Kit Homes and Difficult Building Sites

What this episode covers

Show Notes: Unique and difficult building sites and how to design a Kit Home for these beautiful areas. Taking advantage of great views, sun and how Landmark helps you make it happen! Transcript: Interviewer: Hello, folks! Thanks for joining us for Episode 40 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me in his usual spot is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want exactly as they want across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you today? Steve Tuma: I’m doing great. Another good day as they all are and it was a busy day working on some really, really interesting projects, different types of building sites, different building department concerns, different customer design concern so it has been really cool day. Interviewer: Whenever we start the show, Steve always is very enthusiastic. And you always start with it has been good day. Not, hopefully it’s a good day. We should get t-shirts made, “Landmark, it’s a good day to build.” Steve Tuma: Yes, something like that. Interviewer: That would be great. Steve Tuma: Well, it’s kind of interesting because we are not doing this because it’s a job. We are doing it because we like it. Interviewer: Right. Steve Tuma: We have been doing it since 1993. We started the company. And it’s kind of fun so you would jump out of bed every day and say, “Let’s go build a house.” Interviewer: Oh, that’s nice. That’s a nice way to put it. Cool! Steve Tuma: What other people are doing on TV shows, we get to do every day. Interviewer: I want to talk today about building sites, specifically unique building sites. And I want to start with views because if you’re building a house let’s say on a big piece of land, having a great view is an amazing thing. But I think I’ve seen houses where you look at the front door, the front deck of the house and it’s looking the wrong way. And I always think the view is over there, why would you build that way? So, let’s talk about what you can do when you are building to take advantage of a great view? Steve Tuma: Well, it’s one of the interesting that you bring up because I’ve seen that myself where someone has got this great view and there’s like a mini window or something where there is facing and it’s kind of like strange. And sometimes that might have been some of those building the home for other reasons other than to live in it. So what we are able to do is work with people on the design. So a lot of people think, “Hey, there’s a view. Let’s just put a big window there.” Interviewer: Right. Steve Tuma: Well, sometimes there’s a little bit more to that. There’s where is the window facing, how are you sitting on the land, the sitting it on the land and it’s not just the big window, it’s what’s around it. So if you have a big porch going across the front of your house and you have a big window, well, the upward view might be limited. So if you are looking at a tall mountain, there might be limitations there. So we might have to design a porch differently or the whole home if you are looking more across like a lake, that upward view may not be as important. So what we like to do is kind of understand what the view is and what they are looking at. Sometimes it’s a city view. Sometimes it’s mountains. Sometimes it’s lake. Sometimes it’s just an open field. Who know what it may be. But also, it’s not just the view. Sometimes people want light in their house. They want ventilation. Interviewer: Grow some plants kind of thing. Steve Tuma: Yeah, do that. Just enjoy it. Enjoy the light. There might be a family room where they want it bright. Other times, people want it dark if there’s a home theater situation. Interviewer: Right. Right. Steve Tuma: So that’s a key is kind of an understanding of what the g...