A while back, I recalled the importance of writing your name at the top or your paper   just like your second-grade teacher always nagged. My thought was, on your website and for that matter all of your communications, you should first of all make clear who you are and what point you’re trying to make. Don’t force your audience figure it out – because they may get instantly cranky and tune your message out. You really can’t blame them. Along the same lines, I lately recalled another instruction from the past: Show your work. Be complete. I wondered if educators still said that. An Internet search revealed some of them indeed do. I found the following at the Math Worksheet Center [with my annotations for remodelers in...

I had just awoken from a short night. Having flown in the night before to Salt Lake City to meet with my clients for a new home, my schedule was already busy early this morning with last minute binding of drawings and sketches. I was presenting my two-week’s intensive conceptual design work in less than an hour. While they are always prompt and I certainly try to be on every occasion, I had to call them to do the unthinkable: Postpone the first presentation. This is a scary moment for a designer. If late to the first meeting, they may have second thoughts about their decision to hire an out-of-state architect. Trust lost is the doom of any project. Sometimes you have to take risks. That was just the first one. I wasn’t just late...

When the weather warms up, people tend to think about building a patio or a deck. If one of your clients is thinking about adding some outdoor space to his or her home, make sure he or she understands what the project entails. The following are a few items I have my clients think about when discussing an outdoor space: 1. Development of an outdoor space is driven by the site. Explain to the homeowner what will need to be done depending on the site, whether it is flat or steeply graded, if there are rocks and gravel, if there is clay soil or fill dirt. 2. How the house sits on the site will also determine the design and placement of a patio or deck. For some homeowners, it makes sense to walk out of the lower level to a patio. Others...

It’s that time of year when a second gutter cleaning is almost always needed, especially with the new shedding of leaf debris from newly spring budding branches. Recent winter storms can also blow leaves, pine needles and roofing debris into gutters, causing potential rainwater overflow, which in turn can cause landscape erosion and water damage to homes. There are a variety of gutter cleaning tips that can bring sanity and safety into this tedious task. Some of the basics are listed below: Garden Hose Use a garden hose with a pistol-grip trigger spray nozzle. This style of spray nozzle comes with a pistol-grip trigger, allowing it to be easily hung over the front edge of the gutter while moving the ladder or while using a gutter...