What is TQM you might ask?  TQM is short for Total Quality Management.  I would like to start this 3 part series where the rubber meets the road…the job site.  This is where all of the effort, both the back end and field work, comes to fruition.  The finished product is what drives the builder; it’s what you are proud to put your name on.

Penn Homes would like to introduce Isaac Barnes, Project Superintendent.  Isaac has been with Penn Homes for 3 years and comes with over 15 years experience working his way through the home building and carpentry trade.  A proud second generation builder, Isaac has learned the trade from his dad, work ethic and by taking every opportunity to learn in the field.  With Isaac, you know what you are getting.  He just tells it like it is – good, bad or indifferent.

Isaac’s responsibilities are challenging to say the least.  His project starts with the final review of the plans and contracts prior to construction. Daily observation and direction is the object of each day.  Isaac says “without dealing with people it’s pretty easy.”  Of course with over 30 subcontractors, 45 suppliers and employees, it’s more than a job and not one for the faint at heart.  Isaac supports a rigorous lifestyle, working out to “burn off the stress” from a hard days work.  He is married and has two beautiful children which makes all this worthwhile.

Balancing the rigid construction schedule and budget is the trick, a talent that not many superintendent’s possess.  Weekly project meetings reviewing construction schedules, changes, budgets and warranty work wrap up a week with planning for the next.  It sets the expectation, one of high quality, speed and cost efficiency.

The superintendents attention to detail and communication is what puts the “quality” in Total Quality Management.  We’re proud to have Isaac on our team and his dedication to the industry exceeds our expectations.

Part II will focus on Project Management,  the key to proper communication and TQM.

After months of design, redesign, corrections, tweaks…Finally it is here!  Meet the Chateau Collection by Penn Homes.  The first two plans have rolled out and promise to be another spectacular creation.  The goal was to provide never before constructed sustainable exteriors that appealed to the demands of todays buyer.  Mixing old world stucco with used brick and stone was chosen as the facade.  Harmonizing the mix is key to curb appeal.  Our designer is provided as part of the total building package when selecting us to build your home.  Our designs include towering ten foot tall ceilings adorned with crown molding to suit your needs.  Open floor plans were selected where family can connect after the activities of the day.  Spacious Kitchens and Breakfast Nooks with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances anchor the finishes in this area.  The Master Suite provides for a perfect retreat from along days work.  Separate shower and garden tubs accompany each plan with large walk in closets in the Master Bath area.

Let Penn Homes build your dream home.  It all begins with a phone call to one of the numbers on this page or by simply clicking on the Contact Us button.

Have you ever tried to save a dime and wound up spending a dollar?  At times it is embarrassing, but when it happens to the largest investment you will possibly ever make, it often turns tragic.  Over the last 30 years, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard from a disgruntled homeowner…after the damage is done.  It is what some call a “Horror Story.”  I’ve heard it and I know you have, or possibly even experienced it.

Story after story, job after job, stories keep surfacing.   About one out of three calls received are from troubled buyers, dissatisfied with the results obtained by not properly vetting  the most important player in their new home or remodeling project:  The Builder.  So what can we do about this and how can we keep these unwanted results from occurring?

Recently, I was appointed by Governor Jindal to serve on the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors.  This commitment, to making our industry a safer and more reputable environment in which to do business, is the goal of the board.  Actually, being able to make a difference for the industry is an honor and a way for me to give  forward to those future homeowners and builders.  Getting the “bad guys” off of the street and out of commerce is just treating the symptom and not curing the problem.  As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply.  The construction process starts with a need from a consumer and properly educating the buyer is one way of tackling the challenge.

