the backstory

In 1996 my wife and I bought a fixer-upper in Long Island, we spent 3 years making that house a home and in the end we wound up moving to UPState NY to continue our lives. Little did we know where we would wind up!

Well, my firm was started in 2001 when I obtained my license to practice architecture. My family was renting a house in Geneva after finally selling our home in Sodus Point (our #2 fixer-upper!). The world had changed. 9/11 had happened and just about everything took a break, including my job as a design manager of a local timber frame company.

I had been working towards my license, moving from Long Island back to UPState NY. Between working, studying and just trying to juggle all the things life throws at you the idea of working for myself really took off after losing my manager position and working for another architect (who turned out to be a total basket case and unlicensed to boot!) 90 miles from home. That's it. If I have to deal with this I might as well just work for myself!

If you want something, sometimes you get it. What you want and what you get are, at times, not exactly what you expected but you work with it and keep moving towards your goal.

In this blog, I'll be bouncing back and forth between what I am doing now and recollecting what I have done over the past 10 years. I can't believe it's been that long, but the calendar doesn't lie. 700 projects, 4 children, and 1 very strong wife have all been part of the journey. I hope that you'll enjoy what I share here and at least take away some small valuable seed that will grow and help your experience in life, work and family.

Thanks for reading and viewing.