In this episode of Home: The Second Story, we talk with Mark LePage, architect, podcaster, and founder of EntreArchitect. We start by exploring Mark’s deep ties to the architecture community, including how he brought our three hosts together through the mastermind groups of the EntreArchitect Academy. Mark shares how the desire to improve how architects talk about business led him to launch a blog in 2007, which ultimately became a thriving podcast and online resource that has impacted thousands.
We then dive into Mark’s personal journey renovating a 1934 stucco cottage in Chappaqua, New York. He and his wife Annmarie, also an architect, purchased the house in 1997 after falling in love with its untouched vintage charm—even though it had been neglected for decades and was on the verge of being torn down. They saw potential where others saw a teardown. Their initial phase involved cleaning and restoring the house to a livable condition, doing most of the work themselves.
Phase two came after the birth of their children, when Annmarie's father helped fund an addition to make the home more functional. They added a second story, modern HVAC, and all-new systems while keeping the design faithful to the original structure. Though both architects, they faced familiar homeowner struggles—like living through part of the renovation, learning the hard way that it’s rarely worth the inconvenience.
In phase three, they finished the kitchen and dining room with a higher level of detail, taking care to elevate the home’s value in a neighborhood where teardowns were common. Mark describes their philosophy as being stewards of the home, making sure it would last beyond their ownership. We also cover his second renovation in North Carolina after relocating to be near family. In that project, Mark again applied strategic phasing, but faced new challenges—especially with contractors and scheduling in a new region. His advice for homeowners is clear: plan thoroughly with a master plan, be honest about your budget, and don’t underestimate the importance of timing and infrastructure.
Throughout the episode, we reflect on how much love and intention can shape a home. Mark reminds us that architects can help homeowners not just with drawings, but with long-term strategy, emotional stewardship, and tough decisions. His mantra—love, learn, share—resonates across everything we discussed.
More: Mark's Entre Architect: https://entrearchitect.com/
Mark and Annemarie's new North Carolina home on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waldenpondhome
00:00 – Intro to the Podcast
01:07 – Meet Mark LePage
03:19 – The Origin of EntreArchitect
06:00 – The 12/12/12 Launch
10:45 – Transition to Mark’s Home Renovation Story
11:14 – Finding the Chappaqua Cottage
17:47 – Purchasing the Neglected Gem
20:00 – Initial Renovation and Move-In
22:36 – Phase Two: The Addition
26:56 – Designing as Architects and Living Through It
30:48 – Lessons from Living in Construction
34:18 – HVAC, Plumbing, and Infrastructure Tips
37:28 – Phase Three: The Dream Kitchen
38:20 – Advice on Strategic Phasing
42:00 – Budget Honesty and Contingency Planning
46:08 – The Move to North Carolina
50:00 – Renovating in the South
53:14 – Favorite Parts of Each Home
55:04 – Closing Reflections & Takeaways
59:27 – Outro and Contact Info
Voiceover (00:03):
Everyone says how horrible it'll be to renovate or build your house, we're here to say, it doesn't have to be that way.
Join three seasoned architects as they interview homeowners who recently completed a large project and ask them one simple question: what do you know now that you wish you knew before you started?
Welcome to Home: The Second Story Podcast.
Sheri Scott (00:26):
Hi, and welcome to Home: The Second Story.
We are three residential architects sharing real conversations with homeowners who've taken on custom home or renovation projects. If you haven't already, check out our first episode to hear more about us and why we're doing this.
I'm Sheri Scott from Springhouse Architects in Cincinnati, joined by my co-hosts …
Taylor Davis (00:48):
I'm Taylor Davis of TPD Architect in Birmingham, Alabama.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:52):
And I'm Marilyn Moedinger of Runcible Studios based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts. Today, we are honored and delighted to have Mark LePage with us from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Welcome, Mark.
Mark LePage (01:07):
Hi. Good to be here. I'm so used to saying good to have you-
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (01:12):
Turn of events.
Mark LePage (01:14):
Yes. This is a rare opportunity.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:16):
That's a spoiler for our upcoming conversation about why we all just laughed about that. But first, we're going to do our lightning round of our quick five questions about your project.
So, first of all, where was the project located?
Mark LePage (01:33):
The project was located in Chappaqua, New York, in Westchester County, just above New York City in New York.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:40):
Was it a new build, addition, renovation, some combination?
Mark LePage (01:43):
It was an addition and renovation.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:45):
When did you start the project and when did you move in?
Mark LePage (01:49):
We purchased the house in 1997, did a quick renovation, and then did some bunch of other things, but we moved in right after we purchased it, but it's a part of the story (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (02:01):
Okay. Yeah, we'll get to all that. What size house is it?
Mark LePage (02:07):
When we purchased it, it was 900 square feet, it was 30 by 30.
Marilyn Moedinger (02:13):
And it didn't end at 900, you guys added a little bit (laughs).
Mark LePage (02:16):
No, we added a little bit. Not a lot, but we did add to it, we made it livable.
Marilyn Moedinger (02:20):
And our last question here in this lightning round, there are a lot of ways to work with an architect, and our guests usually are not architects themselves. So, curious to hear how you worked with an architect on this project specifically (laughs).
Mark LePage (02:37):
That's an interesting question because I did work with an architect. I am an architect and my wife is an architect, and so I'm married to an architect. And she did most of the design and led most of the architectural process, so I could share more of that.
Marilyn Moedinger (02:57):
Yeah, we would definitely want to hear more of that, and I feel like I'm going to add question six here, which is I feel like we should talk about how we all know each other. Before we get rolling on the whole story here, we're baby podcasters, Mark's the real deal (laughs).
