled wallpapers that add that botanical theme to it. I’m also seeing a mix of botanical and not just in a tropical kind of sense but also in things that look like the Black Forest in Germany, or you’re seeing like the bamboo forest in Asian countries. It just depends on what your particular like is. But botanical is a very strong theme, and thank you for bringing it up. David Grubb It really led us to air purification, which goes in even further, working backward. House plants become almost like pets, but you know they’re helping us with naturally providing us with oxygen, and they’re visually appealing, but also they’re purifying the air, but there are also things that we’re doing in construction. That helps increase the air quality like simple things like spray foam. Michael Grant Well, spray foam is a bit of a mixed bag because spray foam. What it’s doing is it is holding that conditioned air inside your house more effectively, than you would get with. With almost any other type of insulation, that spray foam is wonderful to help you reduce your energy costs. The bad news about spray foam is that it doesn’t allow any fresh air into the house. So you have to, you have to pump that in through an air intake that you would incorporate into your overall heating, air conditioning, and ventilation system. And that’s a good thing, then we can filter it. So we’re breathing better air. And so it’s a very definitive thing that we need to do, again, more and more. The pandemic was, again, a great example of us wanting to be sure what we’re breathing in an air filtration has become a hugely important thing to a lot of people as it should be. David Grubb So the spray foam it has, as opposed to fiber, it doesn’t have all those little fiber molecules that can get into the air and contaminate our breathing air. So like I said, as long as we’re circulating, it is a much tighter seal on the home. But really your home needs to breathe, like you said, you need to circulate that air. And then even to go as far as you know people having the… I don’t even know the right terminology for the infrared, or they have the scanners in the duct systems to be able to help kill things airborne, it can get very sophisticated. Michael Grant Well, it has gotten very sophisticated, and air filtration isn’t just some sort of synthetic mesh anymore. To your point, there is infrared light and other ways of capturing those dust molecules and minimizing those. So you are indeed breathing cleaner air. And to your point, the symbiotic relationship that we have with plants, we’re breathing in the oxygen, they’re breathing in the carbon dioxide. So life is good David Grubb So I’m going to bring all this full circle. One of the things that we spoke about in the very beginning of the podcast here was that one of the types of spaces that we have is personal spaces, private spaces, and all of these factors in the colors, the textures, the plants, the air quality, everything is moving towards us kind of distressing, if we

