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February 11, 2017 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

It’s How you Finish

We forget, today, that most things are still made by people, in one way or another. Most experiences we share are good or bad because of the people we are interacting with. Sure, many things are stamped out by automated robotic machines-maybe most things are. But, at some point in the stream from raw materials to your hand, people had to perform some action to change sand grains into an iPhone-it doesn’t happen all by machines. I’m fortunate enough to work in an industry where most of my finished product is hand crafted. Yes, many components may be milled or stamped by machines, but the preparation, construction, installation, finishing of everything is done by hand. By people. People we know, we talk to , we learn about. People with specific skillsets that make the difference between a customer bragging about their Myers Homes product/creation and not. These people are irreplaceable. Their skillsets may be mimicked by someone else, but not replaced. For those that read my last post in October (sorry, I’ve been distracted and haven’t written since then), you might remember that our architect Bob M. was fighting toe to toe with cancer. Today, devastatingly, he lost his fight. Well, he didn’t really lose -he finished his fight. He finished his fight, after giving every last ounce of effort and courage, every last ounce of everything he had to give, to see his children grow into great kids. He finished, undefeated.

I am now building (you can see our progress on our current projects page) his last home design. Someday his children will know the brilliant and wonderful designs he created for all of us to build or appreciate. Soaring, wild staircases (annoyingly impossible to build- well, almost impossible), swooping ceiling lines, window arrangements that created wondrous interplays of light and shadow, mundane but perfect arrangements of hallways and rooms to create living spaces that you never want to leave. Solutions to design problems that are elegant, simple, practical and buildable. Plansets that are dead nuts right on perfect. That make every one of his designs unique, special, wondrous and beautiful. That make them of a lasting value. That make them impossible not to want to keep living in for forever. His children, who already know how hard he fought to be with them, will someday know how people like me also appreciated his beauty as a person, and his genius in his chosen craft. We appreciate that we benefited from his fight to stay here for them, to be here for them, because he was still here for us too.. And we, like they, are devastated by his loss.

Bob is irreplaceable.

For anyone interested, I am fighting back against Cancer. Not only for Bob, but for everyone I know that is fighting this fight, which is too many people. I ride in the Velosano bike event to raise money to fund research to find cures. Every week I train so on the day of the event I can ride 100 miles as hard as I can, to fight through, in a small way, as hard as Bob fought. If you want, you can fight too (here’s a link: http://ccf.convio.net/goto/robertmyers  )

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Filed Under: Building a home, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

October 18, 2016 By Rob Myers 1 Comment

When Beginnings are Endings

The process of building has evolved into an elaborate scavenger hunt. Having a family say “Let’s go!” begins a process that can take upwards of a year or more of time chasing around approvals, permits, labor, materials, and so on.At the very first, we need to have a plan to build from, so we turn to architects and engineers to collaborate with. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have been able to collaborate with great professionals. My architect, Bob M, is an artist with pen and paper. He’s one of the last of the hand drawing architects. Everyone in the industry now uses CAD, while Bob meticulously crafts his drawings by hand, just as our framers and trim carpenters will measure out each of their cuts when it’s their turn on the project. Recently, we submitted one of Bob’s projects to an Architectural Review Board in a local town. They were blown away at the weight of the lines, the thoughtful layouts, the attention to detail and the quality of the work. Known for typically being hard to get along with, one reviewer commented “Well, I can’t find a single thing wrong with this”. In my world, that’s about as high a praise as we get!

What you don’t see in his plans is Bob is sick. Bob’s been fighting cancer toe to toe for over a decade. Cancer’s taken internal body parts, his ability to eat, swallow, sleep, travel, meet people, or most of the normal parts of life we take for granted as casualties in his fight. Ground that Bob’s won in this fight, though, is he’s seen his kids grow up, his daughter go to college, lived a life with his family. While his body’s been whittled away to about half it’s optimal weight, his work, his mind, his artfulness remain in full force, and his drawings show those in full bloom. I don’t know if that review board will have the opportunity to review another set of plans drawn by Bob. I don’t know if I’ll get to collaborate on another house, show his plans to another family anxiously awaiting the start of their new home.  Tomorrow isn’t promised to us in life, and Bob’s fought hard to make tomorrow possible. Tomorrow, though, is populated by the things we crafted, the people enjoying them, and the lives we’ve touched. Tomorrow is populated by our dreams,  and, in the case of Bob and me, the homes we collaborated on for almost 2 decades. Today, I’m just happy he’s still here.