So, Mark, you were saying before we started, you've been podcasting since when?
Mark LePage (03:19):
2012.
Marilyn Moedinger (03:21):
And we've all been guests, by the way, so everyone should go listen to EntreArchitect Podcast, right?
Mark LePage (03:29):
Yes. EntreArchitect Podcast. It launched on December 12th, 2012, and I just recently, yesterday recorded my 634th episode.
Taylor Davis (03:40):
Wow.
Sheri Scott (03:41):
Wow. That's amazing.
Marilyn Moedinger (03:43):
Congratulations.
Mark LePage (03:45):
And thanks to you, you were all part of that 634.
Taylor Davis (03:49):
Mark is the reason why we all know each other in the first place. So, Mark, do you want to say just a little bit quick about EntreArchitect and kind of the genesis of it, and how maybe we three cool people fit into that story?
[Laughter]
Mark LePage (04:06):
Yeah, for sure. I'm an architect, like I mentioned, and in the late 2000s, I started writing a blog called Entrepreneur Architect. I was the business side of my firm, and my wife was the design side of the firm.
And so, I loved business. And so, I started a blog called Entrepreneur Architect to just find information on the web and put it into this blog for myself so I can go back and reference it. And because it was so early, there was very few blogs, if any, that were being written by architects about business specifically — it found an audience of other architects and a community of people started to form in the comments.
It was way before social media, 2007, 2008, somewhere around there, was when that blog started, and a community of architects formed in the comments. Every time I posted, a bunch of architects would show up and make their points made in the comments, and they would start talking back and forth and a community, a real true community was born.
And that community over the years kept encouraging me to turn it into something bigger. Specifically, you three were a big part of that and kept saying, this should be more than just a blog. And so, after many, many years of procrastinating and saying, “I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this,” in late 2012, I realized that the date 12/12/12 was coming up, December 12th, 2012.
And so, I said, “Okay, if I'm going to do this, I have to put it out there that I'm going to commit to launching this.” But I didn't tell anybody what I was going to do. So, I wrote a blog post called my 12/12/12 project.
All it said was, I am going to do something significant on December 12th, 2012, calling it my 12/12/12 project. And it is something that will change my life, going to change the lives of others and to hopefully, impact the world.
Sheri Scott (06:02):
I remember that. I remember that specific blog, and I was thinking, “What is he going to do?”
Mark LePage (06:08):
And so, that was my way to finally do it. It took me about four years to finally commit to doing it because I was afraid. It was just pure fear. Why me? What could it become? What if it does become successful? Does it change my life as an architect?
And so, December 12th, 2012, I committed to doing it, and I launched at 12:12 PM. So, got to go for the whole thing. I launched entrearchitect.com specifically as a platform to help small firm architects build better businesses and launch the EntreArchitect Podcast the same day.
Soon after that, with the intent of turning this into a business and a platform that would grow beyond me, I launched membership, and the membership was the academy. And the academy was a mastermind group, and the three of you and a bunch of other people came together and became the first cohort of the EntreArchitect Academy Mastermind groups, and the rest is history.
We're still doing mastermind groups, we have over 30 mastermind groups today at EntreArchitect, and we have business resources and the episodes of podcasts and all kinds of things.
Sheri Scott (07:21):
It's amazing. And just hearing you say that you started that blog in 2007, 2008, that's when I started my business, it's like it was instrumental in me building my business.
Not only you Mark but the people that you brought together that ended up being friends and colleagues, and meeting at conferences, and it made such a difference in my business, which then of course, extends to my life and I want to thank you for that.
Mark LePage (07:52):
You're welcome.
Sheri Scott (07:53):
I appreciate all of it.
Marilyn Moedinger (07:56):
And you said that your goal was to do something that would change the world and change people's lives, and here we are.
Taylor Davis (08:03):
I mean, I remember sitting, reading the blog post at my breakfast room table, and my husband came in at 11 (I think I've told you, Mark, this story), before he was going to bed, and he was like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I’m reading this guy, and he knows everything, and I need to absorb more because he's answering all the questions that nobody else can answer.”
And at that point in my household, you earned the nickname, “The Swami” and ever since then, my husband has called you The Swami.
[Laughter]
Mark LePage (08:30):
The Swami. That's funny.
Marilyn Moedinger (08:34):
I think it's just a testament too to the power of sharing knowledge and bringing everybody together around these sorts of topics, and providing not just the knowledge sharing but also the support.
And I know it was a big impetus to the three of us starting this podcast as well, is to say, given the knowledge that we have and the experience that we have, what would be helpful to a larger platform to people? How can we take this and take it beyond the conversations that we have together internally and help people with their projects? So, thank you.
Mark LePage (09:10):
Yeah, you're very welcome. You were a significant instrumental part of the launch of it, and so it is reciprocal that I appreciate you as much as you appreciate what I've built. And so, it would not exist unless people like you became part of it, and shared your knowledge.
One of the mantras that I have that I share at the end of my podcast is love, learn, share. And that's my message to the world, is if we can just love more and care about one another and learn as much as we can, and then share as much as we can, the world can become a better place.
And if I could do that in a small microcosm of architects trying to help one another in a profession that for generations hid their information and would not share and were very competitive, and I wanted to change that.
And over the time, the architects came together and formed a community, and I just put it out there, I just built the framework, and the people who came together are the ones who turned it into what it's today.
Marilyn Moedinger (10:15):
Well, and in the end, all of that helps homeowners, which is ultimately what we're also interested in doing, is helping the profession be better at being architects and running sound businesses and having good practices means that we're able to serve homeowners better.
