Aging-in-Place, or Universal Design, means being able to live in one’s home independently regardless of age or ability. We all know someone who has trouble getting around. And with our aging population, we want the guarantee of being able to stay in our own home as long as we choose to. If you are going to design+build a new home, live the way you want because you have planned for it. Enjoy the posts below to see how to make this possible.
Energy Rating our Homes
All of our homes are certified Energy Star vs 3. We hire a 3rd party, independent energy rater to help us at the very beginning of design to ensure we are building our clients a healthy, energy star, green home. Our Energy Rater continues to work with us throughout the building process. She is at this job today for a blower door test, along with the building inspector and the heating and cooling contractor. For more information about our standard of building green and the why please click here.
The Jones’ Story – The Japalachian
Living Stone Construction homeowners Jim and Susan Jones fell in love with Asheville years ago while visiting their daughter, a student at UNC Asheville. The Joneses were living in Greensboro at the time, where Jim had a Chevrolet dealership. He was developing a luxury apartment community there when he and Susan decided to move to the mountains in 2010.
They found a steep lot in The Settlings of Black Mountain, and then found Living Stone Construction. The Joneses asked company president Sean Sullivan to advise them about building on the slope, “and we got to know him and we became friends,” Jim said. “We saw everything Sean built, and that gave us confidence. This is the second custom home we’ve built, so we know how hard it is to find a good builder.”
Asheville Builder & Interior Designer: A Marriage Of Give And Take Ideas Yields Award Winning Results
Being part of a great team can yield wonderful results. No one knows this better than Sean Sullivan, owner of Living Stone Construction, and Laura Sullivan, owner of ID.ology Interior Design, both located in the Asheville area. Not only do Sean and Laura sometimes work together on the same projects – they’re a team off the job site, as well. This happily married couple has managed to strike a great balance that has led to exceptional accomplishments. One such accomplishment is The Rockcliff home – an award-winning Asheville project on which Living Stone Construction served as the builder and ID.ology served as the interior design firm. North Carolina Design talked to Sean and Laura to find out more about this spectacular home, and how their solid teamwork helped them achieve award-winning results.
Go Green, Reduce Energy Bills With Smart Technology
From “learning” thermostats to energy saving smartphone apps, it has never been easier to monitor and control your home’s energy use. While we all love doing our part to help the environment, the real draw here is how these simple green solutions will help you save money by keeping those monthly energy bills low. Here are just some of many easy home energy-monitoring tools that can help your home run as efficiently as possible.
Smart Thermostats
With the dog days of summer fast approaching, many homeowners worry they won’t be able to keep their homes comfortable without their energy bills going through the roof. Luckily, innovations in smart thermostat technology can help you keep your house cool and refreshing without breaking the bank.
Nest Labs offers the Nest Learning Thermostat. This sleek, minimally designed wall thermostat can be adjusted manually in your home or wirelessly from any location through your computer or smartphone. Each time you adjust the thermostat, Nest learns about your temperature preferences and daily life. It then uses this information to help you keep your home at a consistently comfortable temperature while simultaneously saving money on energy costs. For example, it learns to automatically adjust the temperature when you’re away at work, asleep at night or when the weather unexpectedly changes.
Other similar programmable thermostats include the Ecobee Smart Thermostat, the Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat, and the Venstar ColorTouch Thermostat.
Raised Garden Beds
A charming landscaping feature that delivers home-grown vegetables, herbs and fresh flowers without a trip to the farmer’s market – it’s no wonder raised-bed gardens are popping up in neighborhoods around the country. A raised garden bed sits above its surroundings in...
50+ Home Buyers
Few people know more about trends than model home merchandisers.
The point of that job – my job – is to create memorable interiors that reflect a target market’s lifestyle desires and expectations. We must understand what drives them to make decisions about the features and amenities that are most important to them.
We know that today’s 50+ buyer has a clear preference for open floor plans, and that leads them to focus on kitchen design more than ever. Even smaller homes with fewer rooms are being designed with large kitchens. Because 50+ buyers tend to be very social, they entertain frequently at home and consider the kitchen as entertainment space.
Retirement Options
Members of the baby boom generation are now moving into their 60s and approaching retirement – a process that brings with it a host of confusing choices and decisions. For many, the first question is often, “Where will I live when I retire?”
Most healthy retirees begin by taking some time to study their options and make a plan. Here are some of the many options.
Stay where you are. People who love their home, their neighborhood and their friends may decide to stay – at least, until there’s a good reason to move. But it’s important to be realistic. A big family home can become a burden to its residents as they age. But many empty nesters have hired expert remodelers to adapt their home to make it easy to use and maintain. Stairs often become a problem, but moving the master bedroom and the laundry room to the ground floor can be part of a solution that gives such retirees many more years in the home they love.
Flashing Kits protect against Water Intrusion
We special order these Astro Plastic flashing kits on all of our exterior doors for every home we build. This assures our clients that they will never have to worry about water intrusion and mold.
A Custom Alexis for the Marecki’s
“We built this home from a remote location so we had to put a lot of faith in Frank the Superintendent, Sean of Living Stone, and Laura the designer, to make sure they were building this home to our specifications and to meet our needs. Frankly I have to admit I was extremely impressed. I don’t think they missed anything and they exceeded our expectations.” – Mitch Marecki
National Remodeling Month 2014
Families remodel their homes for many different reasons. It may be to save money on utility bills, to redesign the space to better suit the family’s current lifestyle, or to be better stewards of our natural resources. But as the home building and remodeling industry...