00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:08 Unknown If there's floor to ceiling, wall to wall glass, 00:00:03:08 - 00:00:04:20 Unknown if there's steel 00:00:04:20 - 00:00:08:12 Unknown in the ceiling that is operating with very 00:00:08:14 - 00:00:11:10 Unknown tight tolerances if the foundations are off. 00:00:11:13 - 00:00:12:22 Unknown might require 00:00:12:22 - 00:00:14:21 Unknown you know, adjustments to the window schedule 00:00:14:21 - 00:00:17:11 Unknown we've learned the hard way in the past that, 00:00:17:11 - 00:00:21:09 Unknown gonna we're going to really review that trust layout. When we get those sharp drawings 00:00:21:09 - 00:00:23:21 Unknown make sure that we have them all spaced out 00:00:23:21 - 00:00:24:03 Unknown that 00:00:24:03 - 00:00:27:14 Unknown allow our perfect ceiling plan to actually 00:00:27:14 - 00:00:31:17 Unknown come to fruition, during construction, because oftentimes, 00:00:31:17 - 00:00:34:17 Unknown you know, we'll show up on site and there will be something misaligned. 00:00:34:17 - 00:00:38:19 Unknown It's not aligning with that window, the centerline of that window. But there's a big 00:00:38:19 - 00:00:41:07 Unknown girder trust right there. We can't move it. So 00:00:41:07 - 00:00:42:21 Unknown there's a lot of there's so many things 00:00:42:21 - 00:00:46:08 Unknown to look out for. Yeah. There's so many things to think through and that and 00:00:46:11 - 00:00:46:17 Unknown you 00:00:46:17 - 00:00:50:06 Unknown just learn by experience. Yeah. We just 00:01:02:21 - 00:01:29:14 Unknown All right, so ten minutes ago, I said, let's kind of get in and walk through the house from we got sidetracked. But there was a it was, a great conversation. So I just wanted to touch on some of the different phases of construction and talk about some of the complexities that can that can occur, and, you know, foundations, you know, every, every house has to start with a great foundation, you know, but with a modern house, you know, you can have, again, these floor to ceiling, windows and doors, really clean lines. 00:01:29:14 - 00:01:55:11 Unknown So if your foundation isn't spot on, you're going to see it in a pretty typical foundation variation. On new construction, you know, you think about a house, was just about like a large custom home, you know, five, six, 7000ft² that that house might be 70, 80, 100ft wide. It's okay for that slab. It's within tolerance, let's say, for that slab would be off an inch or two from the left side of the right. 00:01:55:11 - 00:02:17:19 Unknown So it's pretty pretty common. Right. But when you are dealing with something, again you don't have the millwork, you don't have some of the things to like to hide some of that sin, that, that 1 or 2 inch tolerance may not be acceptable for that type of job. Right. And it's kind of a ripple effect as the finishing of the project happens. 00:02:17:19 - 00:02:38:03 Unknown Then the framer has to kind of compensate for those changes. The the, you know, all the finish crews have to compensate for that adjustment in the slab just to make sure that everything turns out plumb. You know, eventually going to see it somewhere. I mean, you can't you can't completely hide it at some point that's going to show up. 00:02:38:05 - 00:03:11:06 Unknown And you know, kind of speaking to something we touched on earlier. If there's floor to ceiling, wall to wall glass, if there's steel in the ceiling that is operating with very tight tolerances if the foundations are off. That might require you know, adjustments to the window schedule like if you're trying to accommodate it or, you know, the steel fabricator might be working on shops and suddenly you're like, hey, we need to have you made that column yet? 00:03:11:06 - 00:03:38:07 Unknown You know, like we need to adjust our steel frame to accommodate this foundation. Because, even that first step, the foundation is, is linked to so many elements, depending on, you know, the design. And usually those windows are ordered maybe before the foundation is poured so well. And that's like a really big challenge. Now post-Covid is the lead times on certain items like windows and doors. 00:03:38:07 - 00:03:56:14 Unknown It used to be garage doors for a while. I think we're past that. But but yeah, we're ordering these elements of the home so far in advance before the foundation is poured. So it needs to be right. We need to be able to bring those things in when they're finally ready and have it just go in smoothly. 00:03:56:18 - 00:04:20:09 Unknown Yeah. I mean, typically on a, on a on most houses, you know, your over framing your, your windows and door openings, giving yourself a margin of error for, for fitting things. But that's not always the case. Again, if you're trying to get certain things to align a certain way, you don't really have that luxury. So yeah, if that if the if you're wood framing or steel framing or your foundation is off, you're, you know, you're in trouble there. 00:04:20:11 - 00:04:41:21 Unknown And the same thing with, you know, with your floor being out of level, you know, a lot of times we can just throw some self level on that thing, level it up and and just kind of roll with it, that that happen. I mean, I would say most houses get a fair amount of self-leveling compound put down under, you know, wood floors or tile or whatever it is. 00:04:41:23 - 00:05:19:15 Unknown But that's not always an option, when you're going from, for minimalism, right. Yeah. Especially if the windows have already been ordered to be a certain height and suddenly you're adding new layers of material on top that might change that floor to floor, floor to ceiling height. Yeah. And, and going back to, the kind of quality of your, of your carpentry crew, if that floor is not level and you want your baseboards to appear level, you you better have a good carpenter who's capable of kind of scribing that stuff to the floor and following those contours to kind of to kind of make it disappear as best that you can. 00:05:19:19 - 00:05:40:23 Unknown Right? I think most Jim Carpenters, either don't know or don't want to take the time to really do scribing like they should to, to, to cover some of that stuff. Caulk can't hide everything. I've learned that. And you don't want a big old fat beater, white cane, your baseboards and yeah, the forest. So. All right, so framing we already touched on this. 00:05:41:01 - 00:06:03:22 Unknown But, you know, a lot of times in modern, architecture, we got a lot of steel framing, we got a lot of big, beams for to create these open expanses and glass expanses. But also when you have tall wall volumes and then you've got a lot of light coming in from across the room, where a lot of light coming in adjacent to it. 00:06:04:00 - 00:06:54:18 Unknown Any little flaw in that wall and that wall framing is going to be accentuated when the light hits it, too. Yeah, it's kind of broad cast. It with. Yeah. Any when you've got flush materials and things. Those deviations are suddenly going to be on display, you know, along that joint, something else that we've seen, kind of play out recently is, you know, if you have, say large cantilevers or, large kind of broad surfaces, ceilings and walls, you know, expected deflection, structural deflection is become something that suddenly you're sort of in the structural engineers business because, modern architecture is typically straight and not like droopy. 