Category: Lady Builder

Builder, Lady Builder

House design vs. Designing your home

All about Homes and Real Estate

DESIGNING A HOME FROM A FEMALE BUILDER’S PERSPECTIVE

Here are a few general questions to ask yourself before you meet with your builder or architect to design your home or add some custom features to an existing design.

1. What is beautiful to you?

Surrounding oneself with beautiful things means something different to each individual. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the saying goes. Consider what you will be looking at from your windows. Is a beautiful designed kitchen or patio space important to you? Is the look of the exterior important? What exterior and interior architectural design and accents do you like? Do you want something unique or more traditional?What about landscaping possibilities? The placement of the house will play a role in this.

2. What is important to you?…  Lifestyle considerations that address such things as work spaces, hobbies, pets and sports?… Do you work from home and need a quiet, large or small work space? Where will the sports equipment, tools and garden items be stored? Consider space and equipment if more than one person in the house cooks or bakes. Where do you really want your laundry room? How about two of them? What other convenience issues are there?… Traffic flow? Is low maintenance important? Environmental issues?… Lower utility bills?… Materials that don’t cause unhealthy air quality?

What do you dread about your present or past homes? Is it the long walk to get your garbage to the curb making it even longer because your kitchen is on the opposite side of the house from the curb?… especially when there is snow, sleet or rain? Is it the mud tracking through the house to the kitchen or powder room, not to mention what your powder room looks like afterwards? Is it Bilco doors, a space spiders love? People love them or hate them. The fold-down attic steps and getting boxes, or Christmas trees up there? The long walk from your car to your kitchen with groceries? Having your patio or deck where your neighbors watch your every move? No sun or no shade on your patio or deck? We have design solutions for these and more.

 

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Lady Builder

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH BEAUTIFUL THINGS, BUT….

All about Homes and Real Estate

I would add, AND THINK ON BEAUTIFUL THINGS. Make everything as pleasant as it can be, especially that which is unpleasant.

PLAN AND PREPARE

There is enough that comes at you that you don’t have control over. Don’t add your own stress to the mix. The best way I find to avoid extra stress and unpleasant situations is to plan and prepare when I can. My brother often says, “Plan, or others will plan for you”. That said, I plan flexibility into my schedule by penciling in raindates and alternate plans. This also helps in case I want to, or need to be spontaneous.

RELISH YOUR QUEST FOR LEARNING AND ADVENTURE

 

Builder, Lady Builder, Rotary Means Business

Lady Builder

All about Homes and Real Estate

It’s a mundane Monday for the lady builder. A lot of my work is office work, scheduling and troubleshooting. I’m a builder but I don’t sling a hammer very well. Being a builder, in my case means, getting things built. Most of the employees are sub-contractors.

MENTORING

I’d love to give the young people in town some tips on potential careers. I’ve started over 10 companies. Some have been sold, some dissolved when they were no longer needed, some are still active but none have filed for any type of bankruptsy or reorganization. I think I have a thing or two I could share about owning a business.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER – ROTARY

It’s a little lonely being a lady builder. I don’t actually have any close female friends that are builders, in the land development business or closely related businesses. I have some good female friends but they don’t share those interests. Last week I attended a group in Hillsdale, NJ. It was Rotary Means Business. One need not be a Rotarian to attend. The speaker was a CPA from a large firm and was very informative. She offered that we contact her with any questions. I did so a couple of days later and she gladly answered my questions. I got to talk quite a bit to the woman sitting next to me. She is the director of See the Light counseling center. Although this is not a business  related to mine, it was nice to get to know another business woman. I felt at home, with friendly colleagues. I hope to get to speak with the man who owns a marketing firm on February 22, the next meeting. If you are a business owner or  manager in a firm, I would recommend that you check this group out. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

 

Consultant, land development and building, Lady Builder, New Interests

The Journey Begins

All about Homes and Real Estate
  • Thanks for joining me! I’m realizing that we are perhaps not typical as builders. My whole family loves to interact with our customers. We want do what we can to make them happy. I’m told that this is not the smartest way to do things. We only hire Realtors that are willing to bring the customer to us. So far, it has worked out well and many times, what was keeping the customer from deciding, was an easy fix for us. There are things we can do that the Realtor may not be aware of and if we waited a few days until we got and answered the questions through the realtor, our customer would be off looking at something else already.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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