The solution is a cooperative effort from both the building professionals and the consumers.  What are the warning signs a consumer should be wary of?  What are questions that should be asked?  Learn how to identify the building professional and the following is a quick summary:

• Proper Permitting.  The first indicator is if your project is permitted.  If you are asked to take out the permit, you become the contractor of record.  Becoming the contractor of record brings along with it the responsibilities of liability and workers compensation insurance, code compliance and OSHA regulations.  Unlicensed builders cannot pull a permit within the state of Louisiana as licensed builders are required to properly permit the project.
• Proper licensing.  The Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors maintains a database of contractors who are licensed.  Louisiana Licensed Builder.  Select the “Is a contractor licensed or registered?” button.  If your contractor is not on the list, ask for a license number and verify.  Contractors doing remodeling projects $7,500 or more are required to have a license.
• Proper Insurance.  Ask for general liability and worker’s compensation insurance certificates with you as the certificate holder.  This should be sent directly to you from the contractor’s insurance agent to prevent the document from being altered.  Insurance is required for proper licensing.
• Check References.  Your contractor should have many references from previously completed projects.  Ask for a list and make the calls.  Past clients will be honest and you will gain valuable information from this source.
• Continuing Education.  Proper licensing requires continuing education.  The National Association of Home Builders promotes continuing education and has created the University of Housing to administer their education curriculum.  To gain a list of builders in your area that have attained theses credentials, go to Builder Education Link  By completing 64 hours of training, a builder can receive his first designation.  Not only does continuing education demonstrate the discipline of gaining industry related knowledge, it symbolizes his commitment to the industry – a trait not found with the fly by night contractor.
• Ask for a firm contract price.  Never do “cost plus” work as it promotes two things, both not in your best interest.  First, it signifies the person or firm you are hiring is not capable of providing the most essential element of the contract, the price.  It may also show the only skill you are hiring is their ability to call and schedule subcontractors and material suppliers.  Secondly, the aim to reduce costs also reduces the contractors profit, and the motivation to save on costs is not part of this model.  New home projects should never use the cost plus method and only very complicated remodeling projects should even consider using this contracting method.
• Ask for a written contract.  If you don’t get it up front, you certainly will not get it when there is a dispute.  Make certain the contract includes a detailed scope of work and most importantly the price as defined above.  It should define the payment method and terms along with the completion requirements for final payment.
• Have the contractor sign a Lien Waiver.  This should be executed at each payment and also before the final payment.  You certainly do not want to pay for the work on your home two times!
• Ask for the warranty.  In Louisiana, the New Home Warranty Act is the base warranty for any new home constructed within the state.  Go to:  New Home Warranty Act   for a copy.  The law requires the contractor of record to produce a signed copy at closing.  Note that the warranty begins on the date of sale of the residence.  An owner building their own home is bound by this law and the warranty does not begin until they sell the home some 5 to 20 years later.

Home building should be a very exciting and pleasant experience when you use a building professional.  I hope that by using the aforementioned techniques, your venture will progress smoothly without blemish.  Should you need further building information please contact one of our home professionals at the number above.

The value of homeownership has been questioned by the media as Americans struggle in the current recession. But the truth is that most families are happy about their choice to buy a home.

Bankrate, Inc., a financial publishing company, recently surveyed more than 1,000 randomly-selected adults about their home purchase and 90 percent responded that they don’t regret buying their home.

Even during tough economic times such as these, many homeowners realize that the benefits of homeownership are overwhelming — especially in a time where housing affordability is at its all-time high. According to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI), 72.3 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the second quarter of 2010 were affordable to families earning the national median income of $64,400. At the end of 2007, only 46.6 percent of homes were affordable to families earning the median income.

What are some of the other benefits?

An immediate benefit is that interest rates are at record lows and there is a wide selection of homes on the market to choose from.  It’s a buyer’s market.  Purchasing a home now will allow you to negotiate for more items on your wish list than when the housing market recovers and you may have to compete with others for your dream home.

A little further down the road, when filing your federal tax returns, you will be able to claim two deductions — the mortgage interest deduction and the property tax deduction.

Much of your monthly payment, especially in the first few years after buying a home, goes towards the interest on the loan and not the principal. The federal government allows you to deduct those interest payments from your taxes in most cases. State and local property taxes paid on the assessed value of the home are also deductible on your federal return.

For many home owners these combined tax deductions can result in a tax savings between $5,700 and $11,400, depending on filing status.