00:06:54:20 - 00:07:30:06 Unknown And so, you know, if it's wood, you want to understand that deflection over time. If it's steel, you want to understand that deflection under certain loads. And, kind of going back to a good engineer is going to help you with that as well. But that's just another, element that could lead to kind of dissatisfaction, especially when it comes to finishes because you can come up with some fixes, but sometimes you kind of run into a brick wall in terms of like the extent to which you can make something like that go away. 00:07:30:08 - 00:07:53:22 Unknown And I think that goes back to, you know, the amount of tolerance that's generally acceptable for a normal project isn't always acceptable in a modern project. So you know, like in this instance we had beams that were within, you know, a very tolerable deflection that were designed. But it just it was not acceptable for our specific design. 00:07:53:22 - 00:08:18:17 Unknown And we just need to be able to catch that upfront and communicate that need upfront. Yeah. We we did a project a few years ago with some very long expanses, over, over a living room with a sloped ceiling. And the ceiling was formed by trusses and, you know, kind of, right at the midpoint of that. 00:08:18:17 - 00:08:46:08 Unknown And I think there was like a, a little, anyway, my, my, my terminology here is, is off, but the there was a flat ceiling that transitioned up into a vaulted ceiling and right where the trusses crossed that, it was kind of the midpoint on the truss. And there was like some, some deflection on it. Just, just, just just from wind load or whatever from the roof and that, that caulk joint or that joint in the drywall right there at that intersection kept popping over time. 00:08:46:10 - 00:09:13:17 Unknown And, you know, after after drywall, after paint, there's really nothing that I can do structurally to go in and fix that. So it's one of those instances we had to tell the customer, you know, kind of due to the engineering here, this is something that you might deal with for, for the whole time that you own this house, because that that engineering detail wasn't, wasn't thought through, like we probably should have upsized those or, or done something to stiffen them or brace them. 00:09:13:17 - 00:09:36:21 Unknown Right. So that's not something that somebody wants to hear after they've spent a couple million bucks on the house. So you're gonna get some cracks there once a year. It touches the they don't want to do the the esthetic maintenance every year. Yeah. So you know another option that we gave them, which they ended up not doing was hey, we could apply some kind of cladding to the ceiling, stop a short of that joint by an eighth of an inch or something like that. 00:09:36:21 - 00:09:56:08 Unknown And that's kind of the the flex points of it. So if it does move a little bit, you're not going to see it. Yeah I mean it, it might want to do it but. Right. Yeah. You know these custom houses are they're kind of like building a custom car you know like there's so many things you're doing for the first time. 00:09:56:08 - 00:10:18:12 Unknown Like this is a unique design. And so it takes a strong team to anticipate issues like that because they're looking at a certain combination of elements that maybe no one else is, like done before, at least on the team. And so it's just more coordination, more foresight to say, hey, we're going to have an issue here. 00:10:18:16 - 00:10:47:02 Unknown You know, I mean, it's it's a it's a tall order, I think, for these teams to really pull these things off. And, and that's why it takes 18 months, two years to build really great houses, because it's a complicated, thing to put together. Yeah. All right, so, exterior finishes was the next thing I wanted to hit on. 00:10:47:04 - 00:11:11:14 Unknown My observation and tell me if I'm. I'm right or wrong on this, but my observation is a lot of modern residential exterior cladding systems. Often you see first in like, a commercial architecture or people see something in commercial and they apply it to residential or, you know, a lot of these kind of new design products and concepts will originate in commercial, right? 00:11:11:19 - 00:11:41:01 Unknown I think so, yeah. And so that further complicates things when you're taking something that, again, you're your cornice crew, you're framing for your exterior finish crew has probably never seen or touched before, and now you're asking them to to do it right. And so yeah, rarely are we looking I mean, you know, it again, it depends on the house, but it's not usually straightforward, like fiber cement lap siding or this a straightforward traditional brick design. 00:11:41:03 - 00:12:08:10 Unknown Yeah. And so anytime we get into these more complicated cladding systems, there's just more, more opportunity for, for conflict when I would say more often than not, at least for us. And how we design modern houses, we are using more traditional materials, but detailing them and applying them in a more modern way. So even though it's a stucco home, maybe that stucco is on a concrete substrate with no control joints. 00:12:08:11 - 00:12:35:22 Unknown But, you know, maybe, an unsophisticated sub will say, oh, it's just stucco, you know, and he's thinking, I'm just going to do it how I always do it. But really it's not it's not the same process. There's a learning curve. There's a very specific application to achieve that minimal detailing that we're expecting with the traditional material. There's also often a lot of, specialty fasteners involved. 00:12:35:22 - 00:13:01:08 Unknown I'm thinking of I'm thinking of one project right now that, where we're helping kind of, you know, rescue, quote unquote. And it was designed with fiber cement siding, but the fiber cement siding was, was individually cut into little short, little short pieces. And then each piece was installed, on a rain screen system with like four little custom fasteners on it. 00:13:01:08 - 00:13:23:23 Unknown So the whole outside of the house is like these individual little planks separated by an eighth inch reveal all the way around with exposed fasteners and all that's got to be like, you know, like more like spot on to to make it look right. And, and it's a, it's also expensive stuff, like every piece cut, there's a lot of labor that goes into it. 00:13:24:01 - 00:13:58:08 Unknown And if the person putting a screw in that, you know, over drives, the screw breaks, now you're cutting another one. So yeah. Yeah, I think, some traditional finishes are coming from historical, kind of tradition of building much more practical kind of, foundation for how things were built maybe a long time ago. Versus, modern stuff is more ornamental and kind of, yeah, style based. 00:13:58:08 - 00:14:37:00 Unknown Right. And so you get, things like that where it's kind of an exaggerated end of the spectrum of like, you know, those planks could be a lot longer. You know, they could have far fewer, you know, joints and, and fasteners. But it's an esthetic choice. It's generating a different kind of performance. And I think, another layer to that is just how these finishes, new or old, are all interacting with, you know, new building envelopes, which is another layer of kind of what a sophisticated builder would bring to the table. 00:14:37:00 - 00:15:04:13 Unknown And understanding and a familiarity with latest and greatest way to, to seal up a house. And, yeah. So, I mean, if you if you don't have that building envelope, nice and buttoned up and you've got a kind of wonky attempt to install, an ambitious, modern facade, it could be like compounded issues on top of each other. 