Modern Rustic Homes

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 have a distressing area, we’re more relaxed in our home, we’re more comfortable. Michael Grant Well, hopefully you do have a space that allows that. We’ve talked about this before, where you can blend that indoor and outdoor interaction, which I think is one of the driving forces with the larger door openings that are very prevalent today.  People want screens on their windows so they can open the windows and get more fresh air. Of course, in the South and in the summer and in the springtime, you don’t want to do that. But to your point, you know, we need to do those things in our homes that are going to allow us to distress and a good segue into our next podcast as well. It is what I call minimalism. I don’t just call it what many people do. But what can we do as to how we fill up our homes to make these homes more comfortable, and less stressful? And David again, I want to talk about that on another podcast because I think it’s a lesson that we all need to learn. So on that note, thank you very much. David Grubb Well, thank you, Michael. And, again, this has been a modern rustic home podcast about creating shelter with Michael Grant and myself David Grubb, thank you for listening! The post The Spaces We Live In Part 2 [https://modernrustichomes.com/whats-new/the-spaces-we-live-in-part-2/] first appeared on Modern Rustic Homes [https://modernrustichomes.com].

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 [https://modernrustichomes.com/whats-new/the-spaces-we-live-in-part-1/] first appeared on Modern Rustic Homes [https://modernrustichomes.com].

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 opportunity during those, those, those different seasons to go outdoors, but we do a lot of outdoor fireplaces, outdoor kitchens have become a very big trend. That, what we were talking about earlier with larger doors that open, provide you larger openings. We recently installed a folding door in a house that gave you an opening that was 20 feet wide and 10 feet tall. That’s a huge opening. But the product is readily available and the client wanted it and what they do, what the result of that was, you have that blending of indoor and outdoor. And you may know this, but the Japanese called that the engawa. That’s where, that’s that transition from inside to outside. It’s, it’s very purposeful, but it makes that, gives you that opportunity for that, that marriage of and indoor outdoor living which I think is really a wonderful way to do it. We’ve talked about the four different aspects, you know, the aesthetic, cultural, lifestyle and functional all of these things that are driving the trends for creating shelter? What is the lasting impact that these trends will have on creating shelter? That’s a good question. And I think that’s, that really depends on the actual, individual consumer. I think some of these trends, particularly what we’ve learned over the last three years, as a result of the pandemic, we’ve learned we have to be prepared. And the necessity of having to stay in your homes, you’re going to need that home to be much more multifunctional than it has ever been. We talked about working from home; now these are not, none of this is new, but the pandemic gave it a much greater emphasis, if you will, where we recognize the need for these things. I think multi story houses make that a little bit easier, give you some separation, when you need to be able to work from home without interruption. Or your, your teenage kids can go down to the game room and hang out there, give you the privacy that you need. I think the, some of the other things that we’re dealing with in our culture today; we’re seeing shortages of things that we haven’t experienced in decades. A very good example of that as some of the things that we’re beginning to see, that are difficult to buy. Some of the food items that are just no longer as plentiful as they used to be, so people are beginning to hoard food items, grains and other things that they, that have a long shelf life, but they want them nonetheless – all that requires space, you got to plan for it. So, that’s another significant trend, in my, in my estimation.  Something that, you know, we’re seeing people that have more blended cultures. And that’s just the nature of our country, really, we’re very much a melting pot of people still, but you will have families, and I’ve met a couple recently or the husband was Muslim, the wife was Catholic, and that was very much a blended culture in that household. And, and they, they had some very specific needs as a consequence of their faith. So I think that that’s something that, as we become more accepting and appreciative of different faiths, different cultures in our country, we’re gonna see a little bit more of that.  