I have known Ross Sanders for nearly 20 years--he was my hockey coach and mentor growing up--so, I heard many a tall tale of nights spent skating the pond at his house. However, I had never met his father, nor seen his house of legend, so when he asked me to do a guest blog about his newest project: renovating his parents' home, I jumped at the opportunity. We hear it all the time, there are always two sides to every story and this story is no exception. When I pulled up to t

The year was 1971 and my father had taken a job with the U.S. Geological Survey, which sent my family to the wilds of Anchorage, Alaska. We were put up in a hotel for a month and instructed to find a home. As luck would have it, we did find a unique home and it sat on two acres of land in Anchorage's pristine Bear Valley. Unfortunately, when our car pulled up the long, bumpy driveway, we were greeted by the sight of charred children's toys, clothes and even bathroom tiles on

Our house gets really, really hot in summer. We have a single air conditioning unit in our bedroom, but hate to run it all of the time because of the cost. What else can we do without adding more air conditioners? Answer from Ross Sanders: What a timely question! With numerous areas throughout the country are getting hammered by high temperatures, we are all looking for ways to stay cool. Here are a few immediate strategies as well as some long-term strategies you should cons

"Ross, you say you are going to "sketch up" our house design based on our meeting today so we can look at it in three dimensions. I have heard that term before, but how is it different than just sketching?" Answer from Ross Sanders Dear Dan, Admittedly, my answer to your question is going to include free plug for a software product. As architects, even today in this computer-heavy world, we typically like to sketch by hand. There is nothing quite like it to get our ideas. But