Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Whether it's a home or an office, a good space requires personality and the photography studio of Fotobia has it in excess. The walls are filled with vintage-style screen prints, old hanging cameras, supermarket signs, and skate decks. And despite all the fun in the officefrom mustached stick figures to classic soda popthe workspace isn't lacking in practical charm.

Daniel Goncalves, the owner of Fotobia, offers an endearing story about how the space came together:

The studio is located in a historic seminary that was converted into lofts near downtown Jacksonville. [My wife] Magda was getting fed up with my gear taking over our living space; as punishment, I got my dream studio. She has always had a love for design, graphic elements, spaces. So when we found this loft, we created the clean, modern design together.

His studio is a great example of how you don't need a ton of space to make something functional and beautiful:

The studio is not huge, but it fits our needs perfectly. It's right on the line of being just big enough to shoot in, but not so big that we don't use all the space. I love the view; it feels like we're in a secluded warehouse district. While brainstorming, I like getting lost in the image of cars on the highway looking like they are driving over the rooftops of the adjacent buildings.

Want to see more? Hit up Herman Miller Lifework for more photos and an interview with Daniel.

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.

Studio Tour: Fotobia | Herman Miller Lifework

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Soda Pop and Skate Decks: The Studio of Fotobia [Featured Workspace]

Whether its a home or an office, a good space requires personality. The photography studio of Fotobia has it in excess the walls are filled with vintage-style screen prints, old hanging cameras, supermarket signs and skate decks. Despite all the fun in the office, the workspace isnt lacking in practical charm.

Daniel Goncalves, owner of Fotobia, offers an endearing story about how the space came together:

The studio is located in a historic seminary that was converted into lofts near downtown Jacksonville. [My wife] Magda was getting fed up with my gear taking over our living space; as punishment, I got my dream studio. She has always had a love for design, graphic elements, spaces. So when we found this loft, we created the clean, modern design together.

His studio is a great example of how you dont need a ton of space to make something functional and beautiful:

The studio is not huge, but it fits our needs perfectly. Its right on the line of being just big enough to shoot in, but not so big that we dont use all the space. I love the view; it feels like were in a secluded warehouse district. While brainstorming, I like getting lost in the image of cars on the highway looking like they are driving over the rooftops of the adjacent buildings.

Want to see more? Hit up Herman Miller Lifework for more photos and an interview with Daniel.

Studio Tour: Fotobia [Herman Miller Lifework]

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Soft Drinks And Skate Decks: Fotobia’s Studio

A Laketown Township home designed by a West Michigan firm is generating attention from architects on a national level.

The 2,000-square-foot, two-story home overlooks Lake Michigan. It features a walk-out basement and a variety of green features, including wood steps reclaimed from a 1800s-era blacksmith shop in Indiana. The home met the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design's (LEED) Platinum standard the group's highest designation for green buildings.

"We're very pleased," said the home's architect, John Allegretti. "One of the things we gained a number of points for was we had a limited footprint we only took out a few trees."

In addition to being environmentally-friendly, the home looks good, too, and was recently featured in a photo slide show on the website of Architectural Record Magazine.

The building received several design awards, including one from the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture.

Allegretti wouldn't say exactly how much the project cost to complete but said it came out to about $250 per square foot roughly $500,000, based on the home's size.

The home was designed by the Allegretti Architects, Inc. of St. Joesph. starting in 2008. Construction wrapped up 2010. The main contractor for the building was the Hudsonville-based Lamar Construction, with some work subcontracted from Holland, Allegretti said.

The client is an artist from the Kalamazoo area who will use it as a summer home for her family, Allegretti said.

"She had grown up in Muskegon ... and really wanted a place close to the lake," he said.

Follow this reporter on Facebook and on Twitter, @BizHolland.

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Laketown green home winning design awards

What if you could walk from Church Street across from Le Patisserie onto the commuter rail tracks?

Or what if Waterfield Road along the Town Common had a winding cobbled-stone path that passed by townhouses, storefronts and sidewalk cafes then ended at the train platform?

These are just some of the possibilities that architects have been asked to imagine this fall for the Waterfield Road parking lot adjacent to Town Common. The town hired the design firms to suggest possibilities about how the town-owned lot could better fit in with the rest of the town and add vitalize the area between downtown and Church Street.