I think you need to think of your home as your universe. And you really do, it’s got to be able to accommodate who you are and how you choose to live. We didn’t talk about hobbies or sports to any extent, but I had a very good dose of that over the weekend, when we watched football, we were watching some playoffs and it was all about the football that weekend. Well, in this case, it was football. But, we were seeing Washington playoff games, and it dominated the conversation and, as it should, that’s perfectly fine, but for the sports enthusiast, you know, their, their aesthetic may just be their favorite game. I have a great client who’s hugely into the Vikings, so that room was dedicated to purple and Viking memorabilia. It was just fun to be there. But that’s the, these are things that are just a personal choice, perhaps more than more than trends. Those interests that we have, whether it’s sports, or it’s a hobby; we want to accommodate them in our houses, and it’s easier to do today than it’s ever been. So, we’ve got a lot of things that we need to consider when we start looking at the trends that are impacting how we live. I mentioned earlier that the aesthetic trends are the ones that are a bit easier. It’s easy to paint a wall, certainly easier to paint a wall than to add on a room, but I think the ones that people are really going to pay attention to more are trends for lifestyle our and how, how we have to function in our homes. And I think the past three years have given us a good dose of that. It does become more and more important. But this is part of what we do is we create shelter; we have to think about these things and look at how we can take care of our families. I have personally experienced many of the things that you’ve talked about today. I just recently had some medical issues my house was not ready for; we had to take the door off the bathroom to get the wheelchair in. The bathroom wasn’t ready, you know, as far as the rails and other things, and there was so many parts that was extremely frustrating when you’re relatively healthy, and then all of a sudden, you can’t maneuver around your home. And there was definitely a negative impact on the functionality of my home. But also something positive that my wife has picked up on, is that, you know, she’s learned that you got to have so many plants per square feet, make your home healthier, which is probably possible to meet those requirements. But, but plants are something that helps keep the air clean, you know, so these are the things that are, directly impacted me. And I want to know, have any of these things personally happened to you? And who else do you think that this is impacting? Well, since you mentioned how you were inconvenienced with your, with your ailment recently, you know, five years ago, I had a terrible accident. And I had no use of my hands with my arms. And I live in a three story house; I have had trouble navigating all three floors of that house. And so that was a very humbling experience, and it also made me really think, from a very personal standpoint, what do we have to do here? And then my wife and I discussed, what do we have to do if one of us were really immobilized permanently? Thank goodness, I had a very caring wife and daughter, that, to help me get through that, but it was an eye opener for me. So, I think we do have to be much more intentional about how we design our homes, and just give them that flexibility to be accommodating. And you know, we each have had aging parents that needed that little bit of care. So we need to think through that as well; that’s certainly part of that multi generational concern that we have as, as we live in our house is very, very real, and I think it’s becoming more so in today’s culture, as well. I think some of the things that we’re having to deal with, and we’ll talk about this in another podcast, but it’s really about the impact that we have in our communities as created by restrictions, building restrictions, and how that’s impacted the types of homes that we’re building, the density of housing, and all of that relates to the cost of housing. So that’s a great segue into talking about that in another podcast. Okay. So David, thank you very much. Well, thank you, Michael. You’ve been listening to Michael Grant from Modern Rustic Homes. And myself, I am the owner of Shepherds Loft. We are the host of creating shelter, and how it shapes, defines, and inspires us. If you’ve been personally impacted by any of these trends, please let us know in the comments below. Be sure to follow us and add us to your podcast. You can listen more on the Apple podcast and Spotify. So, we look forward to your comments and we’ll join you next time. Thank you. The post Building Trends, Part 2 [https://modernrustichomes.com/whats-new/building-trends-part-2/] first appeared on Modern Rustic Homes [https://modernrustichomes.com].