Also, homeownership is the biggest source of net worth for most families.  It is the one investment that not only can help you put your kids through college or retire comfortably in the future , it can also be used to house your family and create lifetime memories and a strong, healthy community in the meantime.  You can’t get that from a stock or a bond.

These are just a few examples of the financial savings and other advantages of homeownership.  Learn more in the free “Opportunity Knocks” brochure available from the National Association of Home Builders.

If you are interested in purchasing a home, we’d love to help you with this investment.  Call Penn Homes and we can help you with one of our floor plans and three of our communities.

It’s been about a year since our daughter purchased a home in another city.  After we completed shopping for her home, the closing process and unpacking her boxes, we realized there was a missing component to her home buying process.  What do you do after your settled?  It’s not time to put up your feet and relax just yet!

Below is a list of things every homeowner should do shortly after moving into their new home.  At Penn Homes, we want your home to be a safe and healthy place to build lifelong memories in.

1.  Create a home maintenance checklist.

To make sure your home stays safe and healthy for you and your family, you should regularly check, clean and/or test a wide variety of interior and exterior systems and structures. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a Home Maintenance Checklist that you can download from the HUD website . It provides basic guidelines for keeping your home dry, clean, well-ventilated, free from contaminants, pest-free, safe and well-maintained.

2.  Make sure you have enough insurance coverage.

At a minimum, you need to purchase a homeowners insurance policy to cover the house and all of your family’s belongings inside. To determine how much insurance you need, find out how much it would cost to rebuild your house today on your existing lot. Your personal property coverage should then be anywhere from 55 to 75 percent of that amount.

Damage caused by natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes and hurricanes are not covered by regular home owner’s policies, so depending on where you live, you may want to consider additional coverage. Your insurance agent can help you figure out the right amount of coverage and suggest upgrades or additional policies that would be appropriate for your specific situation.

3.  Protect your home from break-ins.

If you bought an existing home, you should rekey the locks right away. You never know who the previous owners gave keys to. The National Crime Prevention Council recommends that every exterior door should have a dead-bolt lock with a one-inch throw. They should be at least 1 3/4 inch metal or hard wood with the hinges on the inside.

Install a peephole or wide-angle viewer—not a chain—in all entry doors so you can see who is outside without opening the door. Sliding glass doors can be secured by placing a long piece of wood at least one inch thick in the track. Keep all entrances and doors well-lit, and prune shrubs so they don’t provide hiding space for someone who wants to break in.

4.  Prepare an emergency kit.

In the event of a disaster, local officials and relief workers may not be able to reach your home immediately, so you should have an emergency kit on hand.

Basic services such as electricity, gas, water, sewage treatment, and telephones may be cut off for days, or even weeks, so you should be prepared. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends stockpiling at least three days’ worth of food and water for your family. Their website http://www.ready.gov/ offers a list of items to include in a basic emergency preparedness kit, as well as guidelines on food and water storage and protecting yourself from airborne contaminants.

5.  Improve your home’s energy efficiency.

Even if you’ve purchased a brand new home with the latest energy-efficient building materials and techniques, there are still some improvements you can make to save even more money on utility bills. For example:

• Replace incandescent light bulbs with longer-lasting CFL or LED bulbs.
• Install a programmable thermostat that can be set to automatically adjust the heat or air when the home is most or least used.
• Increase the insulation in your attic, on exposed water pipes and around your water heater.

The U.S. Department of Energy has an online Home Energy Saver™ tool for home owners at http://www.hes.lbl.gov/ that recommends energy-saving upgrades that are appropriate for the home, the climate and local energy prices.

Even if you haven’t just moved, these suggestions will help you protect your family and maintain your investment for years to come.  If you have any suggestions that you feel would be beneficial to a new homeowner, please comment below.  We’d love to hear your tips for moving into a new home.

At this point, I’m sure you are wondering what I mean by “wide open spaces.”  I’m talking about “wide, open floor plans.” Like most families, we lead a pretty busy life and when we are home — we like to be connected.  So, an open floor plan is the perfect way for me to cook dinner, the kids to do their homework and dad to catch up on the evening news…all within earshot of each other.