15 min
02/13/2024

The Spaces We Live In Part 1

Hi, welcome back. This is David Grubb and Michael Grant from Modern Rustic Homes. This is the Creating Shelter podcast. The last time we had an interview with Michael, we talked about the upcoming trends for building homes. And today, we’re going to dive a little deeper into home building and design. And we specifically want to talk about how people use space in their homes. I realized there are different categories of space, there are different areas, there’s entertainment areas, there’s personal and private storage, flex rooms, and outdoor space. So let’s just take a couple of minutes and talk about these different areas, and the home just real quick, so that we kind of have an overview of what we’re talking about today. Well firstly, David, thank you for this time together. Again, I have some, as you may recall, definitive ideas and thoughts about how we use our homes today. And to your point, we do kind of segment the spaces in our homes to be more purposeful, if you will. And a very good example, you mentioned flex spaces. That’s one that may have less definition too, because it is just that it’s much more flexible. It’s not like the private bedroom and bathroom, where we go to relax and unwind. But flex spaces are many things, there can be many things. And certainly, over the last several years, we’ve seen flex spaces That will function as a home office, but also function as a guest room. And in my case, that place where I place a lot of things that I don’t have anywhere else for it to go, but nonetheless it’s flexible. And that’s good and bad. Flex space is oftentimes when we’re using something as personal as a home office. Let’s say you have someone come to stay overnight. If you need to use that space for that purpose, then it becomes a little awkward because now you’ve got a space that has a lot of personal stuff in it. Your guests just may have things that are not needed to have in their sight line, I guess is how I say that. But flex spaces are very much needed because they serve more than one purpose. And the reality of that is it reduces your square footage in a house. So I think they’re important spaces nonetheless. And that kind of is a good segue into talking about those spaces that are very definitive. We’ve got our living or social spaces that we use for family gatherings as well as when we have friends over. And those spaces obviously are the kitchen, dining, and living room areas. And those have been the trend for a long time. They are open spaces where you can see the host and hostess can see their guest from one viewing area. They’re all in your sight line. And I think that’s what has made that open plan concept for planning as popular as it has. The other aspect of it, as it becomes one space, is that it has a variety of functions in it. And because we’ve removed the walls to make it an open-plan space, it feels bigger than it is. And I think that that’s an important way of keeping the home at a manageable square footage. So the social entertaining spaces encompass a lot of activity, but all with the same intention of sharing that interaction with our friends and family. So they’re very significant. I think another one that is keenly important, and for me more important every day, is storage spaces, and storage spaces, have become much more specific. I’m going to give you a great example, pantries. I think I’ve talked about this with you before, David, pantries have taken on a whole new meaning. When I grew up we had a very small pantry, and it was what we called the butler’s pantry, but in reality, it was my dad’s bar. But butler’s pantries were those spaces that were intended for your domestic help to go and prepare and plate your food or dinnerware and so forth, right there in a convenient location. Today they’ve grown into much more diverse spaces because now we use them for a secondary prep space, as well as for food storage, and as well as for small appliance storage. But you begin to think about the variety of small appliances we have in our homes today. As they just continued to grow, I remember when that coffee pot became a coffee maker, and it demanded its own space on the counter. More recently, we’ve seen air fryers, well, these things are huge. And that, you know, they take up a big space on the countertop. I personally don’t want to look at this stuff, I want it tucked away. But I still want it to be convenient for me to use. So pantries today now have more counter space that can function as a secondary prep space and cook space. It’s not unusual for the houses that we designed today to have an additional sink in that pantry, as well as an additional dishwasher. But nonetheless, these pantries are much more important in the way that we manage both food storage and the utility of secondary prep spaces. I personally think it’s a great idea. Let me talk to you a little more about how we relax in our home. It seems like every primary space in my home has a television, and it is fascinating. When I go to a certain television in the house, I’m going to go to one where I’m going to dial in the news. I’m going to go to another room where I want to relax after dinner, and we’re going to watch a movie. And then the one in the bedroom. It could be, you know, something that I’d much rather see. In terms of some of my hobby interests, I’m a bit of a car fanatic. So I love to watch car shows on the TV, in my home, in my bedroom, in my home. So televisions have just really lit up our individual rooms. And that’s good news and bad news. Because we are much less likely to get a rest when we have a television in our bedrooms. We’re constantly being distracted by it. And so I think that that’s something that we have to be very mindful of, does that answer your question? Oh, absolutely. So I’ll bring this back, I have had the pleasure of staying with some friends who have a hobby. And it’s, it’s, it’s a little different hobby, she actually spins wool, but she gets the wool from rabbits. So she has one of the bedrooms set up as the bunny room. And there’s a bed in the bunny room. So I got to sleep in the bunny room. Michael Grant I hope you don’t have allergies, David Grubb No, no allergies, but I thought it was kind of funny. So there are just a couple more questions as we roll through here. So, how do we live in our houses today? You talked about how we kind of brought pantries back, you know. And so, how do we live in our houses? And how do we live in them today? What are those driving factors that have influenced that? Well, we all have one that’s very recent and very obvious to us. And we went through that over the last four years when we experienced the pandemic. And this is when we were commanded to shelter in place. Interesting how they use words to convince you to do something against your will. So we sheltered in place. And as we did, a number of things happened. For those of us who needed to work out of our homes, we now needed to find a place that would provide us the quiet, the absence of distraction, and a place where we could spread out and do our work and not be interrupted. And many people did not have a home office. Often it was the dining table. And of course, that’s where a family is going to gather most frequently. So you had that distraction. But our homes changed in terms of how we lived in them because we now had to make our home our everything. It became our office, became our gymnasium, and became a movie theater. So there are a lot of different things that houses needed to do, that they didn’t have to do singularly before the pandemic. And to think about it now, if you’ve got a house for young children, you know, they certainly need their elbow room as well. So it became a bit of a conflict. So the housing sizes were beginning to trend down a little, a few years ago. But after the pandemic, those people who could afford it, we started seeing the house sizes increase, because now we did want those separate identified spaces so that we could shelter in place, do our work, get our exercise, enjoy entertainment, all those things under one roof. So I think it became a bit more complicated for many, many people, particularly people who do not have the privilege of having a larger home. And that was in that respect. The post The Spaces We Live In Part 1 first appeared on Modern Rustic Homes.