The firms will present their designs to the Winchester Planning Board on Sept. 13.

Its a very interesting opportunity because not many towns are clear in wanting to have visions for their towns, said Peter Nobile, of LDa Architects. They might do some internal planning, but they rarely ask outside designers. This tends to happen in big cities.

For example, Nobile cited Cornell Universitys soliciting proposals from international design firms for the redesign of Roosevelt Island, in New York City.

Whats interesting [about the towns process] is that youll get several really interesting and compelling possibilities, Nobile said.

MBTA plans

The plan to invite outside designers came about, in part, because of the MBTAs $15 million plans to renovate Winchester Station over the next five years, Town Planner Betsy Ware said.

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Architects asked to imagine redesigns to Winchester's Waterfield commuter rail lot

FITZ IN LONDON

Some sight ... fireworks ignite over the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony. Photo: Getty Images

It was a warm balmy evening in 1996, and I was walking to the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games, John Huxley on my right, Peter Christopher on my left. The bus had dropped the Herald press contingent as close as it could get us, and we walked through a very poor neighbourhood to the brightly-lit stadium about a kilometre away. Out on the front porches of their houses, many families were gathered eating their dinner, and though they looked at us with mild curiosity, it was no more than that. And it was really rather shocking. Didn't they know that the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games was about to get under way just an archer's arrow from where they were eating?

Yes, yes of course they did. But the intersecting point with their own lives was absolutely minimal beyond the fact that Spaceship Olympia had landed in their neighbourhood several years earlier, over their oft-bitter protest, and so they were just getting on with their lives.

On Friday evening last, it felt nigh exactly the same. The minibus drops us a good kilometre away in the heart of an impoverished neighbourhood bathed in the curious fluorescent light cast by a new version of the same spaceship - one that had landed in Stratford, East London, five years ago and has overlooked them since. Walking, walking, walking. Here, a couple of kids kicking a soccer ball along the footpath. There, a drunk lying in the doorway of an abandoned tenement. Right in front of us, a posse of youths pouring whiskey into a Coca-Cola bottle which they are then swigging from. This time, they barely look at us. They are not remotely aggressive, but it is simply like we aren't there. We have our lives and are heading to the spaceship, where the best of the seats are going for well over 3000 for four hours' entertainment. Many of them would not receive that in a year of welfare payments. So where is the connecting point?

Right there, in front of me.

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After walking 10 blocks, suddenly ahead the whole thing changes, from one side of the street to the other. Behind me lie booze shops, dark alleys, and mild urban decay. Ahead, just the other side of the pedestrian crossing, are bright lights, escalators, security men, and an entire sparkling Westfield shopping complex that we have to walk through to get into the stadium proper, a stadium that is the most sparkling sporting structure I have ever seen. As someone once wrote in these pages - and as a matter of fact it was me - ''sports stadia are the cathedrals of our age'', as serious cities try to outdo each other with the glory of what they have built. And in the London Olympic Stadium they have a Westminster Abbey for the 21st century, perfectly constructed to make 80,000 people feel they have an intimate connection with what is happening on the field before them.

And on this night, how splendid it is. The pomp! The pageantry! The music! And there is the British Queen, there is Michelle Obama, the London Symphony Orchestra, Rowan Atkinson, the finest athletes in the world, Sir Paul McCartney singing Hey Jude as we all bop along to the climax of this 27 million extravaganza, most of us with a sense of great privilege to be here. We are filled with the thrill of being at an event that hundreds of millions of people around the world are watching, and four hours later, we have real regret that it is over.

In our tens of thousands, we stream away as the lights behind slowly get dimmer, the security thinner, and then, suddenly, there it is again. That pedestrian crossing

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Ceremony dazzles, but not for all

Otherwise subdued porches and front yards came to life Sunday afternoon with nearly every genre of music one could hope for in a porch-to-porch walking tour.

The second annual Porchfest brought out Napans and visitors on foot and bike to sample the musical talents Napa has to offer. Roughly 80 performers took to makeshift stages on about 60 porches in historic parts of the city.

The great thing is that its local artists, local musicians, and weve kept it local, organizer Rachael Clark said.