00:15:04:18 - 00:15:25:17 Unknown And, of course, if it's it's one thing when it's, like, busted sheetrock and, doors that won't close, there's another one that's like water coming into the house, so. Oh, yeah. High stakes out there. All right. So to kind of go to kind of go along with that is, glazing systems, you know, and windows and doors. 00:15:25:17 - 00:15:54:20 Unknown So, just, just we've talked about some of the complexities on that, but just the cost aspect of it. You know, those things can get real expensive real quick. And so when people are talking about, you know, why does this, why does this house cost so much more to build? Well, that, you know, that, that, that 15 1215 20ft multi slide door could be that could be a 20 or 20 or $30,000 line item right there just for the door. 00:15:54:22 - 00:16:17:22 Unknown And then you still got like some specialty labor to install it, because you're not going to let your framer install that or your trim carpenter like you want a dedicated. Yeah, window and door installer who's used to dealing with these things. And that could be another 5 to $10,000 for that guy. So now this you know this one you know window wall in your house that if you use kind of traditional windows and set ups that might be $10,000. 00:16:17:22 - 00:16:39:14 Unknown Now you're spending 50 or $60,000 on that on that one wall. Right. Not to mention the framing considerations that have to go in beforehand to make that opening possible. Yeah. Big steel beam or engineer beam across the top of it. Yeah. Well, so, you know, a punched opening on a wall on a, say, a traditional house, say the openings are a little off. 00:16:39:16 - 00:17:17:19 Unknown You can go in, adjust the framing. No big deal. Like maybe, maybe at the end of the day, it's a couple inches off of where it should be. But if it's a punched opening floating on a facade somewhere, there may not be a lot of elements where you can visually check for that for that position. But if it's modern, design, and if it's floor to ceiling or something like that, you know, understanding the rough opening requirements for a floor to ceiling installation suddenly becomes super critical. 00:17:17:21 - 00:17:37:22 Unknown Because, you know, as a designer, you may be thinking, oh, well, these are ten foot ceilings. So my unit is ten feet tall. But, you know, you've got, you we want that sill to be flush with the finished floor, right? We get all these things to line up. I was just about to mention the really ten foot two and a quarter. 00:17:38:01 - 00:18:05:15 Unknown Yeah, something crazy like that. And then you go review on site and, it's not ten, but two and a quarter over here. And you think, well, is that a problem yet? You know, like you really have to think through that stuff and yeah, it's just more, more coordination and, more, pressure on that framing to, to be nailed down. 00:18:05:17 - 00:18:23:05 Unknown And that can go back to foundation, too, because if you're again, if you're not and most people don't want to walk up to a multi-sided door and have an inch or two sill that they're stepping over, right. And so it goes back to you've got to plan your foundation, pour and drop that slab at that area. So that's going to flush out. 00:18:23:05 - 00:18:44:16 Unknown So you know, your your your concrete guy, your project manager, you need to have the specs for the door unit to know how tall that sill is. Double check that before it gets poured. Otherwise you're going to be sore cutting and jackhammer and concrete. And hopefully that's not your finish floor. Yeah. And then, you know, to have the finished floor already selected by then is really critical. 00:18:44:16 - 00:19:06:03 Unknown A lot of times, you know, homeowners assume that they can select their tile or their wood floors, you know, way down the road. But really we need to start coordinating, coordinating those things from the get go. Yeah. If it's 3/8 or 5/8 or three quarter inch flooring, you need to know that when you're setting that, that door unit, or when you're pouring the slab or framing it or whatever for sure. 00:19:06:12 - 00:19:17:02 Unknown If you found value in this episode of your project Shepherd podcast, please consider leaving us review and share it with your friends. That helps us expand our reach and bring this content to more people. Thanks for being here. 00:19:17:20 - 00:19:42:14 Unknown All right. Let's talk about roofing. So typically, like the cheapest roof that you can do on a, on a house is a composition, shingle roof. But you know, with modern and we're dealing typically with a lot of flat roofs or low pitched. Right, which is going to mean TPO or modify the chimney or the standing seam metal roof or, or something like that. 00:19:42:14 - 00:20:02:06 Unknown So all of those are at the upper end of the price spectrum as, as opposed to, as opposed to composite shingles that they're probably 3 or 4 x the cost of composition shingles. So that's a big cost driver. But also there's a lot of detailing that goes into that to to make sure that you're, that your your waterproofing is done properly. 00:20:02:06 - 00:20:31:14 Unknown Nothing's going to drain. Right. Right. Right. A lot of times with the flat roofs we do encounter some internal drains that are necessary. So we need to detail and plan for that coming through the house and exiting properly. Redundancy. Yes. The drain itself or the the design. Yeah. The drain at the roof. And some of these things are, quite typical in a commercial sense. 00:20:31:14 - 00:21:04:05 Unknown And so this is kind of an instance where, if if a contractor doesn't have great relationships with some subs, like a roofing sub who does have a decent amount of commercial experience, this will be a sort of learning curve if they're trying to use one of the same old guys. You know, and, for those reasons, because I do find that sometimes when we, when we draw something like that, like a flat roof, we get kind of frowny faces from the team. 00:21:04:07 - 00:21:42:18 Unknown And then, you know, we're thinking, well, but I'm pretty sure that Sam's roof has something really similar, you know, and, like, if they can do it, you know, and all the locations, like, surely there's, a smart way we could do this here, too. And, you know, some of that, it comes back on the architect to kind of know how to design it in a way to accommodate, the roofer, to be able to design it in a smart, long term, durable way, versus some, like, craft project way that's like super high maintenance and, you know, vulnerable in storms and things. 00:21:42:18 - 00:22:11:06 Unknown So, yeah, going back to the flat roof said also kind of minimizes your attic space a lot of times. So as architects, we try to, you know, compensate for that by, you know, dropping our ceilings. We're not having low ceilings but just making sure we have enough sand which between that flat roof in the finished ceiling to run our ducts to, you know, have everything that we need, have access if we need it. 00:22:11:07 - 00:22:32:16 Unknown And I think that's something that's overlooked a lot of times, in the early stages of design. And it only comes out later when we're pricing or working with the mechanical sub and he's like, how am I going to get my duct in there? And so then we we go back and kind of rework the design. So yeah, attic space and flat roofs are, are a challenge. 