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 hold on to those, those – that culture very tightly, as they should. So you’ve got – you’ve got that influence, and you see it both in how they live and how they accommodate the family at large. How is the, again from the COVID, how has the sheltering in place influenced today’s trends? The whole – the COVID and Pandemic experienced that we had had a huge impact on trends. And that’s kind of again, that’s, that’s got a lot of different aspects to it.  I think the first trend that kind of comes to mind about the, the impact of the pandemic was what it did to the reality of us all being under one roof at one time, not just at one time for a long period of time. And for those families where you had one or two of the, mom and dad, having to office at home, as they sheltered in place, they needed quiet, or they needed some isolation, to be able to do their job function. And that’s not always readily available; if you don’t have a dedicated office space, then maybe they had to set up a corner of their, of their bedroom for that purpose, or they sat at the dining room table. But as, but as a trend, it made that separation a little bit more important. So home became office, home also became your gym, so that’s where you worked out, or home became your movie theater, that’s where you would watch a video.  In addition to the other aspects of normal living in your house, for, there was a period of time when the square footage of our houses and in the United States was beginning to ratchet down slowly. But nonetheless, homes were getting a little smaller. Well, the pandemic totally reversed that – people now wanted those dedicated rooms to be able to office in or to watch a movie or exercise in addition to those spaces where we would gather as a family, of course, traditionally kitchen, and dining or living room.  You know, we started seeing people who had one thing called a hobby room. You know, sometimes the hobby room in many of these spaces become multifunctional because they had to; you couldn’t just throw on another wing of your house to accommodate all these different purposes, but I think the pandemic has had a lot of impact on how we size our house, how we lay our houses out, design wise, what the room adjacencies are. And particularly with everybody being under one roof for long periods of time, we needed to create some degree of separation so that we could get our work done without interruption.  I think there’s another aspect to the pandemic that has really surfaced, and that has to do with hygiene. We’re really looking for surfaces that are more hygienic. All the, the natural stones were granite and marble that we’ve been using for our countertops, a lot of that lost favor because the more absorption, they, they absorb and hold germs unlike some of the synthetic stones, that quartz product that we see out there today, which is much more of a denser, man made stone material and therefore is – it doesn’t hold germs like these other natural products do. So that made the man made finishes more hygienic, and people want more of that.  I think there’s another aspect to it also, the terms of this from a health standpoint was the need for natural light. You know, sunshine is our vitamin D, it’s our natural vitamin D, and people are – all of my clients are wanting more natural sunlight in their houses. So that means bigger expanses of glass. So we’re doing larger doors – that’s another huge trend, is to have larger doors going out onto the outdoor areas so the doors can be folding. They can be sliding pocketing doors, but just larger overall and the amount of glass that you have in that door product, and that’s true of course also for windows, but a lot more glass in the house to let in more natural sunlight. The post Building Trends, Part 1 [https://modernrustichomes.com/whats-new/building-trends-part-1/] first appeared on Modern Rustic Homes [https://modernrustichomes.com].

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

Welcome to the creating shelter Podcast. 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, with Michael, to give you a little background. Why are you so passionate about housing? WHY ARE YOU SO PASSIONATE ABOUT HOUSING? Michael Grant 0:16 Well, first of all, 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, but he was also just a splendid craftsman, and he loved doing it. And I immediately had a great appreciation for what he did. And in fact, he built a house for my mother, which 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 that, that we had that home to live in and the fact that my dad was involved in building. But beyond that, I’ve always had a passion for the scale of housing, there’s a human scale that all housing has. And it reflects many ways how we live, there are a lot of other influences that go into how the house is designed and ultimately built. But it just relates to how we live and whether we’re living in a particular climate, or we have a particularly given lifestyle, whatever it is that your house ultimately ends up reflecting who you are. And I’ve always appreciated that. And it’s something that has never left me, so I relate to that scale of housing quite well. AT WHAT AGE DID YOU START