At the Annual Construction Awards Banquet in Shreveport, United-Bilt builders had opportunities to learn state of the art techniques. They were also recognized for their accomplishments. Plaques, awards, and checks were awarded to Construction Superintendents and Regional Construction Managers who excel in four areas:

• Scheduling (how fast they build)
• Budget (staying at or under budget)
• Customer Service
• Safety

Everyone appreciates being recognized for their hard work. This year we had one particularly impressive accomplishment to celebrate: the Construction Supervisor in our Terrell office had the shortest cycle time ever recorded in UBH history – he built a home in just 23 days!

The participants attended workshops from a number of vendors to learn the newest information about windows, siding, and more. Then the group also played a game called “Code Family Feud.” They broke up into four teams from the east, west, south and north regions. Each team was asked a technical question about a building code; they earned a point if they got it right – if they guessed wrong, the question went to the next group/region.

One participant said this about the game: “Fun AND informative. It was great to see the whole group talking animatedly about nail length, housewrap, foundation issues, site prep, etc. This was real and enthusiastic – made me feel super proud to be part of UBH!”

We’re proud to be part of UBH, too!

Of course, that depends how much control you think you have. Something like half of our happiness level appears to be regulated by our “Happiness Set Point” — the level of happiness that our personal system considers normal.

The Happiness Set Point may be genetic, or it may be set at a very early age, possibly by age three. If you have young children, keep that in mind!

Another 10% of our feelings of happiness depend on circumstances. Being cold and uncomfortable, for example, can affect your mood, so having a home is certainly an important first step toward happiness.

If your basic human needs are met, though, that 10% can be very fleeting. Buying new curtains, for example, can make you feel happy for a short time. Having a party can do the same. The kind of happiness that experts call “hedonic” — fun happiness — is brief. If your happiness depends on those new curtains, you’ll need to have new things often in order to keep your level of happiness high.

What about the remaining 40% of your happiness level?

Sociologists and psychologists claim that this — almost half the total — depends on your decisions. Specific decisions that can make your home a happy place:

• Instead of focusing entirely on temporary fun, focus on significant goals and accomplishments. Sure, buy new curtains. But you’ll get more lasting satisfaction from creating a beautiful home, a welcoming home, even from cleaning your home than you will from plain old shopping.
• Think of others. It’s strange but true: people who think about others tend to be happier than those who live just to please themselves. Does your home show the efforts you make to please family members? Is your house involved in volunteer work or community fun?
• Have a healthy home. Researchers have found that accomplishing goals and being engaged in your work is one of the most important elements of happiness, and your relationships with others come next, but physical health is also very important. Stock your kitchen with healthy foods and make sure your home is exercise-friendly. Could it be a smoke-free zone?

Give these things a try and see if they work for you!

There is a new trend in the U.S., though, toward having two generations of adults, or three generations, in one house.We see parents moving in with their grown children, adults moving in with parents, and grandparents caring for their grandkids. This, not the nuclear family, is what the news reports mean by “multigenerational homes.”

In 1940, according to the Pew Research Center, almost 30% of the U.S. population had a grandparent in the home, or two generations of adults. By 1980, that number was down to 12%. Now, it’s back on the rise — some 51.4 million Americans, according to the most recent available figures, live in a multi-generational home.

People are marrying later, living longer, divorcing more often, and facing unemployment or the fear of unemployment in larger numbers.

For homebuilders, this is leading to a rise in the popularity of the “granny flat” or “bonus room,” a somewhat separate living space for the second generation of adults.This is a custom feature, and custom home builders like United-Bilt can accommodate a need for it.

However, there are some other options that can work well for multigenerational living. With forethought, a traditional houseplan can often give both adult generations a sense of having their own space.

UBH homes like the Maplewood or the Keystone, each of which has a self-contained master suite along with three other bedrooms, allow privacy for the larger family. The Highland also takes this approach, with a separate entrance for the master suite.

The Natchez, shown below, has a downstairs master suite, and two bedrooms upstairs with a game room between them, along with spacious living and dining space. This kind of arrangement can provide living spaces for each generation that feel separate, while also having plenty of room to get together and enjoy family time.

Why are we continuing to move up the prestigious list?

For one thing, we own our lumber yard, we have our own architectural design department, and we provide our own financing, so we control costs without sacrificing quality. We hire local workmen wherever we build, but we also have uniform corporate quality standards and central oversight and quality control.

We’re proud to be among the home building giants of the nation, and we’re thankful to our workers and to our customers for making it possible.