00:22:32:16 - 00:22:55:07 Unknown Yeah. So my next category is Hvac. So that's a great a great transition into that. Yeah. So using a, open web trust system to form your roof on modern is is a great way to, to make make life easier for the mechanical contractor and, and the plumbing and electrical and everything. Right. Yeah. But making sure that you're using a big enough open web trust to actually get those ducks where they need to go. 00:22:55:07 - 00:23:19:13 Unknown It can't be 12 or 12 or 16 or 18in. It needs to be 20, 24, you know? So make sure there's stiff as well, which kind of, you know, in terms of finishes making sure that you can have a nice, finish installation, but I mean, like kind of, moving on from Hvac, but but also without that traditional attic space that you can walk into. 00:23:19:15 - 00:23:44:14 Unknown We've been designing modern homes with just walk in mechanical rooms where your Hvac is a vertical unit in this generous closet. But we need to do some work to convince our clients to say, hey, okay, if you want this really thin roof profile, we're going to have to take that square footage away from your, you know, dwelling and give that to Hvac, because that's really important and maybe even more than one. 00:23:44:14 - 00:24:01:04 Unknown So if you've got a a spread out house and you've got a big ceiling volume in the middle of it, you may have to have mechanical room on each side of the house. Because there's no way to get ducts from point A to point B, right, right. And so it's, it's you know we've talked about the, the contractor having a lot of coordination and thinking through these things. 00:24:01:04 - 00:24:22:15 Unknown This is one of those things where during the planning phase, the architect and the engineer need need to work with not only the builder but also in Hvac designer. I know, you guys work with, with toners. I do to, you know, so toner and his team do Hvac design with us, but it's it's, let's get some docs on a on a plan. 00:24:22:15 - 00:24:45:23 Unknown Let's figure out how we're how we're going to duct this thing also. Right. So it's just another another layer of drawings that probably need to be done, before stuff even gets bid out. Honestly. Yeah. And you know, of course there's going to be a lot of slot diffusers. Or you know we love trim lists, grills and, and alignments with things. 00:24:45:23 - 00:25:12:02 Unknown Right. And you know getting all that to look right. Whether it's a wood ceiling where you want, things to line up. Well, with the wood planks or it's just a drywall ceiling where you're aligning lights with diffusers with, I don't know, some of those security device. Right. Like there's these are just layers of coordination, including the, Hvac, right. 00:25:12:04 - 00:25:43:00 Unknown Sub. And to make sure all looks good together, it all actually starts with that trust layout. So, we've learned the hard way in the past that, okay, we're gonna we're going to really review that trust layout. When we get those sharp drawings from the trust manufacturer, make sure that we have them all spaced out that allow our perfect ceiling plan to actually come to fruition, during construction, because oftentimes, you know, we'll show up on site and there will be something misaligned. 00:25:43:00 - 00:26:06:14 Unknown It's not aligning with that window, the centerline of that window. But there's a big girder trust right there. We can't move it. So there's a lot of there's so many things to look out for. Yeah. There's so many things to think through and that and you know, you just learn by experience. Yeah. We just have that instance in fact on the same house I'm talking about with the polished concrete floors, we thought everything was coordinated really really well. 00:26:06:16 - 00:26:28:14 Unknown Great great architect, great engineer. But the, the truss layouts did not get coordinated. And so, they had some big skylights in the living room that they wanted to kind of have a certain shape and kind of a flare out from the skylight and, couldn't do it because of the because of the truss spacing. And so we had to kind of, have a site meeting and kind of step back a little bit and figure out how to figure out how to how to work that out. 00:26:28:14 - 00:26:51:02 Unknown And fortunately the, the Truss engineer said, hey, it's okay if you spaced those out just a little bit. And so we made it work. But yeah, that's that's a high level coordination that needs that needs to take place early on for that. And so also to go along with that comment about your ceiling layouts. And this kind of leads into electrical, which is my next item. 00:26:51:04 - 00:27:14:04 Unknown I've I've said many times we think it's really, really important to have a, kind of before ducts get pulled, before wires get run, before pipes get run. Let's do a, you know, we call it a box and can walk through just how the Hvac guy go in there and pop in his register boxes where they're going, have the electrician pop in his can ruffins and switch boxes. 00:27:14:04 - 00:27:34:06 Unknown No wires and let's, you know, get the architect. If the designer let's walk through and say, is is this is this working? Right. This is what you expected, because there's typically no change orders at that point. And something has to get moved. It's, it's once they start running wires and ducts, they want to do one thing. You or something has to change. 00:27:34:08 - 00:28:27:10 Unknown One of our favorite drawings of, the ceiling framing plants, where basically, you know, from a drawing standpoint, like, every layer is turned on mechanical, electrical security. You in, in the framer as well. Right. Where it's that first attempt at, being able to show what framing layout will help achieve all the design goals. And I don't just mean, you know, like a structural engineers framing plan where they draw arrows and say, 16in on center, you know, where we're, you know, we have our light placement first and then we're, you know, the, you know, the center of the room has a gap, you know, between, to ceiling Joyce, because it's allowing whatever 00:28:27:10 - 00:28:51:10 Unknown we want to be there, to be there instead of a two by ten, you know, ceiling joists, like, right in the middle. And, you know, it's still, quite an effort to coordinate everything, but I find that those ceiling framing plans are a great they're a great tool for the contractor because they're seeing it all at the same time as well. 00:28:51:12 - 00:29:12:13 Unknown They're not having to flip through pages and say, well, where is this? Where is this? You know, because it's just all there. I thought, I do and I think that with, you know, with modern home design, we're really leaning into this minimal lighting language, you know, lighting art, walls having accent lighting, not just the typical four cans in a, you know, each corner of the room. 00:29:12:15 - 00:29:39:02 Unknown So there's less tolerance, unlike where those lights can go and where they're best suited and can achieve that, that feel that we're looking for. And so coordinating with the framing plan way ahead of time has saved the day on many projects for us. And those are probably not, just the typical, six inch round, Halo or commercial electric, recessed cam boxes. 