This is the third group of videos showing more framing progress on the lake front home in Sylvan Lake, Michigan (Oakland County). 
This is a home we have designed and are building. It is a very traditional “cottage style” home, perfect for the area. Sylvan Lake is a beautiful Oakland County lake near Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, the Royal Oak, Franklin, Bingham Farms and centralized north Woodward area.
This is the second group of videos showing more framing progress on the lake front home in Sylvan Lake, Michigan (Oakland County). This is a home we have designed and are building. It is a very traditional “cottage style” home, perfect for the area. Sylvan Lake is a beautiful Oakland County lake near Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, the Royal Oak, Franklin, Bingham Farms and centralized north Woodward area.
Original Sylvan Lake was a resort area. It has homes dating to the early 1900s and likely before. As is common in the area, many older homes are replaced with custom new homes. Our clients had a great vision for this home which is it should be designed as an original “cottage” home. With their help, we were able to design a wonderful home0 which fits in perfectly on this beautiful lake front site.
Bryan Leith, the project manager, has been providing video blog clips. We are posting them on a regular basis, every few days. Here is another video with great explanations of the quality and attention to detail going into the house.
True Cottage Syle Design - New Home Under Construction Sylvan Lake
Here’s a two minute video of a beautiful new home we designed and are building on a lake front lot in Sylvan Lake, Oakland County Michigan. It happened to be very cold this early January day, but the framers are, at about mid-point, doing a careful, detailed job. More videos as this house progresses!
By the way, this house was designed to fit in with the surrounding lakefront homes. It is designed as an original, true “cottage style” home. An architectural rendering is shown below.
Hunter Roberts Homes, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes are related design/build businesses doing new residential design build and renovation design build in Michigan. We operate primarily in the Oakland County cities, townships and villages of Birmingham, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy
It is simple - custom home building and home renovations are a sequence of events in a predictable order. There are always some unforeseen conditions and situations that are so unique they are hard to predict, but if properly managed those items will and should only rock the boat for a brief moment in an otherwise smooth sea that is the timeline of a custom building process. There is a basic progression that 90% of custom home building takes that is predictable and can fit into a semi-rigid timeline. The 10% is those situations where client, architect and builder, just will not follow the system. It is not a system error rather a personal problems. Let’s be honest, they designed, planned and built the Pentagon in Washington DC in about 12 months.
Master Closet Created From Unused Office
If a good system is in place and the people work within the system, assuming it is realistic, there is no reason a homeowner can not expect a home to be built on time and in budget. More to come….tomorrow, Ramona called, my turn to take out Barkley…our Yellow Lab!
Todd Bergsman, Hunter Roberts Homes, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes are related design/build businesses doing new residential design build and renovation design build in Michigan. We operate primarily in the Oakland County cities, townships and villages of Birmingham, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy
Planning A New Home Or Renovation
We spend a lot of time talking about how important it is to have a house or renovation well planned before we start. Sometimes, fortunately not very often, we get a reminder why it is so important.
“It sure helps to plan in advance.” - Today, I was in one of the homes we are building in Birmingham. If you are not from here, Birmingham is in Oakland County, and adjacent to Bloomfield Village which itself is part of Bloomfield Township.
We have promised to deliver this house, about 4800 sq. ft. , within 8 months. It is a new custom residence which we designed and are building. It is one of a kind, as the British say, a “one off”.
We had not completely finished the final review of the electrical plan, the result of which is the subject of this story. We ending up having to move some ceiling fixtures in the mud room to accomodate some trim that was being added in addition to the custom trimwork that was planned originally.
As a result, we had to get the electricians back to the job, move the fixtures and wiring. This required drywall repairs when the house was in the final paint stages. It was a nusiance, it slows the momentum. Fortunately it was relatively minor.
Why did this happen? We didn’t insist that 100% of the electrical plan be completed and reviewed after the interior trim plan was completed. Since the plan was not complete the electricians, using there best judgement in this mud room, centered the lights in the room when the house was in the rough stage (before drywall). But sometime later the decision was made to add an additional bank of closets and built-ins on one side of the room, and the electrical plan was not revised for this room. Since these built-ins went to the ceiling, this meant the lights were no longer centered and had to be recentered to be perfect.
Fortunately this was a relatively small hiccup in a the scheme of things. The home has gone very smoothly. We will deliver it on time. The reason we will deliver it on time is that for the vast major of the steps, we followed our plan, which is to plan, plan well and keep the planning well ahead of the actual construction. This makes it more relaxed for a client to make selections. It gets the home completed on time and making it a comfortable and predictable process for our clients.
All the advance planning avoids complications and delays down the road. Many people in the construction field believe “select as you build”. We don’t!
Ken Peterson, Hunter Roberts Homes, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes are related design/build businesses doing new residential design build and renovation design build in Michigan. We operate primarily in the Oakland County cities, townships and villages of Birmingham, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy
I was at a friend’s house the other day and noticed that in his den, the shelves in all of his bookcases were sagging. This was certainly due to the weight of the books on the shelves but also because all of the shelves were made from ¾” material. Years ago, we had found the same problem and we made the call to switch all of our weight-bearing shelves to 1” material.
Sometimes things cost a little more. The incremental cost between the two thicknesses of material is so small but the difference in having sagging bookshelves or not is tremendous.
Another aesthetic issue is the appearance of the edge. We often give it a substantial appearance by finishing the edge with an additional trim piece such as a one and a half inch tall molding detail. We apply in on the front edge. That gives the shelf a very substantial appearance.
Bloomfield Hills Library
Ken Peterson, Hunter Roberts Homes, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes are related design/build businesses doing new residential design build and renovation design build in Michigan. We operate primarily in the Oakland County cities, townships and villages of Birmingham, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy
Check out this Link. Birmingham is rated as one of the best places to live…
Click here to View Article at CNN Money Website
This is good news for my industry. We design and build custom homes in the Birmingham/Bloomfield areas of Oakland County.
Todd Bergsman, Hunter Roberts Homes, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes are related design/build businesses doing new residential design build and renovation design build in Michigan. We operate primarily in the Oakland County cities, townships and villages of Birmingham, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy
