In the news today: MIT researchers may have finally found an effective way to combine a solar panel and a window. This could be huge.

The technology works like this: Dyes are strategically cast into glass so as to refract certain parts of the spectrum along/within the glass rather than allowing it to pass through. All this redirected light then shines out the edges of the panel in a high concentration. By simply placing narrow solar panels around the edges of the glass, the amount of expensive solar paneling is minimized without sacrificing the amount of solar radiation “caught”.

And then, of course, there’s the additional benefit that this is a window. Not a normal window, but a tinted one. So it is a little unconventional, but let’s consider some of the possibilities of this:

• What if we built a greenhouse entirely out of these windows (walls and ceiling) and allowed the dyes to use just the blue/yellow part of the spectrum to send to the solar panels? Remember, yellow and blue makes green, and that’s the part that plants don’t use. The green that we see when we look at a leaf is essentially the “waste” part of the light. So you’d have a solar array that doubles as a greenhouse. The windows would appear red to us.
• Next idea: for a human space, what about just the opposite. After all, we like the greenish light that filters down through a forest canopy to our level. Again, “free” solar power on top of this pleasant effect.
• Here’s a crazy one: what about custom-tinted skylights to complement the colors of a room? If you’ve spent much time inside of churches with stained glass windows, you know that these colored windows can have a huge effect on the feeling of colors that receive the light … almost like a way of engineering emotions. This could be a whole new discipline within the field of decorating/design.

Somehow I’ve managed to remain extremely busy so far this year, but — as far as I can tell — I’m an exception to the general rule.

Today I had an interesting conversation with a kitchen designer and cabinet showroom owner whom I know to be a very competent fellow.  Somehow the talk led to me asking him if he ever advertised.

He said that he had spent $5,000 on advertising over the last six months, and the result was … nada.  Not one quality lead.

We went on to agree that 99% of quality leads come from word-of-mouth referrals.  You just have to get in the game, do quality work, and let time work for you.

My work takes me into many homes each year, and I rub shoulders with lots of General Contractors, tradesmen, and homeowners.  This past week, a homeowner succinctly stated one of the most common remodel complaints.  It went like this:

“I invested countless hours of my time in discussing various issues and problems at the beginning of the project.  We made decisions about what was going to happen at various stages.   I assumed they (designers, contractor, foreman) were keeping notes.  But as the project rolled out, again and again I would have to stop things and remind them of the original plan.  It became incumbent upon me to catch all these things or they weren’t going to get caught.”

GCs and their on-site representatives are notoriously bad at keeping good records.  Kitchen designers are usually a lot better.  In this particular situation, the kitchen designer was no longer employed by the cabinet provider, left nearly no notes, and could not be reached by the homeowner.   So yes, it was a mess.  But sometimes it feels as if most jobs are a mess.  There’s always some excuse or special situation.

Here’s the bottom line for the homeowner: Get it in writing.

Let me propose a little test that should help to ensure you against some of the ineptitude which lays in wait for you.  Keep your own quick list of the things discussed between you and the GC/designer during the pre-bid stage.  Then, before you surrender a down payment, ask to see their list of those details.  If anything is missing, consider it a bad omen.  You’re just asking for misery if you accept a bid from someone who isn’t keeping good records.  You deserve better.  Keep looking.

Well, I managed to miss the whole month of April on this blog, so I thought I’d post an update for those of you who follow it.

My own path has been moving further from remodeling and toward woodworking, cabinetry, and now furniture.

(I have a mental hierarchy in my mind that goes like this: trim carpentry graduates to cabinetmaking, which is below furniture building.  Then at the top is musical instruments or maybe the “arrow carver”?? See Cole Porter on that one.)

Anyway, I’m in that transitional phase between cabinetry and furniture.  Here’s a piece I built recently.  This was not a completely solo effort, but it was mostly my baby.

The other big development, and somewhat related, has been the recent opportunity to go deeper with CNC-based woodwork and design.  (Translation: programming a robot to do lots of your work for you.)  For good or ill, this is the future.  Hopefully in future entries you’ll get to see some work created on this machine.