HELPING YOUR DAD AND WHAT DID THAT LOOK LIKE? David Grubb 1:40 You told the story before about how you’d go around and pick up the nails. So you started at a young age actually helping your dad? Michael Grant 1:49 Yes, I was 5 years old and my job on a late afternoon is I would go to the job site when my dad and I would pick up the nails the other carpenters had thrown down. And I’d organize them put a rubber band around them and hand them to my dad. So he had a fresh supply of nails for him to use as he was framing that next day. And my reward for it was collecting the coke bottles and taking them to Piggly Wiggly and turning them in for that two-cent deposit. So that’s how I got paid. David Grubb 2:26 Good. So you’re both an entrepreneur and a helper at a young age. Michael Grant 2:31 And that has not escaped me over the years. WHAT ARE THE 5 L’S AND HOW DO PEOPLE PERCEIVE THEM? David Grubb 2:35 So you recently talked at a builder Association meeting about the five L’s. And, you know, let’s just share with our audience real quick what those are. So those are lumber, labor, lots of legislation, and loans. And but kind of tell us how that meeting went? And how that was received? Michael Grant 2:58 Well, I think, first of all, I think as I presented it to the builder Association, and it wasn’t just the builders, it was a lot of our associate members, people who are in the business of supplying either materials or services to the construction industries. So that they had ownership and the five L’s as well. And I kind of the five bills was really kind of the genesis, the genesis of the five L’s came from an article I had read a couple of years ago, put out by the National Home Builders Association. And at the time, they called it the three L’s, and those were lumber, labor, and lots and it did not quite feel complete to me. And as I started doing a bit more of my research on the University of YouTube, I began to see that there was a huge amount of this that was legislation or the law, as it relates to zoning and zoning restrictions that impacted the cost of homes, as well as what we’re paying for money, the loans that we have our mortgage money, all of those things come together to determine what that cost of a house will be. Ultimately, what you can afford. So that was, again, the genesis of the five Hills came from that article from the Home Builders Association. And I just extrapolated on it. But it really starts with if you will, a little bit out of your order starts with a lot. You know, once we’ve identified a lot to build on. That’s the work is just beginning because we now have to develop that lot to receive the house and if you think about it, you got to bring in your infrastructure which is going to be your power, water, whether it’s city water or well or community water in some fashion. You’ve got to have an appropriate way of management. So you got to either put in a septic tank or tap into the local, sewer, local sewer system. But all those things have an impact on your cost. If you’re going to use other forms of energy like gas, if you don’t have natural gas routed to your property, then you have to put it in a propane tank. And beyond that, you need the ability to, you need the ability for connectivity, which is Wi-Fi in all the means that we require today for how we function and how we live. So the ability to provide the infrastructure to this property. This is the start of the cost of these houses and is pretty significant. If we’re doing well today, it can be easily anywhere between eight and $12,000. I tell people if you’re going to dig a good plan on that kind of expenditure, and after that, I encourage you to pray and light some candles. And hopefully, you’ll come in under budget on that on that. Well, nonetheless, those are some of the things that you have to do when you’re developing a lot. And that is the start of your cost for your housing. SO WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE COST OF A PROPERTY? David Grubb 6:16 So what is happening to the cost of a property? Michael Grant 6:20 Well, 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, and 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 there still added cost beyond the purchase price of the land that the house is going to be built on. But 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 developed a lot. And this is where area zoning becomes a huge issue. And I’ll talk more about that later. But land prices, particularly land 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. And again, that’s regionally based on where you’re living, how much that price increases, affected. HOW HAS THE COST OF BUILDING MATERIALS IMPACTED OUR HOUSING COSTS? David Grubb 7:46 Let’s go back and talk about the first point that the lumber how as the cost of building materials impacted our housing costs? Michael Grant 7:57 Well, what we’ve experienced since the introduction of COVID, in our country, has been significant. A number of things happened right away, once COVID had the impact on our culture as it did. And we were mandated now to shelter in place. A great acronym for or metaphor for being forced to stay in your homes. And when that happened, when we had to stay home, we looked around and we