12 min
06/05/2023

Building Trends, Part 2

So I think we’ve moved on from talking about the culture to really talking about the lifestyle, and people are enjoying being outdoors more, so that’s what you’re talking about this glass and just feeling a little bit more connected to nature and the outdoors. What are some of the other aspects of the lifestyle that’s driving these trains today? What about – what about hospitality? I mean, that’s a huge trip, but that’s just been ongoing. I think how we express it is a bit different today. You know, there’s, there’s a very good reason why there’s somewhere around 135 cooking shows on television today; people are just hugely into cooking. But, of course, that’s the focal point of hospitality for most people. So, kitchens have become bigger, they’re more, they’re more thought out in terms of accommodating a variety of different functions. It’s no longer that magic triangle of, of kitchen sink, stove, and refrigerator. It’s just totally morphed into a much more inclusive kind of area. So you have pantries; pantries have become huge again. People are not just keeping a week or two’s worth of food in their pantries today; they’re, they’re going to the, the big warehouse stores like Sam’s, Costco, and others and buying in bulk, and what they need is a place to store food in bulk. So we’re seeing that with dry goods, and we’re seeing it also with frozen foods, so it’s very common today to see an additional refrigerator, or certainly a freezer, in the pantry as well as just storage with your dry goods. So, pantries are a big deal. Another aspect of pantries is being used as a second food prep area. So there’s, we’re seeing a lot of sinks in these pantries, we’re seeing a number of people are moving those, those small appliances into that pantry that they use infrequently, but they want to go ahead and have counter space for it, they want to be able to plug it in. So, you know, these air fryers, which is hugely popular now, a lot more slow cookers are being used to prepare meals. So you can, you can have a place for these appliances that’s not in the main kitchen, taking up counter space. So there’s a lot going on with that. It’s very interesting that you bring all that up because I just saw a television show the other day that, and it was saying how in the colonial days, there wasn’t actually a kitchen in the house. There was actually a separate building that they used, because we didn’t have stoves; they used wood to build fires, and they had to haul the water, so it was in a completely separate building. It’s kind of ironic that we’re, we’re almost like we’re training back to this – we have separate food prep periods we have separate. It’s interesting you mentioned the kitchens being separate, a separate building. I didn’t understand that until I went to Monticello to see Jefferson, down there in Virginia. That was, what impressed me about that was of course the purpose of the kitchen being separate, as a separate building, is because they had a tendency to catch on fire. So, in order not to burn down their main house, they would keep that building separate. But that’s where the expression keeping room came from. The keeping room, and you see that in a lot of home floor plans. And it’s just that small space that’s adjacent to the kitchen. In today’s houses, but, you know, hundreds of years ago, 300 years ago, and we were seeing keeping rooms in houses and it’s where they brought the food into the house to keep it warm before they served it, hence the expression keeping room. But today, my keeping room is where my wife and I will have our coffee in the morning and watch the news on television. So it’s part of the kitchen, but kind of set aside. We’ve talked about the aesthetics, culture, and lifestyle. What are some other parts of the functionality that’s driving these trends? How has function become a main contributing factor in today’s trends. Well we talked about function with, with the kitchen, and it’s sort of its companion room, the pantry. Just a little bit more about that. A pantry, a well outfitted pantry will also be used for, in terms of hospitality, that’s where you will stage your food as it’s being prepped; you can set it aside and then when it’s ready to be served, you bring it out and you serve it. If you’ve ever had a large gathering of people, that’s a great way to be able to, to keep your kitchen a little bit more organized. Because you do have those, those platters of food stored out of sight, so to speak, and you can bring them, bring them out as you are ready to serve them. And then you can also bring all the soul dishes into that as well. So, in addition to the sink in the pantry, we’re also seeing dishwashers. So, another way to do that. But, I think I mentioned pantry, pantries as being a very big deal. The other thing that we’re seeing as