Leading the Way 

September 2004

Custom Home Design - Customer Driven

 “We have always been driven by what our customer wants,” Builder Len Backus remarked recently. For a successful custom home builder like Andrew Homes, that concept is key.  In addition to listening to the customer and spending a great deal of time learning and understanding what is important to them, Andrew Homes

also keeps a close watch on market and design trends. (See article about Washington, D. C. and Builder 20).

Have you ever noticed Design Team Members Andy or Craig at a Parade of Homes event speaking to an interested guest? They are great listeners.  Andy and Craig work closely with our homeowners, discovering their unique needs and wants through several interviewing sessions. The resulting “wish list” is the starting point for our Design Team as they translate those ideas into a floorplan. This process can take weeks, sometimes months, as our Team and the homeowners work through the design, trying on different ideas to see if they fit, all the while working within a budget.

We recently designed and built a home for a family with as much space that their budget would allow while still incorporating some of the quality features they had seen in other Andrew Homes. They already owned a lot and knew that this home would need to accommodate their growing family’s needs for years to come. Andy worked very hard with them, designing a home that used its space as efficiently as possible, while still incorporating some custom elements in the places that made the biggest splash, such as high-end countertops in the kitchen and a volume ceiling in the family room.

I spoke with one of our homeowners last week about his and his wife’s experience building with us. I was proud and happy to hear how genuinely delighted they are with their home and the Andrew Homes Team. He had great things to say about Craig’s suggestion to add a special raised sitting area to the master bedroom. He and his wife weren’t considering a sitting area, but Craig really felt it “fit” them and how they live. Indeed, Vic told me about how much they love sitting there, reading or enjoying their wooded backyard view.

Maybe you’re looking for the Andrew Homes quality and experience, but don’t need or want a large home. If you’ve always considered us a big-home builder, don’t rule us out now! With big and not-so-big homes, our focus has always been to give our homeowners what they want.

Green Bay Showcase of New Homes, Sept. 18-19, 23-26

The Brown County Home Builders Association’s fall event, the Showcase of New Homes, begins on September 18. Andrew Homes will have 2 homes in this event, one for-sale model home, our new Willow Creek, and one custom home that we designed and built for a family.

Our Willow Creek model, settled in beautiful Barnard Woods at 1224 Quail Ridge Dr., offers an all-brick exterior and 3,804 sq. ft. above grade plus 1,316 sq. ft. in the finished lower level. A spacious kitchen extends to the hearth area, complete with cultured stone fireplace with TV niche above. Other features include a first floor master suite, study with volume ceiling, wall of windows offering a view of the private wooded backyard, and optional 5th bedroom or hobby room in the lower level.

The family we designed our second showcase home for, located at 3313 Star Creek Ct., initially came to us because they fell in love with one of our exclusive wooded ravine lots. They became very involved in the design process and found it helpful to be able to walk through several completed Andrew Homes to help them visualize some of the design elements we came up with together. We worked very hard to incorporate some important spaces for each member of the family into their custom design. As is the case with many of the men we design for, the garage and basement were an important consideration. We used a Spancrete floor in the garage to create an open shop area underneath and designed the walk-out basement for future expansion The master bath was important to her as well as her own large closet and a craft room built above the garage. The young family felt it was important to have a play area for their children so we designed a large space on the 2nd floor. They decided to make it extra fun by adding a huge life-like plaster tree and whimsical murals.

Design Trip to Washington, D.C.

Once or twice per year members of our Design Team choose a city to visit in order to research home design styles from all over the country. This March we chose the Washington, D.C. area which is one of the faster growing areas in the country. We were able to get into over one hundred homes in just a few days. Our goal was to visit as many open houses as we could find but also to poke around neighborhoods where we could wander into houses that were under construction. In each neighborhood we were able to get into 10 or 20 houses in just a few hours.

We always find it amazing when we visit other parts of the country to see how low some of the construction quality is. After talking to a salesperson at one of the models we realized that one reason for the lower quality is the high demand.

There is so much demand for new homes in the area that builders have no problem selling their homes even with low quality. We are truly lucky to live and build in a part of the country where the highest level of quality is expected and demanded and where we have tradespeople able to produce that quality.

Although there was some lack of construction quality in Washington, there was no lack of quality and creativity in home design. We saw some great floorplan ideas and beautiful elevations as well as some interesting details. In a market as large as D.C. there are a great number of large, custom homes with many interesting design elements.

Craig and Dana were happy to find a circular exterior balcony which was similar to the balcony Craig designed for one of our customer’s homes which recently began construction. They discovered a better way to structurally support the balcony and brought that idea home. I was excited about a different style of simple beams added to a tray ceiling. Some of the elevation ideas we saw have already been incorporated into upcoming models.

For our next design trip we are leaning towards Denver, another growing area.

Builder 20 Club

This July Andy and I attended a meeting of a Builder 20 club in Newport, Rhode Island. Builder 20 clubs are organized by the National Association of Home Builders to provide the opportunity for groups of up to 20 builders from all over the country with similar products and similar businesses to exchange ideas about home building and about each others’ operations. The group we met with includes members from Minnesota, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Maryland and many other parts of the U.S.

One of the goals for meeting in Newport was to allow the group to tour one of the member’s operations and provide constructive criticism about what they saw. That builder specialized in building and remodeling homes in the 2 million dollar plus range mainly in the “shingle style” which is so popular in the Newport area. We lucked out because during our stay in Newport the “Tall Ships” were arriving for an annual festival. The Tall Ships are huge sailing ships from all over the world. You may have seen pictures of them with their masts and rigging dressed up in twinkling lights.

The club members also exchange ideas about organization and systems, business plans and goals, marketing, home design and construction practices and many other important concepts. One common characteristic Andy noticed about all of the club members was never being satisfied with our operations. We all have very satisfied customers but feel we want to constantly find new ways to improve our organizations to make the customer experience even better. We will meet with the group twice a year and look forward to taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity to learn from other successful home builders.

Andrew Homes Maintenance Tips

Roof Gutter Maintenance

You should make gutter cleaning and maintenance a regular activity. All debris should be removed on a regular basis. Installing a gutter guard is a good way to keep this task manageable. Built-up debris in a gutter creates a dam situation, causing excessive pressure on the gutter joints and weakening the entire structure. If the trapped water freezes, it could cause the gutter to expand and crack, and the gutter would then need to be replaced.  If you can’t clean the gutters yourself, hire a contractor to do the job.

I’ve been asked by a few homeowners if they can clean their vinyl siding with a pressure washer and the answer is yes.  A quick and easy way to clean vinyl siding is with a pressure washer with a 2,200 psi pressure rating.  There are several vinyl siding cleaners on the market. Once the cleaner is mixed according to the directions, submerge the detergent injector hose in the spray gun and attach the garden hose. Clean a 10’ x 10’ foot section at a time. Start at the bottom and allowing the cleaning solution to set for 3-5 minutes. Switch to a high pressure nozzle and thoroughly rinse the section from the top down. For tougher stains or marks, using a product like Fantastik, Murphy’s Oil Soap or Windex is recommended. If none of these work, the damaged piece can be replaced quite easily.

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