00:29:39:02 - 00:30:05:16 Unknown Right. So, again, that's another cost element. You go from, you know, I'm not knocking those because they have their place in certain things, but like the you buy the the value builders pack of the six inch round trims and they're seven, 7 or $8 apiece. Yeah. Right. But you, you get into, something that's got, maybe some depth to it so you don't get glare, or maybe you get into a square, square can or. 00:30:05:16 - 00:30:40:23 Unknown Yeah. All the, the many variations of that. Those might be 50, 75, $100 a piece. So now you've got a pretty big delta. And just the cost of the, of the actual fixture. So again, when the question comes up is why is this costing so much more? Well, that's a that's a great example. Yeah. Yeah. And something recently we've encountered is just, you know, with these new finishes that people are wanting for their ceilings, you know, a thicker like a wood finish, for example, on the ceiling, it requires them to actually purchase like an extension kit for those recessed cans in some cases. 00:30:40:23 - 00:31:10:09 Unknown So that's just another layer of thought and detail and expense. Yeah. And you know, it's always uncomfortable when they've roughed in the lights and they're, say there's sheetrock before like a wood ceiling or something. And they realize, wait, we didn't actually drop all those cans all too high or something, or, you know, whatever it might be. I mean, yeah, it it takes a lot of planning to pull it off. 00:31:10:11 - 00:31:26:19 Unknown There's a lot of ways for, for a, for a builder to, to not make as much money as you wanted to make on this. Ask me how I know. Yes, because guess what? The homeowner is not going to get that cost. So, you know, so plumbing, kind of more of the same type of thing. 00:31:26:19 - 00:31:49:20 Unknown But, you know, I'm, I'm thinking about plumbing differences, like, you know, a lot of, well, wall mounted faucets are very clean, exposed, exposed, water lines and traps on, on vanities and, and things like, like, but like a powder bath, vanity or, my favorite struggle is the linear shower drain. That was my next item. 00:31:49:20 - 00:32:09:04 Unknown Linear shower drain. Yeah. Especially when you want it to be on the wall. You know, on the edge and against. Yeah, there's always a beam down below right where it would, you know, in order for the, drain to really be in the right place, like, you would have to be in the beam. And so then it comes off the wall and it's like, oh, that's sad. 00:32:09:04 - 00:32:30:23 Unknown There's a little, like one inch shelf before it drops in. And, it's like, how long has this been the drawings? Yeah. Planning, planning, planning. Well, that could also be, just having that detailed out on the architectural so that the foundation guy doesn't, doesn't put a beam right there so that that can get, get get put there. 00:32:31:01 - 00:32:48:03 Unknown I like the ones and I have not used them yet, but I want to use them soon where the drain is actually in the sidewall. Yeah. Have you seen those? So, so instead of a drain or, like, right in the floor against the vertical wall, the drain is actually in the sidewalls where the water kind of disappears into the wall. 00:32:48:03 - 00:33:10:12 Unknown And. Oh, that's very cool. I want to try one of those. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. So also to go along with that, just kind of the flush entry showers, you know, kind of the zero entry showers is always a challenge. On, on on waterproofing too. And. Right. And how do you make that transition from the bathroom into the shower? 00:33:10:14 - 00:33:35:04 Unknown That's, you know, you can't do it on a normal shower pan. That's this wrapped up because there's nothing for it to the for it to terminate at. Yeah. Wrap over and then. Well yeah. Well I was going to say and similarly with the wall finish of showers, we're starting to see that really minimal look of maybe it is painted sheetrock in the bathroom, but then it transitions to like a waterproof plaster that looks like sheetrock. 00:33:35:06 - 00:34:02:20 Unknown And that's that also has its challenges of where do we transition that material, how do we waterproof it? And it's just some added cost here and there for that minimal look. We're doing one right now that I can't it we're so close to it being done. I can't wait to get some pictures of it. But again, David Miller Duncan Miller, he did his concrete micro topping finish on the entire all the shower walls, all the tub walls, all the floor in the bathrooms, the whole bathrooms. 00:34:02:20 - 00:34:30:05 Unknown Like this monolithic thing. Yes. And I can't wait to to get some pictures on how that on how that looks. And that's pretty sweet. Yeah. Beautiful. Something it off the paint though. Yes. One of the other things I was remembering about the, seamless, sort of accessible shower, detail is that, the drain still needs to be technically, like 2.5in or something lower than some curb, you know? 00:34:30:10 - 00:35:06:22 Unknown Right. And so it just puts more pressure on that planning beforehand. You know, there's the slab, have the drop required or do you have, enough space in that for framing? Say it's a second second floor bath to accommodate that, that drop. So kind of on the, on the topic of walls, so drywall drywall finishes, again we talked earlier about there is no, no kind of molding to kind of cheat your, your drywall, especially at the corners, at the base. 00:35:07:00 - 00:35:32:20 Unknown Oftentimes or you know, it's something we've been asked to do many, many times is do a, like a reveal system around interior doors and above baseboards. And, you know, if you don't budget for that, that that's, that can double your drywall cost, and integrating some kind of, like, metal reveal system. And your drywall guy may not be the right guy to do that. 00:35:32:20 - 00:36:03:09 Unknown Like, like we like to have our trim carpenters actually install all those metal reveals. And the drywall guy is going to me to do the floating to it, but our guys are going in there and setting, setting lasers, putting in that metal and then letting them float to it. But I, I have a hard time trusting a drywall guy to get all those reveals spot on, especially when you have this, like the continuous line across the baseboard, up the door, around the door, around the corner, you know, and that's that's hard to pull off. 00:36:03:09 - 00:36:33:02 Unknown And it's, you know, it's crazy that your eye can really see that one eighth of an inch difference if it's installed just a little bit off or a little bit wavy, it really grabs your attention. So it's a very important step. Yeah. Even around, you know, windows doing like, like a, like a trimmers, window. You know, again, I'm not I'm not trying to constantly brag on my trim carpenters, but I do have my trim guys go in. 00:36:33:02 - 00:36:54:13 Unknown In fact, that's where they are today. They are going around to every single window opening before drywall. And they're they're basically putting in kind of like a plywood subframe that's going to go behind the finished drywall. But but they're squaring up every single window in advance for the drywall guy. Because if you don't have any, wood finish on that window. 00:36:54:13 - 00:37:22:12 Unknown No sills or edges, whatever. No. No casing. You know, you'll see it easily if that window openings not spot on is all that light coming in there, and it'll it'll highlight it, especially if you're dealing with small pieces of sheetrock. If you're if you're relying on the rigidity of the sheetrock itself and the Chirac has been sliced and diced, it's just going to be hard for it to, for you to be able to rely on it to create that crisp edge. 00:37:22:17 - 00:37:47:05 Unknown Right. You know, you can you can try to cut it into submission, but you can only go so far with that. Yeah, right. Especially on these modern houses where we want that level 4 or 5 smooth finish. We don't want texture or anything to cover up the sins. So you're going to see that translate through if that extra work isn't done beforehand. 