Laundry room reveal! Swipe to see before shot of this flip! Moved washer and dryer and sink around for more efficient use of one of the busiest rooms in the house. Is your laundry room running efficiently?

Reclaimed brick wall in dining area. Custom built bookcase built into the side of the stairs. Hardwood is reclaimed wood with metal trim. Exposed conduit with cages and LED for lighting. Photo credit Scott Zimmerman

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Example of a minimalist wooden straight staircase design in Portland Maine with painted risers

The duo's primary consideration during the design phase was to create a fully-functioning family home. "We are always thinking about our kids", Novogratz explains. "They needed a place to run around in the city, so putting the gym in was a pretty obvious solution. It may be out of the ordinary, but it is better than having your children skateboarding through the kitchen!" The couple's oldest son, Wolfgang, is a champion basketball player. While the court provides him with a place to hone his skills, it doubles as an entertaining space. "We knew we needed to use the space efficiently so it could work for everything", says the designer. From watching movies on a retractable screen, to hosting a 40-guest Thanksgiving dinner, the gym has proved itself as a good move. It has even been a haunted house! Adrienne DeRosa Photography

As a manager of a building or property, you quickly learn the art of mediation. One minute you may be working with a vendor to keep the building’s operating system running efficient and smooth; the next moment you may be calming a tenant down after finding the change in the system disrupted his office’s workflow. Give and take; it’s the only way to make sure every day runs perfectly. Overall, you have two goals to strive for in everything you do. 1. Keep the building running properly, upgrading systems as appropriate, and striving to do all you can on a pre-established budget. 2. Keep the building occupants happy, with as little disruption as possible. While some changes are minor, barely registering on a building occupant’s mind, with HVAC challenges, that’s rarely the case. If a HVAC contractor is replacing an air handler, for instance, and disconnects one and moves to the next unit, it may cause major disruptions to sensitive areas of a building. And if the occupant wasn’t prepared for the disruption, you can have a mighty unhappy customer on your hand. Anytime you are working on HVAC projects throughout your building, there are strategies you can put into place to keep things running smooth. Communicate with occupants Communication is key to any good relationship, and as a property manager, this rule is a great place to start. If you will be working with the HVAC equipment, block out the timeframe for work to be done, and understand the potential consequences of the process. Then communicate this process with every point of contact you have throughout the building. The more detail you can provide, the less surprises you’ll have throughout the process. You can also work with your building’s occupants before the process begins, finding out if there are better timeframes than others. Establish a realistic schedule As a property manager, its easy to provide your expectations for the HVAC project at hand, and request that the proposal be written in such a way that work is completed on your timeframe. Unfortunately, many contractors want your business and will agree to anything upfront in order to win the bid, knowing full well the work will take longer than specified. Instead of projecting your timeframes into the proposal process, ask for HVAC project bids to establish realistic schedules of how long the process will take, and what areas of your property will be most effected throughout the schedule. This will help you avoid crises between you and the contractor, and you and your tenants. Plan for the whole system If one small piece of your HVAC system is weak, its easy to fix that one small piece. But how will that impact your overall system? Will it cause weak spots in different parts of the building – maybe a corner office will have reduced air flow, and therefore be colder in the winter and warmer in the summer? When retrofitting new pieces with older existing systems, its easy to reduce the efficiency of your entire system. Before agreeing to certain repairs, make sure you understand how it will impact your entire system overall. An easy way of handling this problem is by working with the same HVAC contractor again and again, He will understand your system’s potential, and know when to make repairs, and when to replace. Have points of contact available for immediate assistance In many cases, problems arise because connections can’t be made. Can the HVAC contractor get a hold or you or another person that can make decisions at a moments notice if a problem arises? Do you have access to decision makers throughout the building that may be impacted by this change? Many projects have been put on hold simply because a person in authority can’t be found to give the go-ahead to move forward. If you have access to these people during the time of the project, you’ll be able to complete the project in record time. Test Finally, if you can test things in stages, or test when the potential for problems is the smallest, you reduce the chances of bigger emergency issues falling into your lap. If you’ll be installing a new terminal unit, can you make the switch on a Saturday morning when the building is largely unoccupied? If you’re replacing a large system, can you replace and test in phases so the entire project isn’t released at once? Most issues can be avoided with just a little strategy from the beginning. If you’ve never had a HVAC maintenance team to help you stay on track with your building’s heating and cooling, now may be the time to find out how easy a team approach makes the process.

Kitchen - mid-century modern kitchen idea in San Francisco

Laundry room reveal! Swipe to see before shot of this flip! Moved washer and dryer and sink around for more efficient use of one of the busiest rooms in the house. Is your laundry room running efficiently?

Staircase - modern wooden straight staircase idea in Portland Maine with painted risers

Under construction
Minimalist wooden straight staircase photo in Portland Maine with painted risers

One way to hide a entryway wall vent.
Island style entryway photo in Los Angeles

GE Cafe 36" Built-In Knob Control Electric Cooktop in Black and Brushed Bronze Knobs. When youre updating your kitchen, attention to detail is a priority. Thats why Caf cooktops are guaranteed for an exact fit for an easy and seamless replacement. Keep your kitchen looking sleek and running efficiently with a glass surface that delivers rapid, even heat. Tailor your burner size to your cookware with an 9"/7"/5" element that's powerful enough to boil water quickly.

Bathroom - bathroom idea in Grand Rapids

Example of a large classic carpeted straight wood railing staircase design in Milwaukee with carpeted risers

Example of a mid-sized mountain style freestanding desk medium tone wood floor study room design in Toronto

Example of a small transitional galley light wood floor eat-in kitchen design in Other with recessed-panel cabinets, gray cabinets, solid surface countertops, stainless steel appliances, an island and an undermount sink

Staircase - mid-sized contemporary wooden straight open staircase idea in Salt Lake City

Our pioneer project, Casita de Tierra in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, showcases the natural building techniques of a rubble trench foundation, earthbag construction, natural plasters, earthen floors, and a composting toilet. Our earthbag wall system consists of locally available, cost-efficient, polypropylene bags that are filled with a formula of clay and aggregate unearthed from our building site. The bags are stacked like bricks in running bonds, which are strengthened by courses of barbed wire laid between each row, and tamped into place. The walls are then plastered with a mix composed of clay, sand, soil and straw, and are followed by gypsum and lime renders to create attractive walls. The casita exhibits a load-bearing wall system demonstrating that thick earthen walls, with no rebar or cement, can support a roofing structure. We, also, installed earthen floors, created an indoor dry-composting toilet system, utilized local woods for the furniture, routed all grey water to the outdoor garden, and maximized air flow by including cross-ventilating screened windows below the natural palm frond and cane roof. Casita de Tierra exemplifies an economically efficient, structurally sound, aesthetically pleasing, environmentally kind, and socially responsible home.