And that's our passion too, as practicing residential architects, is to figure out how to serve. So, in the spirit of sharing, we're going to put you back on the hot seat.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (10:45):
That's right.
Mark LePage (10:45):
Alright sounds good.
Sheri Scott (10:46):
Enough of this love fest.
Taylor Davis (10:47):
Go Sheri (laughs).
Sheri Scott (10:52):
So, Mark, relative to your project in New York, we want to hear all about that process and how it went and what you learned. So, what did life look like before you started this project? What was the catalyst that made you say, “Okay, now is the time to really do this?”
Mark LePage (11:14):
Annmarie and I (Annmarie is my wife) were married in 1996 and we lived in a town called Pleasantville in New York, just above New York City. And we lived in a little, teeny tiny apartment, and we wanted to buy a house. And two architects trying to find the perfect house is complicated.
[Laughter]
And so, for about a year, we had a realtor who we were driving crazy trying to find the right house and they kept bringing us to the houses that just weren't what we were looking for. And one day in the summer, she took us to this house. She said, “This house is going on the market tomorrow, and they're going to let us see it first before the open house.”
And so, we got in the realtor's car, she took us to the house, we turned into this private driveway and drove up this hill in a town called Chappaqua that we were not even looking in because it was way out of our budget.
It was one of those towns in Westchester County, New York, where all the bankers and all the traders, all the people who make all the money in New York City live. They live in Westchester County, in Greenwich, Connecticut, and so, we weren't even looking in Chappaqua.
And so, we're like, “This isn't going to happen. This is not going to be a house we could even afford, never mind the house that we're looking for after a year of being disappointed.” So, we drive up this private driveway, that was the first hint. We're like, private driveway (laughs), there's no way we're going to be able to afford this house with a private driveway.
And so, we drive up this driveway and pass two other houses on the driveway, so it's a shared driveway, and go up a hill and into the woods. And we're going into the woods, it's like, “Oh my goodness, this is awesome, this is one of the things we want.”
And so, we drive up, and up on the hill, as we're coming up the hill, up above us is this little, tiny stucco cottage with this little wooden door and there's a round top door with this perfect little gable. It was just the square, 30 by 30 with this little square roof or a little gable roof, and it was perfect.
So, we looked at it and we both looked at each other immediately and thought, “This is going to be good.” And it was very overgrown; the trees have all overgrown and the plantings look like they're probably 50 years old. In the driveway, it had two stone piers at the driveway. So, you come up this shared driveway, and then to go into our private driveway, you sort of turn off the shared road and into our driveway.
And this little, short gravel, at the time, it was dirt. It wasn't even gravel; it was just dirt. And you go past these two piers that were like 80 years old and look up at the house, and it's like this perfect house, this big stone retaining wall, all like 80-year-old field stone wall.
And it was like a tan stucco with dark, red trim, and it had pasted on wood to make it look like a Tudor. It wasn't a Tudor, but they sort of pretended it was a Tudor (somewhere along the line, they did that) and we were so excited about this. And it was priced in a price that was above our budget, but it wasn't unmanageable. So, we're like maybe this could work.
And so, we walk up the stairs and we walk in the front door, and it was a disaster. It was a disaster. They were still living in it because the open house was the next day, and they hadn't yet cleaned it up. I don't know how they cleaned it up for the open house, they probably didn't, but it was a hoarder.
It was three feet of stuff and probably 50, 60 years of life in this house that had not been painted in generations, and the walls were all dirty and sticky and moldy. Anybody else who would have walked into that door would've been disgusted, and they would've turned around and left.
But Annmarie and I walked in and said, “Oh my goodness, this is going to be great. This is perfect.”
[Laughter]
Because beyond all of the mess and the dirt and the mold, we saw the original crown moldings. And we saw the original fireplace and the original mantle and the original hardware and the original light fixtures and the original textured plaster on the walls.
We looked right past the mess and fell in love with this little, tiny house that had been neglected for 50 years that anybody who would've walked into it would've said, “This is a tear down, we're not even messing with this.” Because it literally had not been updated ever.
From 1934, it was built, and it had never been updated. It had the original fuse box with two fuses; it had the original kitchen. The kitchen was about 8 by 10, and it had the original porcelain sink and this built-in cupboard, and the refrigerator was blocking the door to the back deck because they didn't have refrigerators that size or that wall in 1934, and the stove was this original 1940 stove, little, white stove, and everything was like-
Marilyn Moedinger (17:09):
Like a time capsule.
Mark LePage (17:10):
Yeah, it was a time capsule, and we just totally fell in love with it. Obviously, it was going to be a lot of work, but it also allowed us to afford this house. And it was all there because it was so neglected, it had never been updated, all the original stuff was still there.
The original white plaster and the original plaster and all of that stuff that most houses built in the 30s, it's all been gutted somewhere along the line. And so, a house that's built in 1934 that still has all of the 1934 life and design and details is unheard of.
Marilyn Moedinger (17:46):
A hidden treasure.
Mark LePage (17:47):
Exactly. And so, we immediately put an offer on it, and they were not supposed to be in the house, but they were, and they met us.
Sheri Scott (18:00):
That's a no-no, right?
Mark LePage (18:02):
Yes. But because they met us, we told them that we were architects and we loved the house, loved and that we were going to see it.
Sheri Scott (18:08):
That you loved it.
Mark LePage (18:11):
And this was a house that they had lived in for 50 years. This was the second generation who owned it. And the man and the woman who bought it, the man had died probably in the 70s, and we've heard afterwards through becoming friends with the owners that when the husband died, the wife didn't want to change anything.