actually began to take note of all those honey dues that had been sitting there waiting for us to take care of for a very long time. You now had the time and the wherewithal to get it done. And you cannot deny it any longer. So immediately, the big box stores for building supplies were just 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. The big-box stores had tremendous business and I remember very well on a Saturday morning, going to my local supply, big-box supply store and guess what they were limiting the number of people that can go into the store at any one time. So I got there at about 830 in the morning and I stood in line with about a good 100 plus additional people who were rather irritated that we had to stand in line to go into the store to buy what we needed. But that was the reality of it. The consequence of everybody wanting materials to complete those honey do’s at home as prices started to skyrocket. pressure-treated lumber was the first one I know sawdust, and it increased as much as 300% in a matter of several weeks. That was also true for the other dimensional lumber. And then, as I mentioned earlier, your paint materials, and all the supplies necessary for that PVC pipe and PVC, pipe, fasteners, and fittings, all of those things began to become in short supply and the cost began to increase. I remember I needed a 90-degree elbow for a PVC pipe, and I went to three stores before I can even find it. So it was a very, very real impact on the availability of building materials. And let’s make it a little bit more irritating. The supply chain continued to be impacted by these by both the demand and now the interruption in the supply chain that we experienced as our container ships were sitting out in a harbor somewhere waiting to get unloaded. And that was impacted by many things that are impacted by the lack of drivers to process it, lack of workers at the various ports, and so forth, it just became a huge issue. I’ve seen shortages in aluminum, which meant I could not get window screens, shortages, and door hardware because they were in a container ship also very true for plumbing fixtures, windows, and doors. And I could get in six to eight weeks was now as much as 26 to 29 weeks appliances that I could get in 10 days to two weeks. We’re now six months and even today, some two years well into this pandemic. It’s as much as 12 months. So we the supply, supply chain issues have not gone away, I think they’re going to be with us for a good bit longer. And again, of course, that’s 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 David Grubb 12:28 So we had, so we had COVID happened. And then somewhere in the middle of that or that winter. You know, Texas gets hit with this freak storm. And just compounded the whole situation with certain materials, like getting glues for things. And so I know that there was another impact there. So and I’m sure that all of our listeners have their own Michael Grant 12:54 story. They’ve got their own stories about this David Grubb 12:57 And we would love to hear about those you can put those in the comments down below. But I want to share one of my little stories for myself, I have two boys, and the youngest, James was 11 at the time. And so there we weren’t, we were stuck at home. And our back deck was overshadowed by this hickory tree. And I’ve been dreaming about just having more sunlight on that deck on the back. And so the bright idea was that we went to cut down the secret tree with a hatchet because I didn’t have a chainsaw at the time. And so the secretory was a good 11 or 12 inches, and it was no more it was less than 10 feet from the back deck. And I started chopping on that thing. And it took hours. It took a long time to chop down a 12-inch chicken tree with a hatchet. But my youngest son James saw what was going on with him. And he was like, Dad, I really want to chop down this tree. And I had notched it really well. So I was like, okay, James, you get over here and you just chop on this other side. You know, and I was like when it starts to creep and fall you just run the other way. And sure enough, he did. And there was he was at it for 1015 minutes. And that tree was just started beginning to fall. And then before it started to fall and I asked him I was like, I was like, Do you want some help? He’s like, No, I got it. He whacked on that tree. Until it toppled over and he ran in the other direction. He was so excited. But you know, so lack of money, lack of supply, lack of everything. We were still able to make an improvement and have more sunlight on our back deck. But I just wanted to share that. Michael Grant 14:41 he was saying that’s a great example of what I call American ingenuity. You know, you take what you have, and you get done what you need to get done with what you have. And I’ve seen that many many times as we have had to recognize when we needed to subsist on one material for another, in order to complete one of our projects. I would go to my suppliers and say, do you have this in stock? Whether it was a staggered shake panel that we use a lot, oftentimes on our gabled ends in our houses, or do you have it in a straight pattern, and whatever they had insufficient quantity is what we used. When we got