the Artisan Builders Workshop: Design

These chapters are best viewed in order:

Design

Foundation

First Story

Second Story

Second Story Addition

Roof

The start of a new year always invites an evaluation of the past and future. How well did I do? How far do I want to go? Is anything working? Should I be proud or do I want to shrink away from the challenges that face me?

I fill my time with charts and spreadsheets to get a sense of what happened, and draw a plan to predict what lies ahead. Much depends on my mood, the weather, the contracts in place, and mostly on the rate of rings of the phone. If Projects are in full swing, it's easy to be confident. If, however, each morning of early january has the liesurely taste of coffee and ability to roam on the internet, panic creeps in to eat away any satisfaction of profits. Then is the time to make work.

For 30 years, I have looked forward to a year of building projects. Through recessions and booms, I have managed to always have a plan on the table, a load of lumber on the way, a roofing crew poised, a craftsman measuring the final piece of trim. At an early age, I recognized the danger of tired knees and stooped shoulders, and vowed I would not be carrying plywood at 50. For many years, I was able to contract jobs large enough to require crews and organization enough that my tools became clipboards, cell phones and laptops. Let others do the labor and use my brain, charm and conscience to lead the way. If I just worked hard enough, I could bring the Dream to life.

But the job description can grow from a "guy in a pick-up" to a multi-million dollar business, sometimes as quickly as it takes to stumble upon a client in dirty jeans with deep deep pockets. In my lifetime, the contract has transformed from a handshake to hand-scribbled notes to 14 pages of exclusions witnessed by a lawyer.

Sadly, I am one of the many who has been overwhelmed by the fluctuation, the ebb and flow of an occupation that has more pitfalls than all the types of nails and screws combined. No amount of well-intended and skillful hands can always meet the deadline, stay underbudget and not leave any dust at the end of the day. In fact, it is the carpenter who works slowly, carefully, over measures, keeps his eye on the blade, and sweeps up regularly who manages best to have a client call him back.

There is no magic, no set rule. The truth is that we come in to your house, bang and thump for days, months at a time. No matter how thorough the planning, beams are not where they are supposed to be, and electrical wires show up instead. We tear out your kitchen and spend lots and lots of your hard-earned money as if it were our very own Christmas. We see you in your underwear at dawn and let your traumatized dog in and out, in and out, in and out.

We become part of your family, and you've never hated anyone so much at 2 in the morning when the tarp that is supposed to cover your roof is flapping in the wind.

When the dust settles, almost always things look much much better. Although it was more difficult than expected (easy to blame your builder), the client lives happily ever onward. The builder should be able to pay his bills, and hopefully adds another picture to his portfolio.

But everyone also knows the tales of horror which abound around renovations. Some contracts are better left half-done, and someone always tells of the contractor who took the money and ran. It's a business as unpredictable as the homes being remodeled, and as varied as the carpenters and clients who meet one fine evening and part months later in anger and frustration.

This is a Blog to educate and inform, share productive news and pass warnings of changes on the sites. Plenty of magazines show pictures of the finished job and smiling clients who spent fortunes most of us will never have. I'm interested in sharing with the common folks, the guys on the job and the hard-working owners who stretch themselves to have the renovation they really can't afford. This blog is about the truth. I hope you'll join me on the scaffold.

Foundation