She wanted to preserve the house that was his house and over the years, just neglected (it). She didn't even want anybody to repair it, and so it just continued the way it was from the day he died. And so, as a time capsule (like you said, the time capsule), it was a time capsule of the day he died, it never changed.
But because they met us and they knew that we wanted to preserve it, and they loved it, and they didn't want it to die or be torn down because they knew that was what was going to happen, they accepted our offer.
It was a cash offer lower than they were asking, and it worked for us and it worked for them, and they accepted it. And the realtor convinced them to go ahead with the open house the next day. And so, they had the open house, and we're sitting in our apartment waiting for the news because they hadn't officially accepted.
They basically, verbally accepted it, and so we had a deal with the owner but there was nothing signed, we had no contract. And the next day, they had a full open house and they had three offers, cash for more from developers who were going to tear it down and build a big house. And they were going to make lots of money, and they held to their agreement with us, and they sold it to us.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:55):
Amazing.
Sheri Scott (19:55):
What a great story. So, did you live in it as is?
Mark LePage (20:00):
We could not live in it the way it was. We took about two weeks to clean it up and make it livable. It was just Annmarie, me and some friends. And our parents came and helped because we were living at Annmarie's friend's house because we had moved from — we did not renew the apartment and we bought this house, and we expected to move in, and so we were temporarily living at Annmarie's friend's house.
So, we started doing this cleanup renovation. So, basically, clean it, get everything … it had been emptied, so it was just an empty box, but the mold was still there and the dirt was still there. And so, we spent days and days scrubbing it down and cleaning it and making it beautiful again and repainting everything.
And then had the floors refinished, the original fir floors were there under all that stuff. So, the floors were actually in really good condition because they were protected by all the stuff. And so, we had the floors refinished, there was vinyl on top of linoleum, we had that. We actually did all the work ourselves, except for the floor finishing. We removed all the linoleum, scraped it, that was horrible.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:18):
I've been there. It's horrible. That is horrible.
Mark LePage (21:21):
And had the floors refinished all the way into the kitchen, and then about two days into moving back in, I was moving the big, heavy radiators around and the next day, we were at the storage unit and I dropped a towel, and I went down to pick up the towel, and my back popped. And I could not get back up and I had excruciating pain and was completely disabled before we moved in.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:56):
Oh, my God.
Mark LePage (21:58):
And so, they got me into the car and they drove me back to Annmarie's friend's house and put me on the couch. And I spent another week laying on her couch, immobilized because if I moved, I couldn't breathe.
Marilyn Moedinger (22:12):
Well, Annmarie moved all those boxes.
Mark LePage (22:13):
And Annmarie and her parents and help of friends moved everything back into the house, and then eventually, I got back into the house. So, that was the first piece of it, was getting it available to live in, to make it healthy, to make it livable. And so, that was the first phase. So, we had three phases on that house.
Sheri Scott (22:36):
What was the start of the second phase?
Mark LePage (22:38):
The second phase was an addition.
Sheri Scott (22:43):
How long after you moved in?
Mark LePage (22:48):
It was quite a bit. (Laughs), and that's a whole other … all these memories are coming back. We lived in it for several years, had kids, and so we had our first James and then we had Henry. And Henry was about a year and a half old when we did that, and he was born in 2004. And so, 2005, I guess we did the addition.
And we did the addition not because we had the money (laughs) but because Annmarie's father one day came by and saw that we were giving his grandson a bath in the bathtub and there was not enough hot water.
And so, every day we would take boiling water from the kitchen that we would boil on the stove, and we would bring it through the house to the one bathroom that we had (because we only had one bathroom) and fill up the little kiddie bathtub with hot water, and so he could have a bath. And we were just living that way. That's the necessity of living in a house like that.
And the house had no insulation, and so in the winter, it was cold. So, our kid, James, would sleep in a snow suit, too cold to, and again, we were two 20-year-olds … exactly, that's just how we lived. And we didn't have the money to fix it and we were saving and eventually, we would fix it.
And my father-in-law (who is an amazing man, who I loved tremendously, both my-in-laws are amazing people) said we're going to do this addition, and he lent us the money to do the addition and we fixed it.
So, what we did is we replaced all of the windows, put all new brand-new windows in, made them look like the old original windows. So, all had the same patterns and basically, we stored it to look like the original house.
We put a second floor on it, and which was just big enough to have a master bedroom. So, we sort of tucked it in under the roof. So, we added a second floor, but had a really low roof, so it still kept the scale down, and we added an addition on the back.
So, we enlarged the kitchen and the dining room. The dining room (the dining room, that's funny, I call it a dining room), it literally was the hallway from the living room into the kitchen because it was 30 by 30, 30 by 30 was the original house.
And so, that original house had two bedrooms, a living room, a little alcove, they called the dining room, and this little kitchen that I described earlier in the back corner, and then a stair that went down to the basement, had a full basement. And under the bedroom was a one car garage that could fit a 1934 vehicle with this big carriage door, swinging carriage doors on it. That was what we bought.
And so, we added the space above it, put in an addition off the back. So, basically, put a square off the back square, so sort of a square on the back corner where the kitchen was. So, we made a larger kitchen, a larger dining room, and added a stair up to the second floor, which was basically right on top of the old stair that went down to the basement.
And that gave us a master bedroom suite upstairs. We put another bathroom upstairs. The whole entire space was just big, open room, with the idea that in the future, you could block it off and make it additional rooms. We didn't have the septic to have four bedrooms, so we had three bedrooms.