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Filed Under: Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

August 3, 2016 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

Avoid that Sinking Feeling

An article recently caught my attention- it has to do with a condominium building built in San Francisco that has started to sink. Of course, this isn’t any small condo building, this is a high rise, with multi-million dollar units and high profile owners. Of course, the building’s reps claim that the building started to sink when a government transit station was started adjacent to the building site. The transit people have countered that the  building’s foundation was designed wrong and that’s why things are moving. The one thing I know absolutely-the building’s homeowners had nothing to do with either thing- yet they are the ones caught in the middle.

Things you don’t see is one place many builders and developers skimp. If they aren’t going to own it later, they often cut the quality of these things or will try a new, riskier technique or material if it saves them money. No one will see it, who will be the wiser? Well, physics exposes all shortcuts! Cheat on flashings, sooner or later water gets in. Cheat on concrete, uh oh! In this case, I would have thought that the review process might have thrown up a flag if the foundation design wasn’t up to the task at hand. On the other hand, that’s something that the developer’s design team should know about. Ultimately, the truth will come out in court-there’s no way this isn’t going to end up there.  Sweating about things you won’t see is much of what I do- that’s where I protect my customers, my employees, my vendors, and, ultimately, my company and my family. Sometimes it frustrates  vendors, designers, or workers, but it isn’t their name on the sign. In San Francisco- regardless of who did what, that building is sinking- 16″ so far, which is massive!- and I’m not sure that there’s anything that can be done to stop it from sinking more. Eventually, it should find an equilibrium, but how far down it will go before that is anyone’s guess. And what that means for people that paid a ton of money to live there and will be stuck in the middle of a fight they couldn’t have know was going to theirs, and they will play a minimal role in solving, is anyone’s guess. Story on Sinking San Francisco Building

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Filed Under: Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

May 27, 2016 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

Artwork is Timeless

I had the opportunity to tour an amazing home in Cleveland Heights last night. Several things made the home amazing to me- first was the impeccable way the owners had restored nearly everything in the home, saving the pieces that froze the home into the early 20th century- things like what had to have been one of the first intercom systems- and undoing some of the unfortunate “upgrades” of previous owners. What truly struck me, though, was the original worker’s attention to detail. Hand carved and custom made corbels for transition points in walls, custom carved bits for the stairway newels, hand fabricated caming in leaded glass windows throughout the home, and thoughtful floorplan elements that created private and public places inside and outside, all around the home.  Hand crafted doors both interior and exterior, with beveled glass that creates visual points of interest all around the home. Everywhere you turn, there’s something that a craftsman born in the 1800’s cut, sanded, beveled, installed, or finished with great attention to detail and personal pride. The home was built like a fortress, standing guard on a 2 acre corner for over 100 years, sheltering it’s occupants from  the First World War, the Depression, the Second World War and all the history that came since. To build a home in this manner today can be accomplished, but at a cost north of the $10 Million mark. Of course, the craftsmen that knew how to do such fine leaded glasswork, or custom carving of plaster and wood are long dead. Their work, though, lives through time-echoing throughout our industry as a reminder that, many years ago, homes were built by artists.

arlington stairs  Arlington dining room

This home is for sale, and if you are of a mind to become a caretaker for this piece of liveable artwork, here’s a link to the Realtor website to make an appointment. Arlington Road for sale

Filed Under: Audio Visual Systems, Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

April 7, 2016 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

Home Tech that Lasts

One of the major issues I’ve had with home technology over the years is the fact that it doesn’t last. The companies that make most of this gear don’t support it forever-even though it may control major systems of the home. So, while we build a home to last over a hundred years, the gear inside that controls things often becomes obsolete or dysfunctional in only a few years. Worse, the gear might be ok, but the company that installed it disappears, and so what should be a minor tweak can become a major replacement. I just read where Google is pulling the plug on it’s Nest based home controller ( Nest pulls the plug ) after only 3 years. That must be some sort of record! There is only one firm that has consistently supported it’s customers-commercial and residential- and installers in this space, since this type of gear came on the market, and that’s a company called Crestron. We have worked with K+ Integration Systems, who is expert in this technology, (www.k-integration.com ) to provide these systems to our customers, and to help our customers get the most out of the technology, without buying a lot of pieces they don’t need. K+ designs and installs audio, video, and control systems throughout the greater Cleveland and Akron areas. They even have clients in Florida now, as some of our Cleveland customers have asked them to help them with the technology in their FLA homes. So, while it seems like this gear should be easy to come up with for a company like Google, there’s way more to it than it seems at first, which it sounds to me like they are now learning….

Rack for a large control system

Rack for a large control system

Filed Under: Building a home

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