ultimately, got the look we were after, we had to be flexible about it. And I think that that, you know, that’s our clients have also been very understanding about that they realized that it’s not business as usual. So we, we look at, what do we need to do to get it done? HOW HAS COVID IMPACTED LABOR AVAILABILITY? David Grubb 15:44 chopping down that tree was so labor-intensive? I mean, we’re talking about maybe a 10-minute job with a chainsaw. That took four hours with a little smile hatchet. So, you know, and I just want to bring that back up to, to, to kind of transition into the next one, which is, which is labor? I mean, it’s it, we spent so much time doing that one little thing, but you know, we had more time because we weren’t driving around all over the place. We were at home all day, every day. But how has COVID impacted labor availability? Michael Grant 16:21 That’s a great question. And it’s been significant that, with amusement, our governor, Governor Kemp declared the building industry as an essential business, which meant that we could continue to work, we did not have to stay home, like so many others, we had a significant impact in our economy, and the governor felt like that we were essential to, to our economy in the state of Georgia. Interestingly enough, he also gave a central business classification, also to professional wrestling, and strip clubs. So I, you know, it kind of had the impact of taking my ego down a notch or two, because I couldn’t differentiate from them or you were, you know, we were essential in some way to some people. So, labor has been hugely impacted by it, then a couple of other things that influence that when the stimulus checks went out, people weren’t stimulated to do anything other than staying home. So we lost a lot of labor, and people were now getting compensated for staying home in a way that was detrimental. So we saw a good percentage of our labor force just didn’t show up anymore. So that had a huge impact on the skilled labor that we used or even the semi-skilled labor that we use. And that’s still a challenge today, we do not have enough labor for all the construction jobs that are available in the United States. And that is by a significant number. I’m going to, I’m going to throw a number out, over 500,000 construction workers are still needed in this country. So you know, that’s one of the issues that we bring up to the Home Builders Association is what can we do to improve the labor market available for home construction? So that’s, that’s a process of education and incentive. SO WHERE ARE THE SKILLED SUBCONTRACT CONTRACTORS COMING FROM? David Grubb 18:29 So where are the skilled subcontract contractors coming from? I mean, other than Are we just stuck with? They’re just not available? Or Is anybody stepping up? Is any group of people fulfilling that? Michael Grant 18:42 Well, 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 looks at construction as their career path. Shockingly, there are five men or women who are in their senior years getting ready to retire for every one new person coming into the construction industry. So we’re about to lose in this country, a significant number of very well-trained, experienced construction people, for everyone who’s younger, just coming into the industry to learn the ropes of it. So that’s a very serious thing. I remember quite well when I was a teenager and in high school where we were taught shop, we had those those those 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. It was a very important job to have and if you had those skills, is a very satisfying job. And of course, some of that went away. With as various school districts and budgets 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 and local schools school system are supporting that type of training at the high school level these days, and I’m really glad to see it. SO HOW ARE THE CURRENT ZONING ISSUES AFFECTING HOUSING? David Grubb 20:24 Well, we already talked about a lot. So we’re going to skip on to the fourth one, which is legislation. And there’s, you know, there’s this comment that, that we heard at that, at that builder’s meeting that one of the teachers in our local high school actually left her position at the high school to go because she couldn’t find a place that she could afford to live here. So back to legislation. So how are the current zoning issues affecting housing? Michael Grant 21:00 That fourth L if you will, of legislation is also you could also call it law, how the laws of the county or the city have impacted zoning within your area. Either make a house affordable or not affordable when you have zoning that only allows single-family housing with a given minimum lot size and minimum square footage for the new house construction. It begins to limit what can be built on that lot. And when it’s single-family housing. You can’t you don’t have the privilege of density. You can’t have the duplex triplex quad Plex or apartment building that can take up less actual land and house more people. So zoning restrictions have had a huge impact on the ability of somebody who needs affordable or available housing within close reach to their jobs. And to your point, I’ve heard that same story about the school teacher, that