So, bedroom upstairs, bathroom upstairs, larger kitchen, larger dining room, and finished the basement. That was what we did on the first project and started our architecture firm in the basement. Actually, started the architecture firm in the basement before we did any of that, and so that was phase two.
Sheri Scott (26:43):
So, how did that process look? I know you guys are both architects, so did you spend years planning, or take us through that process a little bit.
Mark LePage (26:56):
We had a much more difficult time finding the house than designing and building it because that was our expertise. And I learned a long time ago, way before I married my wife, that she's an exceptional designer, and that when we try to design together, it doesn't work.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (27:18):
That's very good to know.
Mark LePage (27:20):
Which is why I took the business side and she took the design side of the firm. But I've always done it since I learned that because we tried to design once together, and it did not work in any way, and so we've never wanted to experience that relationship again, and so we never did that again.
And so, I defer all design to Annmarie. She's an exceptional designer, she does great work, interiors and architecture. And so it was very easy. She designed what she wanted and I said, “That looks great. Let's do it.”
And then we went through the process with the town and got the permits, and none of it was really difficult because that was our job, and that project was our project. Our firm, we served people just like us.
Our whole firm was built and branded around serving families who are moving from New York City out into the country, which isn't really the country, but they called it the country. And there's no place to build new houses in Westchester County because it's old, and so everything is in renovation. So, our whole firm's mission was to help these families modernize and update these old houses, and so it was easy to do our own project in terms of the process.
The thing that we didn't expect and we were sort of a little bit naïve, we were 27-years-old … when we did the addition, we were in our early 30s, but young architects, we thought we were going to live through it (laughs).
My in-laws lived about a half hour away over the Hudson River in Nyack, in Rockland County for anybody who knows that area, so about 30 minutes away. So, our kids were there. We moved our kids off to grandma's house and who were integrated into our lives. It's a whole another story.
That's how Annmarie and I actually ran our firm and allowed Annmarie to practice, was that my in-laws were a huge part of the support system to allow us to do that. And so, the kids were not there, but we decided we were going to live through the renovation, we were going to stay there.
Sheri Scott (29:36):
Did you hire someone this time?
Mark LePage (29:38):
Hire someone for what?
Sheri Scott (29:40):
To do the work?
Mark LePage (29:41):
Yes. Yes.
Marilyn Moedinger (29:42):
So, you were not doing all the physical-
Mark LePage (29:44):
We were not doing the work, so we hired a contractor. We weren't going to do anything that big. So, we hired a contractor. Well, actually, we did construction management. So, we hired multiple contractors. We hired the builder, we hired the plumber, so we managed the construction, but we didn't do the work.
But what happened is that the first day they tore off the roof because they were going to put a second floor on, and they put a tarp over the roof, and they tore off the back of the house because we wanted to put on this new addition off the back of it, and we're living (laughs) in the bedroom, right back to the old days where we're carrying boiling water-
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (30:18):
Camping out in your house.
Mark LePage (30:19):
Yeah, exactly, we're camping out in the house and it started to rain, and it started to thunder, and the water started pouring through the middle of the house, like right down through the middle of the house into the basement, and we're like, “Alright, we're going to grandma's, we're done with this.”
Because that's not uncommon for water to get into a renovation. You clean up and you fix it and you do what you need to do. But to live in it, to like trying to be sleeping and the water coming down through your house was not a good idea.
Marilyn Moedinger (30:48):
And I'm glad you're saying this because it's one of the conversations that comes up with homeowners all the time. Everyone wants to live in the house during the renovation, everybody, Even if we're gutting it, they're like, “Well, just build us a little kitchen in the basement with a microwave and a mini fridge and we'll be fine.”
And I'm like, “But you won't be,” so that's interesting too. I mean, I grew up in a house where we did a renovation while we lived in it-
Mark LePage (31:14):
Me too.
Marilyn Moedinger (31:15):
And that's partially that trauma is (laughs) why I say that.
Taylor Davis (31:19):
I am in my fifth month of living in my basement during a bathroom renovation currently. I did not take my own advice at all. I never tell people to live there, and yet, there I am. No winter clothes, no nothing, month five (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (31:39):
I think that's valuable experience as well to be able to tell that to homeowners and to say, “Do you really want to be waking up in the middle of the night and the water's coming through the middle of your house?”
Mark LePage (31:48):
And that's the story I would tell when my clients would come to me and say, “Can we live through it?” No, you can't live through it, you have to move.
Marilyn Moedinger (31:55):
Not if the roof's off (laughs).
Mark LePage (31:57):
Yeah, exactly. Sometimes you can, but if it's a major renovation where the exterior weather is going to be inside your house, you can't live through it, you have to find a place to live.
Marilyn Moedinger (32:09):
And the other part is (and I'm sure you face this as well) the subcontractors and everybody need to work. And if they're working around you and they have to hook up the electrical every night and make sure the water's on every night, and they can't come at six in the morning because you're getting ready for work or whatever, they'll go slower.
Mark LePage (32:28):
Exactly. And they'll charge you more. If a contractor knows that you're going to be living in the house, they won't tell you. But the price will be more than if you just give them free reign to do their job and to do what they do, the price will be lower. And if they have to work around you, the price is going to be higher.
Marilyn Moedinger (32:44):
They're going to charge you, yep. We should put that in flashing lights: warning, warning (laughs).
Taylor Davis (32:49):
Giant yellow flag.
Marilyn Moedinger (32:52):
So that was phase two.
Mark LePage (32:54):
Yes, that was phase two. So, at the end of phase two, we had the second floor finished, we had the addition built, but the addition wasn't finished.
