We help you create environments where you love to live and work

Are you considering remodeling your home?

• Have you lived in you existing house for years and it no longer supports you life style or your self image?
• Do you want to correct floor plan problems and stay in your current home?
• Are you starting a home based business?
• Or do you want to build a second unit for your parents or for rental income?

What ever your reason may be, at some point many of us will consider what it would take to remodel, add to or renovate our home.

My name is Garry Baker. I am an architect in Sonoma, California. My company is GLB architects. I specialize in creating environments where you love to live and work. I will be presenting a series of articles that can help you navigate the many decisions you might face when considering a home improvement project or total make over. I can show you how to make intelligent, rational and sound choices concerning remodeling residential construction.

The first series of articles will address the 5 questions to answer before buy build or remodel. Some of these questions you will be able answer on your own, others may require professional guidance.

The top 5 questions are:

1. What are your goals? (Or more to the point, why are you doing this?)
2. What is the Zoning of your property? (In construction you have to play by the rules.)
3. Financial considerations: (Why does everything cost so much?)
4. Schedule: (We are not going to have a kitchen for how long?)
5. Construction: (How hard is it to nail a few boards together?)

The second series will cover building codes and zoning ordinances. There are a myriad of overlaying and sometimes conflicting regulations that govern the built environment. This series will be an overview of the regulatory environment, where codes come from and why they are always changing.

The third series will focus on sustainable building practices. Green Building is the mantra of the new century. This series will attempt to take the mystery out of the buzz words and guide you to meaningful and practical environmental decisions that can work in your living space.

The fourth series will look at who to hire. Building buildings is a complex and labor intensive process. Here we will discuss how to decide what professional you need and how to decide who those people should be.

Future articles will discuss new home construction and how it differs from remodeling. I am planning a series on commercial construction.

If you have a question or topic you would like covered, we could have an Ask the Architect question and answer series.

Please contact me at askthearchitect@creative1.com

Until next time

Garry Baker AIA,

GLB architects

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