could not keep their job because they cannot find adequate housing in the area that they were teaching, so they had to leave. And I’ve also heard that other first responders are some of the people in enforcement as well as the private apartments and so forth. These are not high-paying jobs, and they simply cannot afford the mean price of a house today, in some of the readings that I’ve done recently, the average house cost in the United States last month was $417,000. That’s a high dollar for people who are working in a job where they’re making 3040 $50,000 a year they cannot afford to buy a house. David Grubb 22:57 It seems astronomical to me and I feel very fortunate that I even am buying a home in because I started 15 years ago, but I certainly don’t feel like I would be able to afford or buy a home at this point. With the cost is so high. Michael Grant 23:18 Well, let me see there’s an interesting trend if you will, that’s happened. If you looked at the number of houses that were built, even 10 years ago, probably not probably the statistics say that about 40% of those houses were, well what we call starter homes. That’s your entry-level home. They were smaller, they were on smaller lots and but they were affordable. And young families were able to buy these homes and begin to build wealth as a consequence of owning that house and building equity in their house instead of just paying rent. Interestingly, today of all the new housing starts, only 7% are starter homes. So that there they are excluding a huge demographic, from even the opportunity to buy a home because those lower-cost homes are not available. And particularly in the city. what it costs to buy a home inside the city, particularly when you’re looking closer to any successful business district has just become prohibitive. Even when you’re looking at high-density circumstances where you may be going into a condominium building or even an apartment complex in the city. The rents for these things are extremely high, and the mortgage cost of these homes is extremely high. So they’ve somewhat become prohibitive. I had the opportunity to be here I’m looking at the master plan from one of the wealthiest areas in North Georgia. And I asked the mayor, where was the workforce housing? And he told me it was in Gwinnett County, which was a good 30-minute drive away. And I said, Why is that he said, the two reasons, the citizens don’t want it, and the builders don’t want to build it, they can, through the same effort. They can make more money by building more high-end luxury homes. So it’s a very interesting consequence that we’re having to deal with, as we look at what we consider available, affordable housing today. SO WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED INTEREST RATES? David Grubb 25:47 So what are the consequences of increased interest rates? And yet, we’re talking about the fifth l loans now, and you’ve already kind of led into that with new affordable, which, you know, you several words, they are together affordable, available? Adequate, you know, because it’s I think there’s a lot of misnomers comes around the word affordable. And you can talk about that, as well as what is happening to the interest rates. Michael Grant 26:16 Well, again, when I go back to that article I read a couple of years ago about the three l’s and I expanded it to five loans is number five. And we’re seeing it now working against the homebuyer, as we’ve watched, interest rates ratchet up for a good while, for several years, we had very low mortgage interest rates. And unfortunately, in the last 12 months, we’re beginning to see these interest rates ratcheted up, I’d expect it to do that four times in the next 12 months, which essentially, is just further increasing the cost of homeownership because you haven’t, you’re having to pay a higher percentage rate for your mortgage money, which increases the cost of the mortgage loan or the monthly payment. So again, it’s just hurting that, particularly that entry-level buyer, or better yet, it’s hurting a senior who is now needing to downsize. And they could have sold the home they were in for 30 years that may have been paid off. But they’re recognizing the cost of a single-level house, a smaller, but the single-level house may be as much or more than what they originally paid for a house that was three times that’s that size. So it’s not a loan, the luck cost of loan money is it’s just adding insult to injury as it relates to the overall cost of the house. WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS FOR PEOPLE IMPACTED BY HOUSING PROBLEMS? David Grubb 27:55 We’ve talked about the five L’s and kind of where we are now, what is the future? How are people that are impacted by housing now? What are they going to do? What are the possible solutions for them? That’s that’s available? Michael Grant 28:14 That’s not an easy answer when we’ve made efforts in the past, and this happened to me personally, several months ago, as I tried to develop a property to put 188 workforce apartments on it, where the entire master plan was done so that we could have good looking comfortable workforce housing at an affordable rate for people to live in. Regrettably, the city council turned it down. There’s