Kitchen opens to Breakfast Room with added cabinet storage and a window seat.

Since this series is primarily talking about remodeling and renovating homes, let’s talk a few minutes about your kitchen.  When Mike is consulting on a remodel, he is often asked about knocking down walls and taking several of the smaller rooms and opening things up.  Many of the older homes he looks at have a “galley style” kitchen, and owners want more room.  Let’s be realistic – we don’t just “cook” in out kitchens anymore…kitchens are where we live and entertain!

So, what are your options:

• take down some walls, maybe add some columns to create more space
• new cabinets or at least put new doors and cabinet knobs on existing cabinets (if they are in good shape)
• countertops – make sure you research this one…lots of options!
• how about new appliances —
• lighting is very important – both task lighting and ambiance lighting
• need space for your computer and printer? include a home tech area right next to the kitchen…monitor the kids computer activity while preparing dinner
• add an island – creates more storage and gives more  counter space

If I’ve learned one thing from working at Penn Homes, it is to think out of the box when remodeling your kitchen.  If you are going to gut your kitchen and do a total remodel, look at the space as a blank canvas.  Don’t limit yourself on where the refrigerator “used to be” or where the stove “has always been.”  Remodeling your kitchen is probably the most expensive project you will do – it’s also #1 in popularity and has the most impact on resale.  So, here’s my 1-2-3 on wide open spaces:

• Take time planning.
• Look for affordable alternatives.
• Hire a licensed contractor.

Mike Penn finds that families want to spend time together – they want to reconnect after a day of work and school.  If you are looking to remodel your home, we’d love to help with your project…or…if you are interested in new home plans, we have a large selection of floor plans that feature an open floor plan.  At Penn Homes, we want you to have a pleasant experience and love your kitchen…your new “wide open spaces.”

It can be an office with the large desk in the middle of the room and bookshelves behind. It can be a tool bench in the garage with outlines of every hanging tool on the pegboard maintaining the inventory. It can be a basement decked out with a bar, flat screen TVs, movie style high back rocker chairs, retractable arm rest, cup holders, all stadium seating, all digital – DTS & Dolby Sound system. Or it can be an old plaid couch and wagon wheel coffee table the wife tried to get to the curb when you moved in together. It’s the space a man carves out of the territory and marks as his own. It’s the MAN CAVE.

Men do need their own space to relax and decompress after a long day hunting and gathering at work and there is nothing better for some than sitting near the glow of a large TV or bank of computer screens while blowing up tanks.

Women also receive benefits from the Man Cave. If your man is insistent upon keeping certain items that you would prefer not to have on display in the more traditional rooms of your home, the man cave is the perfect place to use those items. Also by allowing a man spaces to decompress and do “nothing” it recharges him mentally and emotionally to better engage with the rest of the family.

A tip for the women: never complain when your man comes out of his cave. Greet him happily and he will be glad he came out. Greet him grumpy and he will wonder why he came out.

A tip for the men: let your woman know you are heading into the cave and when you expect to come back out and she will be much more understanding of your needs.

Whether you’ve lived there for five months or 15 years, it’s not uncommon to find that you are delighted with your home — with one or two nagging exceptions. You’d really like to remodel, but the project often gets pushed to the end of the “to do” list, because it’s either too expensive or too inconvenient to be without a kitchen or bathroom for an extended period of time. Still, let’s face it, the harvest gold kitchen, worn carpeting, or the cracked bathroom tiles have got to go.

In many cases, the reason your home may feel inadequate is that the average American house was built in the 1960’s and is now pushing forty or fifty. In a sense, your home is in the throes of a mid-life crisis, and it’s up to you to address the situation with some remodeling. And, with interest rates at historic lows, there’s no better time to take advantage of home equity financing to fund your project.

Your first steps are to determine how much money you can spend and to define your vision of the completed project. Working with a professional designer will help ensure your vision comes to life and will prompt you to define your goals. For example, do you want an innovative new design, or are you striving for functionality?