So, the dining room was drywalled and painted, but there was no trim, and the kitchen again was painted and had a little bit of trim. Actually, the windows did have trim in the dining room, the kitchen also had trim on the windows, but it was really just to make it look finished. So, it was painted and trimmed but it wasn't finished.
And the kitchen, we put in a temporary IKEA kitchen because we couldn't afford the kitchen. We could just afford the addition and to get it up and running, and (laughs) and to make it livable for our children without having to carry boiling water across the house.
[Laughter]
So, with that renovation, we also did a full new HVAC system and full all new plumbing and new electric put in all new 200-amp electrical panel, so fully modernized the house.
Taylor Davis (33:55):
That's another tip to homeowners too. Like when you're doing a renovation, that's the time to do all of that stuff. If you've got stuff open and available, I want everybody to listen to that because if you've got anything that is bugging you about your HVAC or electrical, if you're doing an addition, even if it's just partial addition, that's the time to handle all of that stuff.
Marilyn Moedinger (34:18):
The other thing about that is, if you don't do it then, you're going to have to do it later when you do other things, it's going to be a huge mess. And also, these are the things that homeowners don't count when they're adding up their potential budget. They're like, “Oh, a kitchen is going to cost this, the additional cost this,” and my first question when we start talking about scope is how old is your HVAC system?
Because you're going to have to, “Oh, well you know, the unit's about 15 years old,” we're replacing that sucker. We are not going through all this and adding all this stuff and adding all this duct work and doing all this stuff, and then you're going to replace the whole system in two years after you finish the renovation. So, that's a tough-
Mark LePage (35:00):
It'll be a more expensive to-
Marilyn Moedinger (35:03):
Way more expensive.
Mark LePage (35:03):
To do it later. That's why we didn't have the kitchen finished, and that's why the dining room wasn't finished because we decided to do the other pieces.
Marilyn Moedinger (35:12):
Yeah, yeah. Because you're doing all the stuff that's in the walls that's hard to do later.
Sheri Scott (35:17):
But no fun. It's fun to pay for those things.
Taylor Davis (35:21):
Nobody talks about it at a party.
Sheri Scott (35:24):
You can't show your guests-
Taylor Davis (35:25):
How comfortable you are.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (35:27):
Like guys, I just rewired my whole building, I just separated my utilities.
Mark LePage (35:34):
You want to see pictures of the wires (laughs)?
Marilyn Moedinger (35:35):
Yeah, check it out. Look at this grounding rod-
Taylor Davis (35:37):
knob and tube turning modern.
Marilyn Moedinger (35:40):
I know. This is why I don't get invited to parties (laughs).
Mark LePage (35:44):
Homeowners would much rather have a kitchen than to upgrade their HVAC because you can't see any of that stuff.
Marilyn Moedinger (35:50):
You can't see it. But the way you did it was set it up so that then I'm hoping that phase three is like the fun stuff.
Mark LePage (35:55):
That is phase three. Phase three is a little bit of do it yourself. So, I finished out the dining room, I did all new wood paneling. So, I put in all new wood paneling in the dining room and crown molding. And so, finished the dining room, then repainted it, the colors we really wanted it to be.
And then the kitchen, we put in a brand-new beautiful kitchen that met the level of the standard of the neighborhood. And that was important too that we're going to put all this effort into saving this house, we wanted to make sure that when we were ready to leave that … because we looked at owning that house as being stewards of that house.
That for one, we rescued it. It was going to be torn down. And so, part of our feeling was that we are rescuing this house, and we have to make sure that we are setting it up to survive beyond us because the next builder’s right behind us, ready to tear it down when we sell it. We don't want to sell it to a builder either that's going to tear it down.
So, we made sure that whatever we did to it, we built it to the level that made it much more difficult to tear it down. So, the kitchen, we put in a beautiful crown point kitchen and put in beautiful appliances and stretched to do all that, but that's why it was phase three. We saved our money to build what we wanted, and then designed and built the phase three was to finish the kitchen and the dining room.
Sheri Scott (37:23):
How long was it between the second phase and the third phase? Did you live there for a while?
Mark LePage (37:28):
Yeah, a couple years. I don't remember exactly, but it was a couple of, several years maybe. I don't know, but yeah, it wasn't right away. Because we were saving our money to make sure that we can do that (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (37:40):
The big kitchen.
Mark LePage (37:41):
My father-in-law wasn't going to help me with this second one, although he did end up.
Sheri Scott (37:44):
No, you just got hot water (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (37:48):
Another thing that homeowners are often asking us in renovations is can I phase the project? So, they want to do it as you're describing, so phase one, phase two, phase three. What you're describing is basically for several years, maybe the better part of a decade, you are doing a variety of projects or saving for projects or being under construction.
So, given what you experienced, what would you advise homeowners if you showed up, if a homeowner called you and said, “I just bought this house,” what's the game plan?
Mark LePage (38:20):
The first thing, and that was often the projects that we would have as architects. And so, the first thing we would do is a master plan. If somebody had a big project and they could not afford the whole project, do a master plan.
So, design it all out, get it all on paper, just like you want. But the architect knows that it's going to be multi-phased, and so they'll design it differently than if they were going to build it potentially differently, than if they're all going to build it at one time.
They're two different projects. If you said, “I have a million dollars to do exactly what I want, or I have $500,000 to do part of what I want, that project will be designed in different ways.” And so, design out the whole project, plan it out, what's going to be phase one? What's going to be phase two? What's going to be phase three?
Put some preliminary numbers on what those things will be, and then go through your phases, phase one. But when you build phase one, preparing for phase two, like us, if you do build something that isn't going to be completely finished — finish it enough in a different way. Save your money, do it inexpensively, but finish it so you can live in it because life goes really fast.