almost as often as a separate pantry, we’re distinguishing a food pantry, and a dish and small appliance pantry. That, you know, over the years, my wife and I have inherited our parents china, so we now have five sets of china in our house, and we needed a place to store it, but also a place where we can get to it conveniently. And that’s true for the platters that we use seasonally and other serving pieces that you want to organize, you want a place for everything, and you want everything in its place. And a well organized dish and small implies pantry is – that’s a wonderful way to do that. So pantry is again, huge comeback, we’ve seen a lot more large walk in pantries from people. That pantry is obviously adjacent to the kitchen, but it’s also convenient for… to where you bring your food and so forth into the house and the garage. So it’s between the garage of the main – and the main kitchen. We’ve talked about, as far as the functional aspect goes, we’ve talked about hobbies and family dynamics needing separate rooms, work, workouts, for health reasons, and we’ve even talked about hygienic surfaces, you moved into new materials. You mentioned aging, aging in place. Talk to us a little bit more about what how that? Well, that’s more of a functional trend. You know, as we think through the design of our houses today, the one thing that we’re all consistently doing is aging. And our mobility is – is hugely important to how we design a house and our ability to do just that: to age in place and not have to change our homes because of either age or incapacity. I mean, we’re all one intersection away from the necessity of rolling around. So, we need to think through how we lay out our homes to make that convenient. It’s easy to design in 36 inch wide door openings so that you’re meeting that ADA requirement to be able to navigate through your house, should you have to be in a wheelchair, so it doesn’t look clinical; it just- it just has a larger opening for your door. So, that’s an easy one, but it’s also easy to design a bathroom so that we can accommodate a wheelchair if we need to, to roll around our bathrooms as well, so that, you know, to design a 60 inch diameter turning area for a wheelchair, which is code compliant for ADA. Again, that’s easy to do. We can make our showers larger so again, those are more accommodating. Do the things like blocking in our wall, so we can now grab bars and, should we need to do that, but there’s a number of things we can do as we design a house, so that, should you have that need, you can adapt your house to that requirement. So I think, from a functional standpoint, that’s very much a trend. Ranch plans is another consequence of that; we’re seeing a resurgence in single level living, instead of the McMansion, which was pretty much I think the trend for McMansions, or multilevel houses, was a trend created to allow higher density within a development, you see the footprint. Say you have a 4000 square foot house, a pretty good size home, the main level may be 2000 square feet, so that leaves 2000 square feet more. So, you can push that all up another 2000 square feet up, or maybe you split it, where you got 12 or 1800. She said 1200 square feet down and maybe another 800 square feet up to make up that total square footage. But you have an overall smaller footprint to the house, it’s not as big – if we had 4000 square feet spread out over a ranch plan – that’s a big home; it takes up a lot of real estate. If it’s 4000 square feet shared on two, three or four levels, then you have a smaller footprint, you have a smaller foundation and you have a smaller roof area, so there’s some economy to that. But purely from a functional standpoint, single level plan is going to be much easier to navigate and get around. Back to the McMansion, the smaller footprint, huge trend towards residential elevators. They’re gonna run anywhere from maybe 23 to 28,000, depending on how you outfit it. So, what we do is, we will design the elevator shaft into the overall floorplan, so it’s already there, ready to be retrofitted with an elevator in the event that you need that to be able to live in your house. So, it’s an easy accommodation, it’s one that we want to use consistently. Remember designing the house and, until such point you need it, you can use it as a closet. It’s easy to do. So, I think elevators are another huge trend that we’re seeing. I’m gonna back up to what we talked about earlier, in terms of some of the trends as to lifestyle. You’re gonna see that also, with more attention being paid to outdoor living. We alluded to it a little bit, but outdoor living has become huge, particularly here in the southeast where we have good weather, we have four distinct seasons. I don’t particularly think summer or winter are severe, to the point where you’re just not going to have any opportun

