Every once in a while the NY Times or Wall Street Journal or New Old House or Country Living rings us up on the office phone about some story ideas they have. I must not be a good interview because we never end up in print, although I always notice stories a few months later about the exact topics we were talking about, informed by ideas and thoughts I could have sworn were mine -
Seeing the article in the NY Times about new old houses quoting a 'designer' who never built one, or House Beautiful writing an article taken right from our website, or New Old House doing a story on country cottages, etc... ad nauseum. It's kind of irritating, but, as they say, it's lonely at the top (this is joke I would write 'ha ha' but I hate that narrative joke indicator - I guess I could use the ' :) ', but that might be worse).
In the end, it's not important, since the attention to business building and the fundamentals of customer service have enabled us to prosper in the good times, and seemingly accelerate in the down times.
Anyway, today I had a long conversation with Builder magazine, which is a trade magazine along the lines the This Old House, but geared more to the industry vet, than the homeowner. It was a great conversation and actually quite fun to talk to someone with a true design and construction background, as opposed to the editors of some of these publications that made their mark smartly arranging pillows.
I was explaining what is separating us from the crowd presently, and I was going on and on about a lot of things, when we reduced it to what it is - value.
It's easy to see - 5 acres of land, a house, a curvy sexy driveway of a couple of hundred feet, underground electric from the street to the house, a house full of wood, style, accents and detail, a well, a septic, as well as all the costs associated with financing and holding a house (gas, electric, propane, taxes, interest) for under $325k.
I'm no MC Hammer (note the hammer) - but- You Can't Touch This.
