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Ok.  Ok.  Sure, this is tooting-your-own-horn.  So be it said.  So be it done.

Five months, nigh unto 400 hours, 16 sheets, big house.  First Architectural Board review - just 3 suggestions.  He asked, "Ever before?"  Answer, "Not that I know of."  Second Architectural Board review - nothing to say.  He asked, "Ever before?"  Answer, "Not that I know of."  Building permit application process - 1 week, no comment.  He asked, "Ever before?"  Answer, "Not that I know of.  Not that fast.  Not that little."

AG loves to tell this story.

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A home inspector comes to the house of a past client for whom Before The Architect designed, among others, a large deck all along the back of the house.  The inspection is for clearing a sales contract.  He was supposed to enter the house for interior inspection once he'd done with the exterior.  Thirty minutes passed and our client couldn't find the guy anywhere, that is, until he looked under the deck.  There was the inspector taking picture after picture of footings, connectors, knee braces, posts, bolts, flashing, washers, post fortifiers, beams . . . the works.  The inspector notices our client, apologizes for not coming in sooner.  Says that he couldn't help himself.  Says he only reads about a deck structure like this - the way it should be done and never is.  Almost.  The pics are going back to the office to show his co-workers how it's done right and then straight into his classroom teachings on home inspection and residential structure.  Home run.

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AG's known to blurt that "if only Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards had been around when he was starting out, what a blessing that would have been."  Seems, in retrospect, that a-way back when, young AG would not have appreciated it an nth.....not enough scar tissue and torn cartilage and stitches, not enough disreputable designs trashed, had to pile up more blank stares in the night trying to think through what to do with this or that, needed more witness to what should have worked by golly and did not; wondering why the other way round worked so well.  Like Sinatra, gonna do it my way, young AG did, he did.

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Been thinking about the firsts in Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards by now.

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Q: How do I know that I can trust you?

A: You can't.  Neither could any of our clients, going in.  And those who couldn't are our unclients.

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Good building well done is, to our way of thinking, more art form than science, more low-priced, long-term experience than high-priced, short-term schooling.

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Context is not an excuse.  Get it done.

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Looking forward, are you, to residing the rest of your day's in a home of another's design?

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The smaller and more private the space, the greater the design deference and care to be taken

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In AG’s book of custom home design life, inquiring stomps flat nothing mentioned

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Universally, good design done well is nonlinear.

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And then there’s the sister-in-law test.  [AG and The Missus each have different, personal tests.  Among AG’s, it’s the sister-in-law’s space accommodation.  The Missus has her own, too,  e.g., about a bed’s orientation, Masters toilet siting, etc.]  Can she (sister-in-law) fit inside the Masters Bath bogroom while closing and opening the door?  About 20LI diameter would be mighty tighty on the lady in the loo, but AG opines that she could get something going with a right foot et al. between bog and FOH wall. 

· · · · · · ·

Folks adapt movement to space available.  Reasonably convenient space is a design threshold.

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Bathrooms and kitchens can morph to third rails of custom home design, easily subjectified; AG treads softly.

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In the realm of home design and home building, everyone you meet intends to prevail and prosper.  How about you?

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There are so many disconnects between home design and construction need and knowledge, don't you know.  That's what AG and The Missus feed on professionally.  Motive and energy.  Accessible pocket doors, especially in advanced applications as most recently referenced is one.  There are several others up there, too.  Among 'em - light flutter, lighting for aging eyes, anchor bolt materials and methodology, comprehensive framework for designing switches, selectively forwarding ADA/ADAAG precepts into everyday applications, close and responsible concern for design style, placed concrete foundation technology, smoke alarm methodology, watershed analysis, daylighting analysis, guidance on radon mitigation design and construction, and so on. 

Look around as long as you like.  AG and The Missus do.  There's nowhere else in the biz of AG and The Missus where they've found lily-soft, bureaucratic hands getting dirty or where work boots are climbing steps in towers of concerted inquiry (with the selective exception of some output from the likes of Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, and a very few others).

· · · · · · ·

    In the earlies of what was fixing to be a dulling day, here comes a mouse of a man.  This fellow is to  change out our dinky gutters for 6 inchers with caps.  Graybeard, skinny.  Two helpers, real quiet, heads down.  Big rig.  The guy got defensive when I mentioned a compliment paid him by the trusted contractor who'd referred him.  Defensive?  Yeah.  Bad sign.
    Got worse.  He waived his hand aside with a gush of breath, saying after all the years he's been doing this, there's nothing left to learn; he knew it all.  Seen it all.  Done it all. Oh my.  So, no, he couldn't care less about analytic design and construction stuff I'd written about watershed and roof pitch line-to-gutter downset and so on.  And said so.
    Thought it'd be a swell time to see him scurry 'round in the shaded light of his own glory, so I asked him what he called those boxes you see sometime below downspouts for decoration or for helping out a gutter in heavy weather or long runs or such.  'Conductor head,' he said.  Told him that there were plenty of other names for the same thing, and one of 'em was, indeed, that.
    Hitched up his pants he did, arched his back some, pulled down his chin, cleared his throat and announced, "Conductor head is the only name we professionals in my business say for that,' and walked away.  Turned his back and walked away, he did.
    Is that so?
    Mouse-man did his day's work and crawled on down the road.
    Guess he missed this list of 26 names - a mouse perspective'll do that to perception - high-end gutter system manufacturers' use to refer to the same thing this guy's buddies knew by only one:  Bell, Catch Basin, Collector, Collector Box, Collector Head, Conductor, Conductor Box, Conductor Head, Corner Conductor Head, Corner Leader, Gutter Box, Gutter Head, Gutter Trough, Hopper, Hopper Head, Leader, Leader Box, Leader Head, Rain Collector, Rainwater Box, Rainwater Head, Rainwater Trough, Scupper, Scupper Box, Scupper Head, and Trough.
    Yeesh.

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