24 min
06/05/2023

Building Trends, Part 1

Today, we’re talking about building trends. And Michael, you’re a leader in the modern rustic building style. So, what is going on with building trends today, and how have those trends impacted creating shelter? David, that’s a great question, and there’s kind of a number of facets to the answer. I really look at it as different trends. You have trends that are aesthetic, trends that are functional, trends that are somewhat culturally based, and then there are lifestyle trends, so it really kind of depends on somewhat what your interest is and what your circumstance is; but it’s sort of, it means different things to different people. But the easy one is an aesthetic trend, or the aesthetic trends that we deal with today. And that’s one that’s a bit more ever-changing, because we’re seeing trends for color, trends for style, whether it’s some sort of theme or an architectural style. But again, the aesthetic trends are the ones that we hear most about, and a good example of that is what we see annually with the major paint manufacturers coming out with their annual color-of-the-year trend, and that’s – that trend is somewhat based on other influences that are coming about with our homes today. But, again, that whole issue of trends is multifaceted, and will be – mean different things to different people, and their importance will like – equally be different for different people. But just in terms of aesthetic trends – I mentioned colors, the easy one – right, some things that I thought I would never see come back color wise, is pink. I never would have thought pink would become a major trend again, but it very much is. But like so many trends, it takes its own direction, and it has a little bit of a difference, if you will, pink is not pink anymore, just as white and black are not black or white anymore; there’s too many different variations of it. But that’s one that kind of surprised me. Green is another one. But what I’m seeing more are very rich, deep, colors now. So whether it’s a color that’s called black olive, or one of these more earthy colors of pink, there’s a variety of different shades of each of these colors that people are beginning to use more frequently. I think it’s kind of interesting when we – I remember very well in the 80s and even early 90s, when jewel toned colors were all the rage. That’s what everybody wanted. So you saw emerald green, you saw ruby reds, you saw turquoise blues, you saw deep amber, gold’s – just a variety of different jewel tones, and those all went away. And I think that there’s a reason for that, and I’ll talk about that a bit later. Aesthetically, another trend or somewhat – what I call theme trends, and the one that comes to mind is a botanical theme. We’re actually seeing this a bit more and more people, people that are using wallpapers that have these huge floral, or even just leaf patterns to it, but they’re oversized so that they – they dominate the room and the wall, and a project we recently completed; it was a – the theme of wallpaper they use were forest animals, so it had like a red fox and had raccoons in it. It was just very different and very playful, and a lot of fun to look at. And we’re seeing that also with birds – a lot of bird papers out there. And I think another wallpaper style that I’m seeing are some of the papers that were – we saw in the 30s and 40s, that were very craftsman in their pattern, so there’s some interesting aesthetic trends. And those again, as I said, those are the easy ones. And for the last several years, we’ve seen a huge trend towards gray, everything is gray. And that sort of morphed into more lighter finishes, where you’re seeing, certainly, 50 Shades of Grey but in a different way. But gray is, I think, really on its way out and you’re beginning to see more variations of white again. And then on the opposite side of that for high contrast, you’re seeing these, a lot of black – black as a neutral, or even some of these other very dark finishes, whether it’s a blue-black or green-black finish, but very much an aesthetic trend. Another one from a color and textural standpoint that I’ve seen a lot lately, is a finish called Shou Sugi Bon, which is, it is a burnt wood or charred wood finish that looks like an alligator hide on wood. It’s – it is the consequence of being burned. It’s originally from Japan, and they use it as a means of preserving wood to make it more durable. But we recently used it in a house where we – we actually paneled the fireplace with this product., and it was just a great look. We used it as an accent wall in the master bedroom and also as the material that we use to shroud the vent hood in the kitchen. So it’s a really cool finish, but very trendy. I think similarly, we’re seeing a lot more pattern in wood. A herringbone pattern is a good example of that. And in a wall surface, we did that recently in a kitchen as well. So it’s being used on floors, but it’s also being used as a paneling pattern. Along the same vein, color, not just in terms of paint, but the color of stains that we’re seeing on wood. For years, driftwood brown was the primary direction for a lot of stain colors. But that’s kind of morphed into driftwood brown. So, you’re seeing these very subtle colors being used that really give a nice quality to the overall wood finish. But it’s a more mellow finish; it’s not dark by any means. In terms of material, a very popular material trend right now is white, white oak, European wide oak flooring, and it can go towards a more pickled wood, more pickled white, or it can be more gray. Or also that – that sort of driftwood brown that I mentioned a moment ago. So color is the easy one of trends; you’re gonna see a lot of variation in that, but also variation in pattern whether it’s in paneling, flooring, or wallpaper, so you’ve got a lot of options. So as far as aesthetics goes, we’ve talked about color, did we – I’m not sure that we really covered that. We covered theme, and finishes, and our stains, which, I don’t think you really dug in there very deeply. But what I hear you say is like, the white pines you’re adding. So you can do that with stone – with stains, you can add just a fraction of color to that natural wood color to get that. Well, you mentioned white pine, we use white pine as frequently as we use white oak. White Pine has a beautiful grain pattern, a beautiful knot pattern. It accepts the stains very well. But for Florence, specifically white oak, in particular European white oak, is very popular right now, and I like that they’re lighter finishes because they don’t show dust on the floor like these darker finishes will. So there’s, there’s kind of a functional benefit to that as – as a theme. But you know, again, whether the theme is botanical, it can also be a sports theme. But there are many things that are stylistic like that, that people bring into their home, trend wise, and those are, for most, for all practical purposes, those are more temporal than some of the other trends are, in my opinion. So we just talked about the aesthetics, as the easy trend for creating shelter. Let’s talk about cultural. And, you know, and I’m curious now, how those aesthetics are kind of driven by culture and what’s happened since COVID, and, and pricing of living and everything that’s driving them together, and maybe even America’s culture is changing a little bit. So talk to us about culture. It- it’s a good point, and our culture is changing. In fact, you know, what I’m seeing is a little bit of a tribal attitude about culture, which is fine. I mean, we all have our origins, if you will; a good example of that, that I’ve, that I’ve seen, somewhat prevalent today with my clients, is people who are from India, and therefore they have some very strong cultural trends. Now, that’s also true for people who are Latin American, as well, but we see similar things within the Italian community or the Irish community or, for that matter, of the Appalachian Community, but it’s – it’s very much, the root of it is somewhat cultural. And I mentioned India; what I’m seeing there is how there are multi generational homesteaders, if you will, that you will have grandparents, parents and then their children under one roof, and that’s a very strong cultural influence that they have and how they choose to create shelter. I can also say that that’s true for the Hispanic community because it’s very important that they have all their family together, and that’s where you’ve heard the expression with some of the different types of housing today one, one expression is called the ‘casita’. The casita is just that little cottage that may or may not be a separate building from the main house, but it’s part of that, that shelter solution that they create for their, their grandparents, where they can have that private space; they’re still part of the family unit, but they still have some privacy. That’s kind of a good segue into talking about ADU’s, or which is an acronym for auxiliary dwelling units. Or for some, pool house. Iit could be a pool house, it could be the man cave, or the fem lounge; it could be the retreat for your college offspring, or when they want their privacy as well. It could be the office environment, that studio that you need, so that you can get out from under the main roofline of the house to have some quiet. So, there’s a lot going on with that, and those can be a little bit more functional in terms of the description. But I think just in terms of cultural trends, those are really mostly driven by, if you will, countries of origin. And if you’ve ever had any good Italian friends or Hispanic friends, they