00:37:47:07 - 00:38:11:00 Unknown So level kind of I'll call like a level four plus level five finish, does take a lot more time. And using the right products. So, you know, I call like a level four plus finish, which is a lot of times what we'll kind of do, where we're the, the drywall guy is, is skimming a little bit further out on his joints. 00:38:11:05 - 00:38:41:23 Unknown So instead of, you know, maybe an eight inch, we're going out to 12 or, or 16 inch skim around the joints and really taking the time to do it like a good sand, but then also applying like a really, a good quality, a thick, high build primer that's going to level out the walls when you put the primer on it to, because again, when you have these walls with a lot of sunlight hitting them, you'll see those imperfections. 00:38:42:01 - 00:39:04:22 Unknown We're actually working on a house, in West University right now where, the previous builder was supposed to get a level 4 or 5 finish, and they have this big, two story stairwell that's, you know, 24ft high with windows all the way up the stairwell. And ever since they moved in there, like, every time that we walk up here in the sunlight, we see all these lines in the drywall. 00:39:05:00 - 00:39:29:06 Unknown Right? And so so we're floating the whole wall from floor to ceiling, you know, putting the right primer on it. And hopefully, that turns out a lot better. But. Right. Yeah. It's better to do that the first time around. Yeah. Not after, after the living there and having to sand everything back down. Yes. So. Well, you know, I think what's perhaps like underappreciated is I think it all comes down to trim. 00:39:29:06 - 00:39:53:10 Unknown Maybe. You know, I think a lot of us grew up in houses, with plenty of. I mean, crooked is maybe a harsh word to say, but not flat walls. But it was actually difficult to see it. Maybe over time, if you're hanging out or something, you would notice some things, but it typically pretty forgiving. Based on the the design of those homes. 00:39:53:11 - 00:40:16:03 Unknown And, you know, even we, we've done some work on more traditional houses that are, that are trying to pull from historic kind of esthetics. And the kind of irony about all of that is that a lot of historic, kind of masonry structures are super wonky, but you don't really care because, like, it's so, you know, romantic or whatever. 00:40:16:05 - 00:40:52:09 Unknown But a new construction version of a house that's trying to mimic that in the clients are like, but I want straight walls, like, they don't want a crooked wall. And, And. Yeah. Isn't it romantic? Yeah, yeah. And so the on a modern house, it's just there's just nothing you could hide behind. I'm just reiterating what we've already talked about, but there is a kind of funny spectrum of where the, kind of lower quality, wall finishing can be, easier to hide. 00:40:52:11 - 00:41:31:02 Unknown And it's not in modern projects, for sure. So the last couple categories, that I have or like millwork and cabinets and then getting into tile and countertops. So some more, more of the more of the finish work, more of the, the sexy stuff that you see. Right. You know, so millwork we've already talked about a lot between baseboards and door reveals and things like that, but you know cabinets, I think you know, people again they see a nice clean flat panel cabinet and they think, oh, that's simpler, less ornamentation should be easier. 00:41:31:04 - 00:41:53:19 Unknown And in some cases that's true. You know, a flat panel cabinet door. I have a 12 by 24 or flat panel cabin. The door is cheaper to produce than a cabinet door. It's a five piece door with a raised panel or whatever. That's true. But oftentimes it's the it's the material spec. It's, we often start getting into a lot of stained woods, and then you're wanting to match the grains. 00:41:53:21 - 00:42:13:18 Unknown Yes. Or maybe it's an exotic wood or something like that. And so that can really, jack up the cost of those cabinets, especially if you're doing grain matching. So you got ten feet of cabinets, floor to ceiling, and you want all the grain on your walnut, to flow together. That's, that's that's an expensive bank of cabinets. 00:42:13:18 - 00:42:58:15 Unknown Yeah. And I would say in modern design where we're seeing the, you know, the full wall, floor to ceiling, wall to wall of cabinets and, you know, we're starting to integrate things like the Hvac supply and return into those cabinets. Even so, there's a lot more coordination that needs to go into it up front. And then, you know, the the concealed hardware, even if you want that clean look, even though it's simple, we have this really sophisticated hardware that's that you can micro adjust to make it all look just perfect when it's all some, some touch latch hardware, things like that, that stuff starts to get pretty pricey or even the pocketing hardware. 00:42:58:15 - 00:43:28:20 Unknown You know, everybody wants those cool pocket doors, that pocket and slide away. But it adds up. Well, and, you know, traditional hardware is all maybe not entirely, but, you know, a lot of it's face mounted. So all the panels are up and you can kind of come after the fact and do some measurements and, you know, plan for where you're going to pre-drill your holes for your, your handles or whatever. 00:43:28:22 - 00:43:54:03 Unknown But if we have, some sort of hardware that's actually integrated into the, the edge of, cabinet door, then it might be something that needs to be planned for and milled in the shop. You know, this is all ahead of time. You know, you don't get the luxury of kind of looking at it, as a whole on site and then like, measuring and then taking them down and Cunningham, like, it's got to be right when it gets there. 00:43:54:06 - 00:44:12:22 Unknown Right. And they come up several times with, the little tab cabinet holes where people, you know, the cabinets are done the right, here's the hardware where you want, and you're going to have to process those now. Yeah. We have an eighth of an inch between your door and your drawer that's is adjacent to it. So you can't put those in there. 00:44:12:22 - 00:44:34:20 Unknown So now you got to take those off. You've got to very precisely because they're already painted or stained or right, a laminate finish or something like that. And you've got a very painstakingly like, you know, router out every single one, to get that installed. Yeah, we've had that happen as well. The carpet. I always love that. 00:44:34:22 - 00:44:59:00 Unknown So, kind of last category, tile and countertops, you know, same song. Second verse here is just advanced planning, right? The more information that we have early about the products that we're going to use. So thickness of tile, oftentimes we want like large format tile, in, in modern design, you know, you want fewer grout joints. 