The economies of scale let us save American families money while we help them realize their dream of home ownership, even when the economy is uncertain. We’re looking forward to another great year, and we want you to be part of it.

When you’re ready to build, visit your local United-Bilt office, or give us a call at 877.756.2525.

The Gunnison, a United-Bilt Homes floorplan shown at left, has a room specifically designed to serve as an office. The placement is great. If you’re a consultant or therapist, give music lessons, or for any other reason need to bring clients into your home office, it’s great to be able to welcome them directly from the front door, without having to take them through your kitchen or family room.

This office is handy to the bathroom and has storage space nearby, but isn’t so handy to the kitchen that you’ll wander over for snacks too often. It’s separated from the main living spaces and kids’ bedrooms, too, to limit noise and interruptions.

If your home doesn’t include an office, you may be able to use an extra bedroom, the breakfast room, or a corner of the kitchen or living room as an office. If your office is in a more public part of your home where other family members and guests will see it, you’ll need to consider how it works visually with the rest of your home. If not, your office should be designed to suit your needs as exactly as possible.

Warm colors like red, yellow, and orange can make you feel more alert and increase creativity. On the other hand, they can have negative effects as well: yellow walls have been shown to make people feel irritable as well as creative. Blue and green are more serene choices. Decide on the basis of the kind of work you do. If you’re making cold calls for your real estate business, an energizing color may be just the thing. Doing bookkeeping? Calming blue walls might be a better choice.

You’ll probably need a desk. Depending again on the tasks you’ll be doing in your office, you might also need a file cabinet, bookcases, and a printer stand. A chair is a must; if you work for hours at a time, choose an ergonomic design for the sake of your back. If you need additional seating, think about whether you need comfy chairs for frequent meetings, or chairs that take up as little floor space as possible.

Place your desk to suit your workstyle. Facing a wall can help you concentrate and limit interruptions, but facing the door is friendlier, and facing a window can keep your spirits up.

Once you have your major furniture in place, get creative about the details. We’ve been collecting great ideas on our Pinterest boards, where we’ve seen empty paint cans repurposed for mail sorting, creative shelving, and wall-hung storage. Make yourself a board to inspire and plan your office space — share it with us, too!

When space and money are tight, as is often the case with the home office, start with the basics and add on as you really need things.

The defining characteristics of ranch homes are the single story, low silhouette with large windows and a simple, open floorplan. Touches of hacienda or bungalow style could be seen in ranch houses, but the predominant feeling is always that of a sleek and simple house. Livability was key The United-Bilt Ashforth, seen here and in the floorplan below, is a great example of a ranch house.

In the 1920s, the ranch house was seen as modern, clean, and egalitarian. The great Victorian and Edwardian styles seemed fussy to young families then, and they wanted the clean, labor saving look of an open plan house.

Architects like Green and Green, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Cliff May made ranch homes fashionable throughout the early part of the century, as women took up wearing trousers and men  wore jeans even if they weren’t cowboys. Ranch homes were part of the move toward wholesome outdoor charm, and they became the most popular style in America during the 1950s.

A ranch house fit perfectly with mid-century trends like bandanas, gingham, cookouts, and playing guitars around the campfire, and they were perfect for the kind of casual family living that was popular at the time.

Later in the 20th century, ranch homes got gussied up with sunken living rooms, cathedral ceilings, and other fancy touches. By the end of the 20th century, the ranch house had become less popular, but the style is now enjoying a resurgence.

No wonder. Ranch houses are equally great for older people who want to avoid stairs (studies show that 79% of home buyers over 55 want a single story home) and for young families preferring a single story for the safety and convenience of their children. They’re still perfect for casual family living, and a house like the Ashforth is a good place for parties, too.

Now that ranch style homes are coming back into vogue, new buyers are discovering what ranch house fans have known all along: livability and unpretentious good looks are worth a lot.

That’s Cleveland, Texas, not Cleveland, Ohio. The video above says that the town was named after Charles Cleveland, an early resident who sold the land for the city for a dollar.The Texas Historical Society says it was named after an early resident first, but later was named after President Grover Cleveland. Both could be right.

Cleveland was recently added to the Houston Metropolitan area, officially, but it remains a small country town with just about 8,000 residents. The rodeo is the biggest thing for entertainment, the town has an online community where people share recipes, and fishing is one of the most popular pastimes.

In the 1830s, settlers began moving in with land grants in exchange for military service, but it wasn’t until 1854, when Father Peter La Cour built a church and convent, that a town began to grow.