20 min
05/30/2022

Important 5L’s Of Housing, Scary home prices For People

Below is a recap of a conversation dealing with the categories that determine the real cost for new construction of a home Welcome. I’m David Grubb and I have with me today, Michael Grant, our host. And today we are talking about housing and the 5L’s, lumber, labor, land, loans, and legislation. Michael, give us a little background…. why are you so passionate about housing? Why are you so passionate about housing? David, it’s good to see you again. And I’m glad to have this conversation. You know, my passion for housing goes way back to my childhood. My father was a homebuilder, literally, he’s the guy that swung the hammer and used the hand saw, this was decades before nail guns and cordless saws. Dad was also a splendid craftsman, and he loved doing it. As a boy, I immediately had a great appreciation for what he did. And in fact, he built the house my family lived in for better than 40 years. So, I got to see the results of his labor firsthand. And I’ve always appreciated we had that home to live in. But beyond that, I’ve always had a passion for the scale of housing, there’s a human scale that all housing has. There are many other influences that go into how the house is designed and ultimately built. It all relates to how we live and whether we’re living in a particular climate, or we have a particularly given lifestyle, whatever it is, your house ultimately ends up reflecting who you are. It’s something that has never left me, so I relate to housing quite well. At what age did you start helping your dad and what did that look like? When I was 5 years old my job would be to go to the job site with my dad and pick up the nails the carpenters had thrown down. I would organize them, put a rubber band around them and hand them to my dad so he had a fresh supply of nails to use as he was framing that next day. My reward was collecting the coke bottles and taking them to Piggly Wiggly for a two-cent deposit. So that’s how I got paid. Tell me more about the 5 L’s and how do they impact the cost of housing. Again, the five L’s are lumber, labor, land, legislation, and loans. The genesis of the five L’s came from an article I had read years ago, posted by the National Home Builders Association. At the time, they called it the three L’s, those were lumber, labor, and lots. It did not quite feel complete to me. As I started doing a bit more research at Google University and the College of YouTube, I began to see that a huge amount of the cost for a housing was legislation or the law, as it related to zoning restrictions, as well as the loans that we have for mortgage money. All of those things come together to determine what that cost of a house will be. Ultimately, what can you afford. It starts with the lot you have identified to build on. You must develop that lot to receive the house. As you think about it, you must bring in your infrastructure which is power, water, (whether it’s city water or well or community water in some fashion). You’ve got to have appropriate waste of management, either a septic tank or tap into the local sewer system. If you’re going to use other forms of energy like gas, should you not have natural gas routed to your property, then you must put it in a propane tank. And beyond that, you need connectivity, which is the internet service that we require today for how we function and how we live. These are some of the things that you do when you’re developing a lot to build on. What is happening to the cost of a lot? Good question. There are very few developed lots anywhere near any major city unless you’re going into a blighted area where you’re rehabbing or gentrifying property, and you already have a lot there. Chances are good that the utilities are already routed to it. But if it’s a blighted area that’s in transition, you may have to clean a lot of the existing house that was there, to begin with. So, there’s still added cost beyond the purchase price of the lot that the house is going to be built on. Realistically, because there are so few available lots, particularly in our major cities, you’re having to move further away from the city to buy the land and develop a lot. This is where area zoning becomes a huge issue. I’ll talk more about that later. But lot prices, particularly a lot that is convenient to the city have just continued to escalate in cost. I’ve seen it ratchet up 20-30 % annually in some areas. How has the cost of building materials impacted housing costs? What we’ve experienced as a consequence of COVID, in our country, has been significant. Several things happened right away. COVID had a huge impact on our culture. We were mandated “to shelter in place”. A great metaphor for being forced to stay in your homes. When that happened, when we had to stay home, we looked around and we began to take note of all those “honey do’s” that had been sitting there waiting for us to take care of for a very long time. You now had the time to get it done. You could not deny it any longer. So immediately, the big box building supplies stores were flooded with people wanting to go buy that pressure-treated material to fix their decks or the paint to repaint a room or whatever it was. I remember very well on a Saturday morning, going to my local big-box supply store to realize they were limiting the number of people that can go into the store at any one time (remember the 6 foot distance rule). I got there at about 8:30 in the morning and I stood in line with several dozen people who were equally irritated that we had to wait to go into the store to buy what we needed. The consequence of everybody wanting materials to complete those honey do’s at home saw prices skyrocket. Pressure-treated lumber was the first one I noticed, and it increased as much as 300% in a matter of several weeks. That was also true for dimensional lumber. And then, I saw painting materials, PVC pipe and connectors all became in short supply and the cost began to increase. I recall I needed a 90-degree elbow for a PVC pipe, and I went to three stores before I could even find it. So, it had a very, very real impact on the availability of building materials. And let’s make it a little bit more irritating. We experienced interruptions in the supply chain as the container ships were sitting out in a harbor somewhere waiting to get unloaded. Add to this the lack of workers at the various ports, it just became a huge issue. I saw shortages in aluminum, which meant I could not get window screens. Shortages of door hardware because they were in a container ship. Also, true for plumbing fixtures, windows, and doors. Building materials, I could get in six to eight weeks were now as much as 26 to 29 weeks. Appliances I could get in 10 days to two weeks were now six months. To add insult, supply availability has been exacerbated by what’s going on with the whole trucking industry and their inability to get products to us as quickly as we need them. Enter, American Ingenuity American ingenuity demands that you take what you have, and you get done what is needed with what you have. I’ve seen that many times as we have had to substitute one material for another, in order to complete our projects. Ultimately we got the look we were after, we just had to be flexible about it. Fortunately, our clients understood that it was not business as usual. What is going on with Labor? That’s a great question. We lost a lot of labor as a consequence of Covid, as people were now getting compensated for staying home in a way that was detrimental. A good percentage of our labor force just didn’t show up anymore. That had a huge impact on the skilled labor that we used. Today, we do not have enough labor for all the construction jobs available in the United States by a significant number. Over 500,000 construction workers are still needed in this country. One of the issues the Home Builders Association is working on is what can be done to improve labor for home construction? That’s a process of education and incentive. So where are the skilled subcontract contractors coming from? There are some serious things going on, and not in a good way. For everyone young person, and when I say young, somebody who’s in their early 20s, or better, who is looking at construction as their career path, shockingly, there are five men or women getting ready to retire. We’re about to lose a significant number of very well-trained, experienced construction workers, who are also mentors. I remember quite well when I was in high school, we were taught shop. We had training for those skills that were considered trades, and it wasn’t something that people looked at as a lesser than kind of a job. As school districts began to alter the courses that they were teaching at the junior high and high school level, there was less emphasis on the trades. But I’m seeing that come back a little bit. I know that our local high school has courses in carpentry, mechanics and other trades. How are the current zoning issues affecting housing? We already talked about buildable lots. We’re going to move on to the fourth one, which is legislation. At a builder’s meeting I learned one of the high school teachers actually left her position because she couldn’t find a house that she could afford. So back to legislation and how current zoning issues are affecting housing. That fourth L being legislation (you could also call it law), has impacted zoning restrictions significantly. When you have zoning that only allows single-family housing with a given minimum lot size and minimum square footage the result is that affordable housing is prohibitive. You can’t have the duplex, triplex, quad plex or apartment building that can take up less

