A Curated Team of Curiomakers
While I can do a lot of creative things by myself, I am nothing without a great team of like-minded specialists to work with: carpenters, engineers, environmental consultants, plumbers, the list goes on. The real recipe for a great work is a great team, a team the clients can depend on and trust. And for me, a huge part of the enjoyment of construction is pulling together the right people for the job, creating a team where everyone shares the same desired goal and clear purpose, where everyone listens and participates. Each one brings ideas and skills that create wonderful pockets of excitement.
Throughout my career, so many different people have contributed so much to so many projects along the way. I can’t stress that enough. I may be the cat herder, shepherd, captain, navigator, but the work is nothing without the others who make up the team.
One of my favorite projects would never have turned out so right and been so much fun without the input of many different creative and skilled people. What we built together was beautiful, intricate, and totally personalized for our clients. In this house there are so many creative ideas expressed, fabricated, and installed in every square inch. Let me take you on a visual tour.
During the engineering for the re-build, the engineer needed 12” floor joists for the second floor. We couldn’t do that as it would have increased the overall height of the building. Rumination ensued. I went back to the engineer and asked if Cumaru, a tropical hardwood, would be strong enough sandwiched to steel flitches to work the span? He did the calculations and came back chuckling, yes it would. So now we have 5 ½” joists. Cumaru and steel. It ended up beautiful to look at and coincidentally matched the reclaimed wood floors downstairs perfectly. We save as much from demo to reuse as possible.
The creativity didn’t stop there, oh no, once we realized that we were all making something beautiful, the ideas kept leaping into reality, one by one. One carpenter, Dave Rowell, had cut a live oak down in his backyard, so he cleaned it up and it became a bearing post for the ridge beam in the upstairs bedroom.
If you look closely you can see the puzzle pieces in the gable end wall beyond it. Those were all actual puzzle pieces we created on the floor of our shop, cut into intersecting shapes, painted and assembled individually. That was Bill Kwaak’s idea, my residential designer at the time.
The bed in this picture is actually a “boat bed” with a lobster boat headboard. We won an award for this one. I can thank Dave Rowell again for that.
Now we were in full swing, and the ideas for even more “moments” began to delight our collective imaginations. The owners asked for storage in the staircase which was a tricky ask in the context of a curved stair, but we executed it, and the end result was perfectly imperfect. Again it was Bill Kwaak that helped me solve this puzzle in the workshop. The finishing touch of the steel rope handrail was made by a local welder who jumped at the challenge when it was offered.
One of the owners wanted to create the walls in the shower to her design. We found a willing tile installer to work with her weaving together river stones and transparent glass pieces. She loves her shower! And we got to help make it!
The other homeowner had collected lumberyard baluster samples of different types, could we fit them into the railings on the stair? Of course we could.
And, lastly, one of our very talented carpenters, Sean Bennett, who was shingling the exterior of the house asked if he could shingle a mermaid into the side in contrasting cedar. Why not? Go for it!
Our best work is collaborative. It takes a village to build a house and to have fun while doing it. It is a journey together, exploring the challenges our dreams present when we go after them. It also takes homeowners who are willing to ask for things and tell us to do our best in creating them. It takes an openness to asking questions of what could be if we imagined together, if we are honest about our dreams and desires, if we allow other creative people into the picture. In the end and along the way….pure delight. I am so very fortunate in my career to have had a few clients that allow us to be as creative as possible, it is the ultimate in any builder.