Short answer: Because the room (or woodwork) doesn’t change dimension just because you put up the first piece of trim.

When I apprenticed with an aged cabinetmaker and trim carpenter, I learned how to do it the slow way.  It made sense to me at the time.  It doesn’t anymore.

For starters, the old way takes a lot of walking.  I like walking, but not while wearing a toolbelt.

So, instead, I make all the measurements and record them in my proprietary shorthand (which has become increasingly complex over the years).  Then I’m off to the saw to do all the cutting at once.

Other benefits of this approach are:

• Better optimization of the trim sticks: Start by cutting the longest ones and you’ll probably get more useful pieces out of your stock.
• Full concentration on cutting.  This is especially important on crown, which is traditionally cut upside down and backwards.
• Join pieces before hanging them for better joints.  (See image at right.)

Why “mis-named”?

Because cupola means a dome, kind of like a cup that has been turned over on the top of a roof. When is the last time you saw a house with a domed cupola on its roof. Please send me a picture if you have.

The fact is that 99.9% of residential cupolas aren’t cupolas at all. But at some point, I guess history must to allow the cupola definition to expand, even if it’s the opposite of the original meaning. It’s like what noted linguist K.D. Harrison says: There’s really no such thing as bad grammar in an adult, since the only way we have of defining the grammar for a particular micro-culture is to look at how the adults in that culture use words. If they use words in contradictory ways, it’s interesting, not incorrect.

Why Medieval?

Based on the fact that the Italians, where the word used for our modern “cupolas” originated, didn’t get involved in dome-building until after 1000 AD, it’s safe to assume this wasn’t used residentially until the High Middle Ages.

Why a “Budget Lookout”?

Because you wouldn’t need to put a cupola at the peak of a roof if you could afford to build a stone tower to keep tabs on your fiefdom.

Learn more about this fascinating architectural feature by watching my cupola video.

If you have outgrown your small kitchen but can’t afford a major upgrade (a new house or a full kitchen/cabinet remodel), then this idea is for you.

Friends of mine had the same problem, and they solved it by adding this cleverly-designed, custom pantry unit in a (previously) useless area of the kitchen.

When you open it up, you are immediately jealous of the immense amount of storage that this crazy thing contains. There are shelves on the outer doors, then you realize that there are also shelves on a tricky set of inner doors. Then you swing those out and a very beefy set of additional shelves is revealed against the back wall of the cabinet. And because it was custom, it is sized to take advantage of the entire nook where it was built. Every inch.

As you can see, they aren’t filling this thing up yet, but with five children it won’t take long.

Here’s the catch. … finish Small-Kitchen Storage Idea: Custom Wood Pantry

Have you ever had this thought: “Maybe someday we’ll all do our work from a Lazy-Boy!”

The idea of doing all my work from a reclined dentist chair sounds like paradise. Over the years I’ve made a lot of improvements to the ergonomics of my own home office, but — due to logistical and cost constraints — I still do my work sitting upright in an office chair. While I don’t have any pains resulting from this arrangement, I’ve always sensed that leaning back — or even laying down — would allow a more relaxed, free-flowing type of office environment.

And now, vindication has arrived in the form of a recent study by Scottish and Canadian researchers: … finish Rethinking the Home Office

I recently heard it said that, in another 20 years, we will see a vast number of Hispanic General Contractors due to the fact that they will have a natural connection with the vast majority of subcontractors, who will increasingly be Hispanic.  One weakness of this prediction is that it’s unclear whether there will be many Hispanic GCs who can make a genuine connection with the typical homeowner.

Time will tell.

But here is my prediction:  We will see a much greater number of female GCs in 20 years.  Here’s why: … finish General Contracting — a Promising Field for Women?

Generally it is feelings not functionality that motivates a kitchen remodel. Here are the ones that make it happen:

… finish Four Feelings that Drive Kitchen Remodels