Though the numbers of porches and bands have doubled from last years debut, Napa Porchfest is still a small-town event thats spread out enough to prevent overcrowding among attendees, Clark said. She couldnt estimate how many would attend the event that was hosted by Napa County Landmarks and the Napa Valley Destination Council, but said organizers expected about 250 last year and got 2,500.

It gives us chills, she said of the warm reception to the East Coastinspired, three-hour-long event. We might be pioneering a new thing in the Bay Area.

Mayor Jill Techel said it was nice to see residents taking pride in their homes and local musicians interacting with attendees.

To see neighbors, to see people you know, to see kids on bikes, its a great way for the community to get together, she said.

Laura Thomas, of Suisun City, came out to a house on Oak Street with her children and her husband, who was playing in a band there. She said Porchfest reminded her of living in a small town in Iowa.

It has turned out to be a very successful street party, she said from her shade-covered collapsible chair. Im originally from Iowa and they used to have street parties, but this is a lot more sophisticated.

Thomas called the event, in which groups of friends and families strolled from one house to the next, a marathon of bands that encourages you to be social.

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Big crowds turn out for small-town event

July 29th, 2012 By Amber Daugherty // No Comments

Theres a new group of architects looking up at our city with fresh, bright eyes. Theyre interested in changing the way people move through the streets, the way new buildings go up, and the way people get around. Theyve got hundreds of new ideas, and theyre ambitious as ever. Oh, and theyre between the ages of eight to 12.

Welcome to Harbourfront Centres architecture camp, a place for the curious, urban interested kids to explore city designs and systems. The camp teaches children about the structure of cities and the reasons behind the way theyre built, before encouraging them to build their own. Ten-year-old Paola says she was interested in the camp because shes interested in new houses that are going up around the city.

I like designing houses and streets and where everything goes, she says. And its just a lot of fun to build your own city and be like This is my city, this is where City Hall goes.

The children had the opportunity to build an entire metropolis out of found and supplied materials (cardboard boxes, Lego, wooden sticks, etc.) that sprawled over pushed-together tables. It included everything from government buildings to a water system to a tourist destination circus. Streets were created using different colours of painters tape. Spacing popped in one afternoon to give the kids a lesson in wayfinding, getting the group to think of the most creative way to guide people around their city. Ideas were fantastic, ranging from large, colourful balloons leading the way to the museum to universal signs as simple as arrows, to touch-screens projected on to the ground where tapping your foot on the desired "button" would show you the path to your destination. There was an unlimited budget, and definitely unlimited imagination.

The camp is for children specifically interested in the way their cities are built. With field trips to places such as the University of Toronto, the kids get the chance to see examples of designs they're implementing in their own city. The camp focuses on decision making and problem solving as well as design. This year, two camps are being done in two-week stints, allowing time for creative thinking as well as workshops on architectural styles and materials. And, of course, there's even time for guest appearances.

Ten-year-old Graydon says he learned a lot from Spacings wayfinding lesson.

Its important because without it you cant get around the city, he says. And if youre visiting here, youll get lost and never be able to get home.

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Toronto’s next generation of architects

I've grown accustomed to living a makeshift existence in our new home, so I still haven't gotten used to using the countertops and working sink we now have in our kitchen.

For four months, we've been using cardboard boxes, end tables and whatever other flat surfaces we could find to prepare meals and set things on. It was such a novel thing when I set a bowl on the counter the other night that I actually had to point out to my fiancee, Holly, that I was finally using the countertops we anxiously waited for.

Installing them was not an easy process, and I had a very small role in it. We had three great people lend a hand: my soon-to-be father-in-law, one of his longtime family friends and our contractor friend who has lent his expertise throughout our renovation process.

Because our home was built in 1930 and the walls are not square, we opted for a loose backsplash so we could use it to cover up any gaps caused by changes in the wall face. We chose this option over furring out uneven sections of the wall, which I thought sounded like too much extra work. We also decided against paying hundreds of dollars more for a template, which admittedly would have been the ideal solution if we had the cash to burn.

The loose backsplash actually worked great, but just barely. When we placed the order, I specifically noted we wanted the backsplash to be as wide as possible to help cover up gaps one inch, minimum. I was told one inch was standard, but the backsplash delivered to us was only three-quarters of an inch. That quarter inch makes a big difference, and almost didn't work for us. I was prepared to put up a fight with the local "big box" home store we ordered them from, but luckily, there was no need.