00:44:59:00 - 00:45:22:10 Unknown You go to these big 48 by 48 tiles, which are on the installation side, the, the, the tile installers charge more to install those because they're harder to handle. Right? They're a lot more fragile. And they require specialized, equipment to cut so they can just use their tile saw that they usually have on their truck on site to, to cut those things because they won't they won't fit on that tile. 00:45:22:10 - 00:45:43:07 Unknown So, so those are having to be cut sometimes on a C and C machine off site or in a large format tile saw, off site. So that stuff takes a lot of special care, to, to handle, to install it. And then just the liability of one breaks, you know, that that. Yeah, that one, that one tile might be $200. 00:45:43:09 - 00:46:08:15 Unknown Right. And so and then hopefully they have more on that same, you know, color a lot die lot as well. Yeah. Yeah. This, my favorite thing to think and complain about in this category is, well, you know, social media, we see great images of designs, you know, is I. Yeah. Is it? I have a family. 00:46:08:17 - 00:46:31:05 Unknown Totally fake. Is it essentially what I would call an art project that is not durable at all, you know, but like, either the architect or the client sees this thing and they fall in love with it. And so the team on site has to be like, okay, so how are we going to do this? Like, we don't have the information, you know, maybe it's a product, maybe it's, not. 00:46:31:06 - 00:47:04:04 Unknown And we have to kind of say, okay, so the, the drawer fronts are stone, like, how did they do that? You know. Yeah. But is it really just faux painted to look like. Yeah, in the photograph is far enough away where you can't, you know, it's it looks great in the photograph, right. Yeah. There are some, some, kind of calculated risks like that that come along with trying to do something that's unique, that maybe wouldn't be something you'd expect to see in a, in a traditional job. 00:47:04:06 - 00:47:26:05 Unknown And the whole team has to be in on it. They have to be working together, listening to each other and coming up with a plan that, feels good, all around. So, you know, all this stuff is a total pain in the butt. But you know what? To me, that's why I like doing these projects. 00:47:26:05 - 00:47:44:20 Unknown Because I like it's it's a pain. But as long as people are willing to pay for it, and they and they understand why it costs what it costs, and they're okay with that. And it's not being forced on them, through a change order maybe. But as long as they understand kind of what's driving the cost that they're willing to pay for it. 00:47:44:20 - 00:48:11:20 Unknown Like, I love getting shown something and be like, hey, can we do this? Yeah, let's figure out how to do that. Like, it's it's fun. I like the process of of doing something that's never been done before. Is is really fun. Yeah. The challenge of producing something really unique is always fun for us at least. And I think that, you know, when choosing your project team, having architects in the builder also enjoy doing stuff like that together. 00:48:11:20 - 00:48:34:02 Unknown It really makes for a strong team because without our help and without your cooperation and help, it just it can't happen. Absolutely. That to me, the worst scenario is when, architect or interior designer or like, hey, here's here's the inspiration picture, figure it out. Mike, you want me just to figure it out on my own? 00:48:34:02 - 00:48:52:06 Unknown But what if you don't like how I figure it? Yeah, I'm not sure you want. Yeah. You know, so because I've seen some other people's versions of figuring it out, they really aren't very good. Yes. But the the collaborative process, as long as everybody understands, we're not just going to throw something out there and say, figure it out. 00:48:52:06 - 00:49:24:22 Unknown Hey, let's all sit down. Let's look at this. Let's talk about options. And there's some mutual mutual respect, for for knowledge and capabilities. Yeah. I love kind of working out. There's this fun details. And that's when samples become so important to mockups, you know, just to get the client's approval on something before we go ahead and and do this new experiment, like, across the entire house, we need to see different versions, different ways to do this the most effectively to to get the best product. 00:49:24:23 - 00:49:53:09 Unknown Yeah. So to kind of wrap this up, I wanted to ask a question, because we've talked about how all this stuff costs more money. It's more time. It's more complicated. Does does every, you know, quote unquote modern House? Does every more modern design have to cost more, or are there some strategies that we can employ to to keep costs under control, to build a more cost effective version of that house? 00:49:53:11 - 00:50:19:15 Unknown I think the short answer is yes. It's possible to to build a modern house on a budget. It's definitely a spectrum. There's a sliding scale of how modern do you want to go? There are a lot of elements in modern design that can be kind of pared back and thought of more simply to allow more tolerant tolerances and to make for an easier, more budget friendly build. 00:50:19:15 - 00:50:51:21 Unknown For sure. One of those reason, or one of those topics being like the punched openings versus huge sliders, we can do a really cool rhythm of, you know, standard sized openings that still create that feeling of like a modern, airy, open, light filled space but don't have all the the complexity surrounding them. So I'll give a shout out to, to another architect, real quick, who we've worked with. 00:50:51:23 - 00:51:16:06 Unknown And off you all know Michael Mauro. Kenny Moore architecture. Michael is really, really good at, executing a modern design with a lot of very simplistic elements. So we've done a, a project with Michael where, like, like, everything he spect was cheap. I couldn't believe it. Like, I get, I get the material list of the stuff he wants to use. 00:51:16:06 - 00:51:39:10 Unknown I'm like, is that going to look good? He's like, yeah, trust me. And the house turned out so cool. But it was all like really simple, inexpensive products. But they were installed in a sophisticated way, and there was a lot of planning that went into how these things are going to go together. Right. And so the labor was a little bit more to kind of to kind of make things happen a certain way. 00:51:39:10 - 00:52:07:11 Unknown But the materials were super affordable. Right? So I love that mentality of how can we make this look really cool without spending a ton of money? I think there's this sort of, you know, kind of, architectural pursuit in modern architecture to achieve things like that, you know, have things actually be simple and efficient and clean. 00:52:07:13 - 00:52:32:19 Unknown And, and so I definitely think that there's a way for modern architecture to cost less. And, you know, we've been on, traditional projects where it felt like there was just a lot of extra in the house, you know, like faux beams and things like that that are trying to get an esthetic that is really kind of, it's a simulation of something that's no longer really happening. 00:52:32:21 - 00:53:04:09 Unknown And so when you take that simulation away, this is modern life, you know, there is less. So less can cost less. It's just a matter of, designing smart, like you said in that example. I mean, there's a lot of great, great examples out there like that. And, I think a lot of that too, comes, from trusting experienced designers who can bring stuff to the table that will work well together. 