And so, if you just have an empty room that someday is going to be the kitchen — but you don't really have a kitchen, that's not a good example — but if maybe the dining room, like the dining room, eventually, we wanted this paneled dining room, but it's not going to happen right away.
So, we finished the dining room, painted it, trimmed it out. Anybody who walked into it would think, “Oh, it's a nice dining room.” But it wasn't what we imagined, but it was finished enough to live in it. So, you don't want to live in construction your whole life.
I lived in a house like that. My father did all the work on the house that we grew up in and it was constantly under construction. We lived in a constant renovation, which led me to architecture and construction and taught me a lot, and so there's a good side to that as well.
But it also, you raise your family in construction, on plywood floors and unfinished walls and cold breezes, and I would recommend that you finish it enough that you live in it, and you can enjoy it. And then when you're ready for phase two, take out the stuff that was inexpensive to put in that you enjoyed for a couple years, and then build phase two and then build phase three.
Marilyn Moedinger (40:40):
Yeah, that makes sense. And especially these days, right now with construction prices being what they are, it's difficult to come up with a giant chunk of money to do the whole project potentially, but smart phasing is got to be it, you got to think about that.
Taylor Davis (40:59):
What I like about the way you talk about phasing is a little bit different. Because a lot of times what we see (and we've talked about this before), is that people kind of want to draw a red line around a part of their plan, and call that phase one, and then draw another red line around it and call it phase two, and act as if … I talk about it.
I was like, this is not the imaginary “first down line” that I see when I watch football games. There's no line there, there is no way to sort of cordon this off. It's going to connect to different systems structurally, mechanically, electrically, plumbing wise. That line is very porous. So, what you're talking about, you're doing, is you did the work and then your phases subsequently filled out.
So, it was almost like you stacked as opposed to sort of bubbled. which is kind of a weird way of saying that. But I like the way that you talk about structuring that phasing because I think it's very different from what people generally think of as phasing.
Mark LePage (42:00):
I would offer one other suggestion to homeowners working with architects because this is something that we … and this isn't really anything to do with my project, but be honest with your architect about the budget. Don't hide your money.
Sheri Scott (42:12):
Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
Mark LePage (42:15):
Because that happened a lot with us and I know it happens with you as well. And people have more than … because they watch HGTV and they tell you inaccuracies about how the process actually works. If an architect-
Sheri Scott (42:32):
Lies, lies, they're lies, Mark!
[Laughter]
Mark LePage (42:33):
Architects are not going to spend your money just because you have the money. If you tell them that you have this amount, but you only want to spend this amount, that's different than not telling them about that amount. Because the project will be different. It'll be better if they know the truth. Because often what happens is that you'll design the cheaper project, you'll go to build it, and then the magic money will come in. Oh, I want to expose that.
And now, now, because the magic money just appeared, you're adding into something that wasn't planned for, and it's never as good as it could have been if you just told us the money was there in the first place and that you had planned to spend it. We promise that we will be responsible with your money, it's part of our job.
Taylor Davis (43:19):
It's part of being stewards. Yeah, that's our job.
Marilyn Moedinger (43:22):
And also, on top of that when someone says, “Well, I don't want to tell you my budget because then you're going to spend it all,” and I'm like, “Well, then don't tell me a number you're not comfortable spending all of.”
Mark LePage (43:32):
Exactly. Be honest with yourself as well as your architect.
Marilyn Moedinger (43:35):
Yes. And so, if someone says, “I have a hundred thousand dollars for this project,” then the next question I'm always asking is — because homeowners speak of project budget, not construction budget. So, that a hundred thousand has to include everything.
They're thinking about the furniture they're going to put in, they don't know that the architect's fees are usually separate from that, they don't know that a survey might be separate from that or going through zoning might cost money that's different than that.
So, their construction budget may actually only be $50,000 after they're done taking all that other stuff out, and by the way, contingency, you should set aside for contingency.
Mark LePage (44:16):
And the way I presented contingency is that I always presented it in a way that this is money that we are going to spend, we just don't know where we're going to spend it on yet. It's not money that we're hiding and that if you need it, it'll be there.
No, it's going to be needed. This is a renovation project. Things that we don't expect are going to happen, and that money is there to pay for those things that we know are there, we just don't know what they are yet.
Marilyn Moedinger (44:45):
100k, and you say (and I'm just using a number just out of the blue) okay, 20k is contingency, “X” Thousand is for architect, “X” Thousand is for this, and then what’s left over is what we can spend on the kitchen or the whatever.
Mark LePage (45:00):
And the 20k will be spent.
Marilyn Moedinger (45:02):
Will be spent, yeah. Because you will open up walls, and you will find crazy stuff (laughs).
Mark LePage (45:07):
Every time.
Marilyn Moedinger (45:08):
Every time (laughs).
Taylor Davis (45:10):
I'll share a quick story. When I did my first renovation in Birmingham, we ended up (in the project) at the very last piece, and I was trying to convince the homeowner to take a porch off the garage so that we could do a three-point turn with a minivan in the driveway. This is the kind of project.
And he looked at me, and he said, “Nope.” And I was like, “Why?” And he said, “Because at this point in the project, the only thing we're going to find is Confederate money or a Native American burial ground, and neither, which are going to help me pay for the rest of this job.”
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (45:42):
That's all that's left.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:44):
You got to know when to fold them.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (45:47):
So, Mark, I think you have told us a couple of things that you would do differently knowing what you know. And because I know you, I know you have done another project since then. Did you do anything different then, on your second project, knowing what you learned on the first?