36 min
03/17/2022

Welcome, why is creating shelter for housing an issue?

Michael Grant 0:00Who’s the villain in the homeowner’s story? Well, it’s many. The first one is the lack of affordable housing. Secondly, restrictive zoning prevents a variety of housing types. restored or just restrictive zoning. Okay, we talked about that. David Grubb 0:25Industry Professionals, no training. Michael Grant 0:28Well, that is a problem. Lack of, of construction labor, of lack of trained or quality construction labor, to say you got codes as it relates to land use, I’m not talking about that I’m talking about codes as it relates to building system fordable pricing, qualifying for a house loan qualification to be able to create a mortgage. Proximity to work is an issue. David Grubb 1:02Well, maybe the internet will take care of some of that, but Michael Grant 1:05Well, it has taken care of a good bit of it. Another problem that directly impacts. Homeownership is the inability to qualify for a loan. And when you have too many roadblocks, you can often give up so makes them feel frustrated, feel and defeated. That is totally unnecessary. The globalist movement to have everyone. There’s a global smoothing that says you will own nothing, and nothing and you will be happy. I think that’s b******t. Okay, the great wealth created in the United States was hugely the consequence of stability, stability within our family structure, and stability for our basic needs for shelter, food, and safety, those things. And that was, housing was a huge part of that story. That’s why when the GI bill was introduced to help these men and women returning from World War Two, to get into the housing that they could afford, was a huge benefit term to our overall GDP and financial growth of our country. There are lots of things that went on there. Those look at when it’s we started to see a decline. The decline started in the 60s when our federal policies and legislation began to destroy the family as a consequence of entitlement programs, when the father was was the family was incentivized for the father to leave shirt when a woman could make more money or get more money from the government because she didn’t have a man of the house. Therefore, he was not around. When I was with the big brother program, I had a little brother named Stevie, and Stevie’s mother Stevie’s dad was not present and his life for that reason they lived in government housing. And if she worked in an effort to better herself and her inner children, then her subsidies would be cut out. So when she what she did to work was under the table she did worse rest, waitress work, cleaning houses doing things that were she wasn’t reporting and taxes and also plan. And then Stevie had brothers and sisters with different dads. And so no man was a permanent fixture in his life. As far as the parchment involved with the big brother program. David Grubb 4:26One thing is the American dream, don’t have your own home. You know, so does that diminish the American Dream that future Americans may not be able to afford or get or have? Michael Grant 4:42Well, you’re, you either are an owner or you’re a renter. And when you are a renter, the benefit of that is the owner is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of that of your house and Unless, of course, you’re responsible for its destruction. And at that point, you know that the need can get yourself in trouble. But your landlord wants you there because he’s making money off of you. Now, if you buy your own house, and you pay for it in a timely fashion, and you’ve got it paid for now you have shelter, that you, you’ve eliminated the necessity of mortgage payments or rent. You still have your upkeep and maintenance and taxes and so forth. But you’re so much better off financially if you own your home, or homeownership is one of the tenants of the American dream. And absolutely, yes. David Grubb 5:45So is it the same as the real issue? core issue? Is it the ability to own a house? ability? Well, it’s Michael Grant 5:56no longer just that. It’s no longer just that because what’s happened in our country, and this is escalating, it’s not de-escalating, is adequate housing. And if you don’t think it’s an issue, you go to any major city and look at what’s going on. In some of the overpasses, where you have whole tent cities, under these overpasses was a very real issue. David Grubb 6:29So adequate, I mean, that word could mean many different things. And I guess to fully understand the scope of that word, Michael Grant 6:39let me make it pretty simple. It gets down to having shelter where you have heat in the winter, and cool in the summer, when you as you need it, you have adequate sanitation facilities, so that you can you yourself can be clean and you’re secure, you’re in a safe and secure shelter where you are not threatened by somebody invading