Blog
Guides & Tips
Straight answers on costs, timelines, and permits from the people who draw and build the homes.
- I Am Not The Single Source Of TruthI don’t always know how a tool works or what something is doing. When that happens, I ask my team. Being the person taking the lead at Den & Burrow doesn’t make me the single source of truth.Read more
- The Client Who Teared Up Seeing Her Future HomeOne of my clients gave me a hug and started to tear up when she saw the design of her home. “It's so beautiful, and I can't wait to see it in real life.” She was really happy, and that was a very fulfilling moment for me.Read more
- A Room’s Purpose Shapes The People InsideI think a designer’s responsibility goes a step beyond making a building fit what happens inside it. The shape should match the use. There’s truth in form following function. But that function will also help form the people who live there.Read more
- Why Moving The Stairs Can Mean Pausing Live DesignIf you want to add a second story or move the stairs completely over to the other side, I may need to stop a live design session and work through that change. Moving the stairs can change the whole floor plan. That can take more than an hour to sort out.Read more
- Designing A Home So Family Members Cross PathsI want to design a home where mom, dad and the kids cross paths in the hallway. I call those encounters “collisions,” and I think they deserve attention when we’re figuring out how the rooms connect.Read more
- Leave A Place To Mark Your Child’s HeightI want door trim wide enough to write a child’s name beside a height mark. When I’m thinking about the proportions of a doorway, that old family tradition is part of what I’m thinking about, too.Read more
- Why I’m Keeping Our Family Home SmallI’m a dad with five children. We live in a small house, we share one bathroom as a family, and I’m not planning on growing the size of the house. I like living in a small home.Read more
- Why The Fixture Price Isn’t The Installation PriceTake a $150 toilet as an example. The price of the fixture can make replacement look inexpensive, but it tells you very little about the work around it. I think that gap between the price of the fixture and the work it takes to put it in explains a lot of the shock people feel…Read more
- How To Vet New Technology Without Overloading Your Design Or Construction BusinessBefore adding another tool, name the problem it needs to solve. A small trial and a clear stopping point can help design and construction business owners make a more deliberate decision.Read more
- We Designed The Second Story, Then Took It Back OffWe had designed an entire second story and had it engineered when the contractor got his bids back. His response was clear: “I can't afford this. This breaks my budget. Take it off.”Read more
- A Countryside Home For A Growing FamilyI think our ideal customers are couples with young children who want to get out of the city, find a small piece of land and build a beautiful home in the countryside. They have a couple of kids, their family is growing, and they’re looking for a place to retreat.Read more
- What Job Is The TV Doing In Your Home?If someone tells me, “I need a TV, and I love modern contemporary designs,” I have to be humble before I argue with their preference. Maybe there’s something in what they’re saying that I need to hear. I want to understand why those things matter to them.Read more
- Let My IPhone Be The IPhone. Keep The Food Cold.I don’t need my refrigerator to turn into an iPhone. Refrigerators can come with AI, touchscreens and connected features. It’s for food. It sits there. Just keep the food cold.Read more
- Bringing The Design Brief Onto The Building SiteWhen we get to construction, we have a written project brief describing what the client wants in the finished house. We also have all the conversations that went into it. To me, carrying that understanding onto the building site is one of the biggest advantages of how we work…Read more
- What Does A Five-By-Nine Bathroom Actually Look Like?You can read “five by nine” on a floor plan and still have no idea what that bathroom will look like from inside. The dimensions are there, but you need a frame of reference to make sense of them.Read more
- Why A Contractor Hiring Us Again Means So Much To MeWhen a contractor hires us again and again, project after project, that’s the strongest feedback I get on our design work at Den & Burrow. They’ve worked with us before, and they’re choosing to bring us another job.Read more
- I Want A Whole-Foods Home, Not A Fast-Food HomeI want a house with unlacquered brass knobs, stone and bare wood timber. Those are the details I have in mind when I talk about a beautiful home. Something substantial. Something nice. I think of it as a whole-foods home.Read more
- Try The L-Shaped Kitchen While We’re Looking At The ModelIf we’re looking at a kitchen together and you ask what it would look like in an L shape, I want to try it right then. Let me change the model while you watch, so we can look at that arrangement together.Read more
- The Value Of A Home You Help DesignI'm not going to pretend a custom home is inexpensive. It's very expensive to build one. The people who are a good fit for us understand that cost, and they have a clear reason for wanting to spend the money: they want a home shaped around their family.Read more
- Hard Work Means Taking Ownership And Developing A CraftI want hard work to mean owning the work we do and developing a craft. A paycheck matters, but I don’t see the work itself as something to get through just to get paid. At Den & Burrow, we’re trying to become masters at what we do. That takes deliberate study as well as work.Read more
- Designing A House Around The Family, Not The GuestsI want to design a house with the formation of a human in mind. The people who live there are being shaped by that place. That’s what makes home design matter to me personally, and it’s the concern I bring to my work at Den & Burrow.Read more
- From The First Concept To The Plans We Build FromAt Den & Burrow, we handle both pre-construction design and the physical construction. Our design work runs from the first concept all the way to the permit drawings.Read more
- How A Week In The Revision Queue Turns Into Months Of DesignWhen I worked as an architect’s apprentice, a client could mark up a drawing with us, but we weren’t going to make those changes right then. The notes went into our production queue. We’d get to them when we could, usually about a week later, and send back an updated version.Read more
- What Traditional Catholic Churches Taught Me About BeautyIn older Catholic churches, the columns can look like giants bending and bowing in reverence toward the center. Everything draws your attention to the altar. To me, that’s a beautiful example of design giving a building’s purpose a visible form.Read more
- What A Backyard Home Costs In LincolnWhere the money goes on a detached unit, from the slab to the last fixture, and the choices that move the number most.Read more
- How Long A Custom Home Takes From Sketch To KeysA realistic calendar for design, permits, and the build itself, and what tends to add weeks.Read more
- Restoring A Historic House Without Losing Its CharacterHow we decide what to keep, what to rebuild, and how modern systems fit inside an old envelope.Read more
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