this not in my neighborhood mentality. People don’t want it close to them. And I think that’s very selfish and very short-sighted. The people that would occupy those apartments, were the very people that were first responders, people in foodservice people who were working in retail, those jobs that people need as you go out into the community for services and in for a meal and so forth. So I was really disappointed that they would not provide us or offer us the zoning rate or variance for us to build this housing on that site. It was really quite alarming but that is not unusual. So people are going to get are getting creative accessory or Auxilary dwelling units is a trend that we’re seeing. California has already adopted auxiliary dwelling units, which are basically alike almost like a tiny house that can go on a single-family lot but serve as a secondary A living space, it might be for a college student and maybe for your, aging parents, it needs to be close by, or it could just be as a rental unit for additional income. But auxiliary dwelling units or ad use is a good solution to be able to get more people into a given area. We’re already seeing housing types that are segmented for demographic. Obviously, there are active senior living facilities, as well as assisted living facilities. Apartments in major cities are huge increases in apartments. But regrettably, those apartments also have largely increased rental rates. So it’s not an easy solution. But for this to really take place and begin to show some good results. Your city council, your county commissioners, and people of influence, who do make these laws for how we can go about putting in more density of housing in these given areas are going to have to begin to make these things happen. And then, of course, there’s always government resources that can play into this, with the different types of programs that they have, whether it’s through the Department of Consumer Affairs, it could be via HUD financing, or event, we’re even hearing about this with a Habitat for Humanity, there’s a number of different both state and federal government programs that can be helpful. But you’ve got to go after it, you’ve got to be active in that pursuit of it. So that you can begin to put a more broad-based diversity of housing into your communities. One of the things that I’m paying attention to also is the fact that because we have a decrease in our labor force, and we’re having an increase on materials cost, we’re seeing other types of building and the modular building is becoming a major player in providing housing. And the thing that modular has in its favor is that you have virtually factory-built housing. So this, it’s climate-controlled, you have no waste on the job site. These homes are designed to maximize the materials that are being used in them. They’re actually quite well built, because they have to be picked up, transported and picked up again and sat in place to complete the house. But it’s really a quality construction system modular is taking on a major role in providing housing, but it still comes at a cost. It’s no cheaper than building a site-built, conventionally built home. FINAL WORDS OF INSPIRATION David Grubb 33:14 Michael, you’ve been the designer for Modern Rustic Homes for decades. At this point, you’ve, you’ve won numerous awards, I’m looking at your wall and looking at all the awards that you’ve won there. So I want to say especially say thank you for your time today for hosting this podcast with me. And also I really want to appreciate your passion for housing. And if we could leave our listeners with one inspirational thought about housing. Michael Grant 33:51 Don’t give up would be my advice to you. Again, going back to my earlier comment where there is a void, it will get filled. So people are looking at how they can impact housing, and provide an appropriate solution and an affordable price point. So but also speak up, you know, you have an opportunity to write a letter or to send an email to your city council or your or your other legislative bodies within your community that have any influence and what does happen. So don’t give it up. Let them know your feeling about this. It’s critically important that you speak up about these things. But I do believe that we can improve on it. We simply must. We have, depending on which source you read it from, a deficit of housing in the United States on the low end of about 1.5 million houses that are needed today and I’ve read those Some people say it’s in excess of 7 million, which I find astonishing, but there’s definitely a lack of housing and we’ve got to do something about it. David Grubb 35:09 Wow, that’s incredible. And I think with Michael’s closing comments there, don’t give up. Think about this is the time, you know, do you create shelter or is a shelter creating you? And that is something to think about. We want to hear from you. Please leave us comments on our blog, and let us know what you want to hear about housing. Thank you. The post Important 5L’s Of Housing, Scary home prices For People [https://modernrustichomes.com/whats-new/important-5ls-of-housing-scary-home-prices-for-people/] first appeared on Modern Rustic Homes [https://modernrustichomes.com].