your shelter? David Grubb 7:08Well, I kind of think it’s scalable as well. Because, you know, if you had a specific kind of job, would you need a different or if you had a larger family, but we looked at it from that direction, then you would need then your adequate changes, the requirements that for your home, is now different. So it may not be the same for every person. Michael Grant 7:29It will not be the same for everyone, but certainly a family where you’ve got. David Grubb 7:36But the underlying principles are still there. Right? Correct. Safety, security, sanitation, good sanitation, you know, space, you know, if you have a larger family, then you have enough adequate space, right, you know, for your shelter. So I think that’s a really good time to really kind of wrap-around what the root cause of what’s going on. Because, because it is scalable. And that’s kind of nice to be in. That’s kind of the issue. So in the opposite direction, if you’re single, if you’re a single person, how in the world you’re ever going to be able to afford something? That’s, that’s adequate. Right? Because now adequate is actually it’s priced so much far beyond this Michael Grant 8:21kind of a point-counterpoint to that, when and the how are you going to afford it, you can afford it because you’re not supporting a family. You can afford it because it’s just you and you can live in a 500 square feet of space, if that’s your comfort level and have the the the security and the safety and sanitation that you need to live it. David Grubb 8:47Right. So now we’re talking about the size of the shelter, right? Well, Michael Grant 8:51again, that’s your scalable issue, right? You know, if it should if you’re just one person, you can have something smaller, but if you’ve got four children, you obviously are going to need some additional bedrooms. David Grubb 9:01So if you’re single, then it’s over adequate. Michael Grant 9:05Well, you know, that’s, that’s 2000 David Grubb 9:07square foot home and that’s all that’s available, and you don’t need a 2000 square foot, then it’s over adequate. That is it’s not proceed because you can’t send adequate it’s, it’s inadequate, and it’s not in Michael Grant 9:21your words. It’s that’s good news. Good question that lets us what’s the word we want, when it’s excessive is the word it’s either adequate or sufficient? David Grubb 9:33Well, it becomes inadequate. It will become unaffordable. Michael Grant 9:38Well, it can depend on us and if that’s an income issue, but David Grubb 9:42what still qualifies is it be as being adequate or inadequate, right. So now, so yeah, will it fill your needs? Yes. Do you need that much space? No. Can you afford that much space? No. So maybe there’s another adjective to go with it. But I kind of feel like there’s no adequate shelter is is like the baseline? Michael Grant 10:09I thank you, if we, you know, that we ask the question, if you’re the listener, then you say, you know, you’ve got to have thought about what is the housing model that you wish to see that you see yourself in? Not just for yourself, but should you have a family? What is the housing model that is ideal for your family? And if not ideal, which is adequate for your family? Your son is ideal, but I mean, you know, what is your ideal can be many different things. Depends on your lifestyle considerations. You know, when I was single, and I lived in one half of a duplex, in Dallas, Texas, it had three bedrooms and two bathrooms and most living room and dining room kitchen. And it was more than I needed. But I lived in all of it. You know, I had one of the bedrooms was my office and the other bedroom was the guest room. But it was a very comfortable house. And it looked good, and you know, all that stuff. But when you know, and now when I got married, and I certainly plan to have a family, that I knew that I needed a different kind of house. David Grubb 11:35And your adequate housing should be available for all sides, families, and individuals. And we define adequate housing as having security and good sanitation. Michael Grant 11:46adequate housing should be the, you know, I’m careful the word should, but does that mean, just because you have 10 children, and you decided not to work that that the housing should be available to you? No, it doesn’t work that way. This is, you know, this is an issue of Are You Being responsible in your in the way that you’ve conducted your life to be able to have a home? Now, when you’ve been responsible, and the system is working against you, that’s a different issue. You know, that’s what we have going on today. You just a lot of people out there, like my daughter and her husband who make a six-figure income, and they can’t afford to buy a house. Yeah, that’s nuts. David Grubb 12:31Well, you know, maybe it’s ma

25 min

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