If you’re having trouble getting started, there’s help. “Remodeling Your Home” offers valuable hints on how to set priorities, remodel within a budget, understand a contract, and apply for permits. In order to “avoid sticker shock” author Carol Davitt suggests hiring a design-build firm, which will significantly enhance communication between the designer and subcontractors. Using a design-build firm also will help you cut down on costs, and many companies will rebate a portion of the design fee, if you end up signing a construction contract with them down the road.

When interviewing remodelers for your project, asking several key questions may enable you to save money. If you’re adding windows, see if you can use snap-in window grilles instead of windows with true divided lights. This could save you up to $200 per window. Need new flooring?  Find out if you can substitute seamless vinyl for ceramic or unglazed tile; or if you can swap hardwood floors for carpeting.

Remodeling is a dirty business, and you may find yourself without the comforts you take for granted, such as hot water or a flushable toilet. When signing a contract to improve any room of your home, assess the capacity for makeshift spaces. You may find the disruption easier to weather if you can carve out room for a small refrigerator and coffee pot, while your kitchen is out of commission. If not, you may want to consider a temporary move to save both time and money. Moving out entirely also will speed up the remodeling process by allowing workers to forgo the meticulous nightly clean up.

Whether your remodeling project is large or small, it’s important to carefully think through your options and talk to several remodelers before you get started. “Remodeling Your Home” provides home owners new to the process with helpful hints ranging from choosing a remodeler who is a member of NAHB Remodelers to writing a proper change order — and everything in between.

“Remodeling Your Home” is available from BuilderBooks, the publishing arm of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Contact the NAHB BuilderBooks store at 800-223-2665 or visit www.BuilderBooks.com to order.

What you Don't Want

If you have collected photos of your dream kitchen, drafted a general budget, and talked with friends about how you wish your home was more comfortable or modern, you may be ready to hire a professional remodeler to get the job done right. 

Do your homework when hiring a professional remodeler. A professional has training, experience, and references from satisfied clients to demonstrate their remodeling expertise. 

Check out these steps for hiring a professional remodeler: 

1.      Collect names of remodeling companies. 

Start by searching the National Association of Home Builders’ Directory of Professional Remodelers at www.nahb.org/remodel. You’ll get a list of nearby remodelers to contact. Asking friends and neighbors for names of qualified remodelers will also help you find a match for your project. 

 2.      Discuss your project with a couple remodelers. 

Call a few remodelers from your list to discuss your project. Describe what you envision for the home remodel, styles you like, your estimated budget, and other ideas for the remodeling work. Ask the remodeler if they can provide background information on their expertise. They may have a website or brochure they can share that describes their experience and accomplishments. 

 3.      Ask if the remodeler has general liability insurance. 

Be sure to ask some important questions about the remodeler’s business that will help ensure you hire the best professional. Does the remodeler have a license, if required in your state? Do they have general liability insurance in case of an accident on the job? Do they guarantee their work? How do they handle any problems that may arise on the project? Having these answers in advance will prevent future problems and nail down the best professional remodeler for the job. 

 4.      Check the references and background of the remodeler. 

After you start speaking with remodelers and find one or two who match your project’s needs, be sure to conduct some background research by checking with the Better Business Bureau, talking to their references, and asking if they are a trade association member (such as NAHB Remodelers). Remodelers with these qualities tend to be more reliable, better educated, and more likely to stay on top of construction and design trends. 

 5.      Don’t fall for the lowest bidder. 

Many people may be lured by the lowest price to their remodeling project, thinking that they have found a great deal. But beware of these alluring low prices. These bids may be more costly in the end if the contractor is cutting corners, not taking into account certain costs, or is inexperienced. Professional remodelers have stories about coming into homes to fix remodels from unscrupulous contractors who did shoddy work or failed to complete the job. Often times, the lowest price may not ultimately provide the best value for your home remodel.  

Make the smartest investment in your home by hiring a professional remodeler. They’ll help you stay on budget, solve remodeling challenges, and provide a higher-quality service.