Cleveland was known as a sawmill town, and long-time residents talk of how the whole town used to smell of lumber. Two railway lines met in Cleveland, and the town has prospered from its natural resources in the form of oil, gas, and gravel as well as agriculture.

Outdoor fun is one of the best things about Cleveland. Lakes for boating, camping, hunting, and riding are among the outdoor pleasures residents enjoy year round.

If a pleasant small town — right near the bright lights of Houston — sounds perfect for your family, call your United-Bilt associates at the Cleveland office. They’ll help you find your dream home.

United Bilt Homes

1641 US Hwy 59 North
Cleveland, TX 77327

(281) 592-4607
(800) 592-4607

With a house like this, bedrooms can almost be an afterthought. There are three, they all have closets and bathroom access — what else do you need to know?

Saratoga has three bedrooms on the ground floor. For a big, boisterous family, this is perfect. Everyone can always be in on the action, there’s no need to run up and down stairs to check on the baby or gather laundry, and the teenagers are less likely to hole up in their rooms and shun the family game night.

Still, it can mean extra awareness of noise. This is a terrific party house, but two bedrooms share walls with the main living area. Sound-deadening quilts or hangings on the walls will help, and be sure to place the beds away from those walls if this is an issue.

The master bedroom has a hall and bathrooms to buffer sound, so the family with teens who are the ones making the party noise will fare better than the one in which the parents are the noisy ones. Parents of small children might choose to put the kids in the master bedroom on party nights. They’ll love getting a sleepover in Mommy and Daddy’s room, and parents can party without worrying about waking the kids.

Another option is to have the dinner party in the dining room and then move the rest of the evening into the living room and breakfast area, putting would-be sleepers into the front bedroom where they won’t be disturbed by late-night games of Twister or songfests.

Finally, this is a great house for other uses of the additional bedrooms. That is, a couple can have offices or studios with plenty of storage and a reasonable distance from the more private parts of the house. If you’re looking for a house plan that will accommodate a home business (and read more about planning an office in your new home if you are), this could be an excellent choice.

Check out your garden zone (it might have changed since you last looked) and get digging!

United-Bilt homes are built in Zones 6-10, where big, bold flowers are right at home. Here are some beauties to consider:

•  Passion flower, or passiflora, is a seriously fancy flower on beautiful sinuous vines. It’s a tropical beauty, and many varieties are heavily scented. There are many colors, and they’ll add drama to any planting.
• Hydrangeas have large clustered blooms of pink, blue, purple, or white. Some new varieties will rebloom all summer. Hydrangeas dry very well, so you can keep the memory of summer indoors in the form of dried bouquets.
• Lycoris, also known as Surprise Lily or Naked Ladies, blooms suddenly on a stalk without putting out foliage first. That’s the surprise part, and also the naked part. The shocking pink is pretty in masses of Naked Ladies, or in mixed plantings with other flowers.
• Hyacinth beans really are beans, so they’re very easy to grow. Large, showy vines bear deep purple flowers for an exotic effect.
• Globe thistle is a round, spiky flower in an unusual blue color. Some varieties are very large and dramatic. Globe thistles dry well, too, and they reseed, so you can easily establish a nice patch of them.
• Sunflowers aren’t unusual by any means, but they do come in many more colors than the standard yellow. Giant mahogany and red sunflowers make quite a statement.

Even if you did plant some sweet, shy little spring flowers, you might still want to put in some of these dramatic specimens for summer.

You can have the temperature of your home adjusted automatically to keep you comfortable and at the same time save you money on energy bills. You can arrange to have lights come on when you drive into your driveway, turn on the lights and heater in your pool automatically, or send music to every room in your house.

It’s possible to do a lot of this with separate systems, just as you can set your coffee pot to turn itself on at the same time your alarm clock rings. A smart home, though, usually has a central location where you can set controls for all the appliances and components that create that smart effect. Often, there is a control panel that you can control from a computer at work, or even from a smartphone. Home electronics professionals often do the wiring, sometimes described as “structured wiring” or “structured cabling” themselves to reduce the number of cables and cords you have to keep track of.

If you’re building a new custom home, though, you might want to consider a consultation with your home electronics specialist before you begin building. Planning the wiring ahead of time can be better than trying to change things later.

You may hear suggestions to ask your builder to let you do your own wiring, or to let a home theater system provider do the wiring. Your local building codes probably won’t allow this, and insurance and general safety issues make it a bad idea.

Talk with your home electronics specialist and with your builder to make sure both have a clear idea of your future plans. They’ll work with you to make sure that your home is as smart as you want it to be.

No automatic dinners à la Jetsons cartoons, though — at least not yet.