00:53:04:09 - 00:53:29:02 Unknown That doesn't cost a lot. I think we we do find ourselves accommodating high end finishes. You know, someone, they saw something that looked really nice in the showroom. And they want to do that. And of course, we want to make, people's, dreams, hopes and dreams come true. And so, yeah. And so we work with that. 00:53:29:02 - 00:54:01:05 Unknown But I don't, think that that's the only way to go about it. And, Yeah, I think there are great examples in Houston of, of architects who do just really simple. Kind of modest, but really effective clean work that I admire a lot. And, and when I go to those houses, I'm just like, walking around looking at their random trim and stuff because I'm like, wow, that's that's pretty clever, you know? 00:54:01:08 - 00:54:27:03 Unknown And it's something that I could practically do myself. Yeah. That's one of the great things about the the world that we live in today. Of, just the availability of, kind of like knock offs, like for, for every super high end product, there's a generally kind of a comparable, lesser product out there, that you can accomplish this the same general, look and feel with that product. 00:54:27:03 - 00:54:50:02 Unknown So, you know, you don't have to have, the, $100,000 appliance package. You could get the some similar appliance. You know, it's not going to be the that name brand, right? Like if you're if you're if you're chasing and having a certain brand in your house, that's not going to get you there. But if you're looking for a look and a feel, you still want some quality. 00:54:50:02 - 00:55:18:06 Unknown There are some. There are some good alternatives to those products out there. So, it's also making sure that the design team that you're working with understands your budget goals, too. And they're sensitive to your budget goals and they respect your budget. Right. That that's something that I've experienced is that, the client maybe has state of their budget goals, and the team's like, I'm gonna take them to the showroom over here, we're going to buy this stuff, because this is this is what I like as the designer. 00:55:18:06 - 00:55:40:23 Unknown But you have to listen to the client and like what they can really afford, right. And and make it appropriate for their budget. Right. Like, I'm a purist at heart. I, you know, fo anything really. Just irks my soul. But the porcelains are so good right now. Porcelain countertops and slabs, like, they just look so good. You would never even know the difference. 00:55:40:23 - 00:56:18:13 Unknown And I think that's what we're starting to see more and more as like a really good value for these high end looking finishes. And maybe the labor in the detailing is still high end, but the material cost is actually less than if we went to, you know, a stone yard and picked out five Carrara slabs, you know. Well, and actually a lot of that stuff has gone through a pretty good bit of R&D because, often those porcelain products from the engineered wood products, some of these things are used a lot in commercial applications, hotels, hospitality, where they're getting a lot of traffic. 00:56:18:13 - 00:56:36:19 Unknown And these materials have to be durable. And so just because you're using kind of one of these, you know, quote unquote luster materials that that might be, you know, getting a lot of heavy use in more of a commercial setting. And so, you know, that it's going to kind of hold up to, to daily to daily traffic. 00:56:36:19 - 00:57:09:18 Unknown So I, I'm not advocating going and buying the cheapest alternative from China. Right. But as long as you're buying like a reasonable brand that, that, it's not some totally cheap knockoff. Yeah. It has some support behind it. Right. Well so in other industry that I mean knockoffs is such a derogatory thing. But lighting you know, like for years we would spec 3 or $400 cans, really high end canned lights. 00:57:09:20 - 00:57:36:15 Unknown And then there was this kind of, much cheaper kind of cheap stuff that, you know. Oh, yeah. You don't want that stuff. It's cheap. It's trash or whatever, but they're still around. And then, you know, ten plus years later, they're offering all the same features. They've got a track record and, they're like a fraction of the price. 00:57:36:15 - 00:58:02:13 Unknown And it's like, okay, can we keep ignoring this or should we look into it? And we've had some success there where? Yeah, we want to do, we have a project with sophisticated kind of lighting needs, and we can pull that off without spending, you know, three times what the normal cost would be. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we've we've, spent a lot of time on this. 00:58:02:15 - 00:58:17:20 Unknown It's been a great conversation. I really appreciate you guys being here. I feel like we could probably keep this going for another hour. Yeah. There's so many more things we haven't even touched on yet, but maybe we should do a part two sometime. Be fun. So, Sam and Julie, thank you so much. Just to kind of the to kind of put a bow on it. 00:58:17:20 - 00:58:46:22 Unknown What? So give me your takeaway. What you like. What your biggest takeaway from our conversation. I'll, I'll start and maybe steal your ideas. So, my big takeaway is kind of the same thing that we preach all the time, on this podcast. And that is having a solid team and doing a lot of advance planning. That's, that's, that's my my number one thing on the podcast and my company, that's just what we believe in. 00:58:46:22 - 00:59:15:21 Unknown So I think this conversation really reinforces that. I think so too. I mean, collaboration is such a big part of what we enjoy about the field of architecture, and we can only pull off these really cool, crisp designs by collaborating with the whole project team. There's kind of this, you know, some, some people in our industry are very much like cliquish like they're like, that's that's your scope. 00:59:15:21 - 00:59:39:02 Unknown I'm not figuring that out. I'm just the builder. I just do what you tell me to do. And then some architects are like, you're the builder. You're supposed to figure it out. But it's really that collaboration that we enjoy and that we think needs to be more understood. I think in our field in general. And that, really makes for successful projects, for sure. 00:59:39:04 - 01:00:10:16 Unknown What you got, I think, as you know, from a designer standpoint, I think, to kind of ensure success for the whole project team. I think, it's good that we think about, how our design and what kind of design would be successful in different contexts, you know, like, are we in Houston, where we're basically have access to any number of expertise, or are we in the middle of West Texas somewhere? 01:00:10:16 - 01:00:45:13 Unknown And like, we're going to be our project team is not going to be, plucked from such a broad spectrum of experiences, you know? So how can our design, fit in? Well with that context? I think, you know, and I don't think that that's a limiting thing. I think we can do really ambitious design, but work with in the context that that the project is in, can, can, have a big impact on the overall outcome of the project, so. 01:00:45:15 - 01:01:03:03 Unknown Great. All right. Sam and I and Julie. Right. Thank you so much for being here. And we'll be sure and and put some links to into Bright Architectures website and social media, all that stuff on the show notes. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you Curtis. And thank you all for listening to this episode to the Your Project Shepherd podcast. 01:01:03:03 - 01:01:04:21 Unknown I will see you next time. Thanks.