Thursday, July 13, 2017

One Simple Truth When Designing Your Home

One Simple Truth When Designing Your Home

Designing a new home can be a stressful experience for any new home owner. After all, it will be part of your life, every day, for a long time.

There are plenty of plan services that work and get designs into the hands of clients. However, there is no one size fits all solution that works for everyone. A home is the expression of the home owner. An off-the-shelf plan offers a solution to dodge the stress of designing a home, this option is only an instant gratification. When it comes down to it, sure, it made the process easier, but it didn’t create something that was truly your own.

Be Honest

There is one simple truth when designing a home. You have to be honest with yourself. At the heart of every design, every client has to reconcile where they think they are with where they are actually at. Honesty in design is very difficult because most people don’t want to see themselves as they are. It is my job to help that process along. Let’s be honest, are you messy or neat? Are you really a night person? Or a morning person, who’s a victim of the night?

The key is to help you discover the real you, the real family. Nearly every house has a kitchen, family room, dining room and bathroom. I rearrange, shift, enlarge or shrink each component to fit each family’s needs and desires. Everything can be thought through, changed, detailed, and finessed until it is as perfect as it can be. Homes are not perfect. That is not the goal, personality is. Personality is character.

The starting point is asking a lot of questions and talking about your lifestyle. Designing homes for each family requires a one on one approach. It requires direct communication and instant feedback. Otherwise, there is no way to tell where the project is going. The integrity of each design is a starting point to begin the next chapter of each client's story.

This process doesn’t mean the project will become an outrageous castle out of Game of Thrones. We are simply looking for the small things that will give each home personality and integrate them into the larger picture. These small things will elevate what could have been just a house into a grand home.


If you enjoy this post, please share some of your thoughts and past experiences on the process home design in the comments below.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Thank you to our wonderful Clients! We are Best of Houzz 2017!

"Thank you to our amazing clients for allowing me the pleasure to design their home.  It is that collaboration that inspires great design!"  MB

Michael Buss Architects, Ltd.
Awarded Best Of Houzz 2017

Over 40 Million Monthly Unique Users Nominated Best Home Building,
Remodeling and Design Professionals in North America and Around the World

January 19, 2017Michael Buss Architects, Lt. of Hickory Hills, Il has won “Best Of Design on Houzz®, the leading platform for home remodeling and design. The 30+ year architectural firm was chosen by the more than 40 million monthly unique users that comprise the Houzz community from among more than one million active home building, remodeling and design industry professionals.

“We’re so pleased to award Best of Houzz 2017 to this incredible group of talented and customer-focused professionals, including Michael Buss, Juan and staff,” said Liza Hausman, vice president of Industry Marketing for Houzz. “Each of these businesses was singled out for recognition by our community of homeowners and design enthusiasts for helping to turn their home improvement dreams into reality.” 

Follow Michael Buss and his team on Houzz

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Perfect Weather for Perfect Mulch

Mulch is a great way to freshen the look of your planting beds and organic mulch can help improve the soils fertility as they decompose. Examples of organic mulches include: bark, shredded or chipped, compost, or grass clippings. It also benefits your landscaping by inhibiting weed germination and growth and holds soil moisture, keeping plans from drying out quickly.  From a decorative view, shredded or chipped mulch comes in a variety of colors and can add contrast to you flower beds. When adding for the first time mulch should be about 4” thick.

That’s enough facts; one of my favorite spring activities is taking Mike’s Chevy truck on its annual pilgrimage to McCook, Il to get mulch from the family owned Perfect Mulch Products, Inc. While I leave our lawn maintenance to the professionals, every spring I enjoy refreshing the flower beds around our home.  The smell of fresh mulch signifies that spring has finally arrived and of course the lilacs that bloom soon after! I often joke with owners Michele and Bill Ostendorf that my visits to the 6+ acre yard are like therapy. I like Perfect Mulch Products because they are made from clean ground up natural Illinois trees then colored enhanced to bring a perfect finished landscape design to your home or business.  They offer a variety of colors Walnut, Auburn, Black, Gold, Red and Natural. Walnut (pictured in the truck) has been my favorite for the past 20+ years. Its deep rich brown color makes my landscaping pop with color.

When your landscaper is refreshing your mulch beds this season be sure to ask them what mulch options they can provide.  For your Chevy truck reference, that bucket holds 3 1/2 yards of mulch. 

Sue

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The blues are back in town!

I have always loved the color blue.  I'm glad to see the renewed interest in blue accent cabinets as mentioned in Houzz.  Pictured is one of my renderings for a client and one of my favorite blue homes.
plan view
Houzz article on beautiful blues for the bathroom

Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Devil is in the Details

A straight and square couffered ceiling starts with proper framing techniques.

Subtle curves can add elegance to a ceiling by softening the harsh plains.