Coincidentally, this was the second ordering error made by this big box store. They also ordered us a left-end piece for our cabinets when we needed a right-end piece. I'm slowly losing faith in these cookie-cutter stores.

Our countertops span a corner and needed to be connected at the miter. Due to the walls being out of square, I cut into the drywall so one of the decks could slide into place, easily preventing a gap between the mitered ends. We placed the two pieces on the floor and connected them before carrying them over as one piece, dropping it into place and screwing it to the cabinets.

I actually had to leave for my real job at this point, so I avoided the horror of watching my friends cut a sink hole into our new, pristine countertops. All I know is we now have a wonderfully working sink with antique-style faucets. Our kitchen is really coming together and I can't wait to actually start cooking again. All we need to do now is finally unpack all our cookware that's been gathering dust for the past four months.

Joey Cresta is a staff writer for the Portsmouth Herald. He's always looking for tips on home renovations and can be reached at jcresta@seacoastonline.com or on Twitter at PHerald_JoeyC.

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Accustomed to roughing-it renovation

In recognition of its long-standing dedication to roofing installation excellence, Laraway Roofing, Inc. in New Ulm was recently presented with the 2012 Firestone Building Products Partner in Quality Award. Laraway Roofing, Inc. was among 193 roofing contractors throughout North America honored with this respected industry achievement.

A commitment to quality pervades every aspect of our business at Firestone, from new products to the tried and true. Our people, particularly our exceptional network of commercial roofing contractors, are a critical part of the equation, said Tim Dunn, president of Firestone Building Products. Laraway Roofing, Inc. embodies the expertise and quality execution that makes Firestone licensed contractors among the best in the industry unsurpassed skill, outstanding workmanship and consummate professionalism and is well deserving of this industry honor.

Firestone presents its Partner in Quality Award to contractors who installed a minimum of four warranted Firestone roofs in each of the past five years, maintained at least one million square feet of Firestone roofs under warranty and achieved an annual Quality Incidence Rating (QIR) of 2.0 or less. The Firestone QIR measures each contractors quality performance based on warranty repair incidences per million square feet under warranty.

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Laraway Roofing, Inc named 2012 Firestone Partner in Quality

Boston, MA (PRWEB) July 27, 2012

Hiring a mold remediation contractor can balloon anybody's mold removal cost. But given that mold can make a place unsightly and a person sickly, mold sufferers are often left with no choice but to spend big for the sponges' removal process. However, with the presence of mold remediation products as that of Molderizer and MoldStat in the market and the cut down of their prices, anybody can now easily decrease his or her cleaning expenses.

Find the Best Mold Remediation Products

Nonetheless, Molderizer commented that a solution can minimize a person's mold removal spending only if the right product is picked. Otherwise, one can suffer more problems in terms of money and health. And so, it advised the public to examine carefully the mold remediation product before purchasing it.

The wrong choice of solution can basically add more money troubles as it can deliver an ineffective removal process. That will trigger the repeat of the cleaning task for up to several times. And needless to say that increases the money spent and even the time to finish the process.

In addition, the wrong choice of product can also bring someone several health problems. If the product picked contains harsh chemical ingredients, it could cause breathing difficulties, allergies and headaches to anybody exposed to it. That brings in medical expenses which in return add more financial problems.

Hence more than the money one can save, the choice for a mold removal product must also be based from the safety that a solution can give.

What Makes a Mold Removal Product Safe?

Among the mold removal companies offering big savings at the present, MoldStat and Molderizer are two of those that add safety to their advantages. With their price cuts, they promise a more affordable mold removal process and with their formulation, they also offer a safer mold remediation. However, they are in no way a copy of the other.

While MoldStat cuts its products' prices up to 20 percent, Molderizer offers its own with up to 10 percent discount and a free shipping. Apart from that difference, their safety claims also set one apart from the other. MoldStat declares its mold killer as a non-bleach formula. On the other hand, Molderizer asserts its mold removal products are made with natural ingredients and are signed off by an OCI chemist.

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Mold Remediation Products Cut Prices; Molderizer, MoldStat Giving Up to 20% Discount