Mark LePage (46:08):
Well, my second project is when we moved to North Carolina. So, in 2017 my in-laws, who were in New York, who were helping raise our children, and now by this point, my children were older. They were teenagers in high school and college. So, this is a long way to answer your question.
My in-laws would go down to North Carolina to visit their sons, my wife's brothers, who lived in Charlotte. And they would just go down to visit every year. And we were in New York, not with Annmarie's brothers, and coincidentally my brothers were also in Charlotte, within an hour of my brothers-in-law.
But we were still in New York, but we were in New York because my in-laws were in New York. They were never moving (laughs). In 2017, they went down to visit, and they bought a house while they were there.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (47:04):
So, it all changed.
Mark LePage (47:06):
My brother-in-law brought them to show them a house, never imagining that they would buy a house. And my mother-in-law said, “Oh, this is nice, I could imagine living here.” And that was all he needed.
[Laughter]
15 minutes later he had a realtor there, and about an hour later, they had a deal.
Marilyn Moedinger (47:24):
Sounds like a plan that was hatched (laughs).
Mark LePage (47:27):
And they didn't know, and we didn't know. And they came home, and they said, “We bought a house. We're moving to Charlotte.” And I looked at Annmarie and said, “When are we moving?” Because the only reason we were there was because they were there. And we were going to be there as long as they were there. We wanted to make sure that we were there with them to support them and to have them be able to support us.
And so, when they left, we were like, “Okay, we're going to go too.” And so, they wrapped up in 90 days. They cleaned up a house that they had lived in for 50 years, sold it, and moved to North Carolina. Within three or four months of “I will never move,” to now living in North Carolina.
But we were practicing in New York, and so we had a firm with clients and projects. And so, we decided, “Okay, we're going to finish all of our projects, go through all our commitments.” Finished everything. And a year and a half later, we moved to North Carolina as well.
And the house that we bought was a house that was a short sale. And that's a whole other story. The short sale, the realtor of the house that was selling the short sale house was the owner of the house that was having a short sale, who didn't want his house to be sold (chuckles).
I don't know how that's legal or how it worked out, but he was a licensed realtor, and he was the selling agent on the house. My realtor did not like that her profession was being played with that way. So, she was going to get this house for us.
And Annmarie loved this house and wasn't going to let that happen. And so, we ended up buying the house. But the house was built in 1993 and had never been renovated. So, we bought it in 2019. It was built in 1993, and was still 1993. And I think somewhere along the line, the kitchen probably was renovated.
And so, this house was in great shape but was still 1993. The outside was synthetic stucco with fake arched windows. This horribly proportioned front entrance with these ceramic tile stairs that went up that were like 12 by 12 riser runs. This horrible front entrance.
[Laughter]
And again, we saw it and looked right past all of that and said, “We are going to make this into this beautiful little house.” And so, we bought it and we did a full whole-house exterior renovation on it. So, replaced all the windows and doors, put a huge sliding glass door off the kitchen.
The house originally had these big (when you walked into the living room) windows that looked out to the backyard. And removed all of the stucco, which we thought was going to be a huge problem, because synthetic stucco in the 90s, in the South, was a mold problem for everybody.
Taylor Davis (50:34):
Welcome to my world.
Mark LePage (50:35):
And we removed that stucco, and there was one place with a leaky window that had rotted wood. And we were incredibly lucky. And so, we had that money budgeted to fix that problem, and that problem didn't exist.
And so, removed the stucco, put all new windows in, put up a Hardie Plank, clad boards, and made it look like this little southern white cottage. Removed that front entrance, put a new front porch on it and renovated. And that was the first phase. So, full exterior renovation. Second phase was a new kitchen and dining room to replace the probably early 2000s kitchen. Replaced that.
And so, lessons (laughs), again, we project managed it. And that probably was a problem. Because we were trying to save money and we hired some people who said they could do projects at a certain time limit. We were new to the South, two Northerners moving to the South, not realizing that the South moves at a different time zone.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (51:50):
Different pace, yeah.
Mark LePage (51:51):
Yeah, a very different pace. Which we love today, and loved then but didn't recognize that that translated to contractors.
Sheri Scott (51:58):
And you probably didn't know the contractors.
Mark LePage (52:00):
We didn't know any of the contractors. We were lucky to know architects down here because of EntreArchitect. I have a very large network, so I know architects everywhere in the United States. And so, when I moved here, I had friends here who helped me recommend contractors, and that was a huge help.
Don Duffy (I don't know if any of you know Don Duffy) was a huge help. He lives close by and has helped us with this. And that was a big part of how we got it done.
Oh, the lesson was not knowing the way that contractors paced themselves in the South, we hired the siding guys, which were two brothers (laughs), who showed up on a pickup truck who did a fantastic job, but it took about four months to reside the exterior of our house.
And so, I think references and understanding the backgrounds of contractors. Even if they're great contractors and great people, someone could have told us that, which we didn't check. We just used the referrals. Great people, great job, it just took a lot longer than we expected.
Sheri Scott (53:09):
So, Marilyn, to wrap this up, you want to ask our final question?
Marilyn Moedinger (53:14):
We'd love to hear something about your finished home (whether it's the one in New York or the one in North Carolina) that every time you see it, you just love it.
Mark LePage (53:26):
There's a lot to love in both houses. I mean, we put so much love.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (53:29):
That's a great answer.
Mark LePage (53:30):
We put so much love into both houses. I mean, the Chappaqua House, the whole thing was done out of love to save the house. And so, everything there, we miss that house a lot. I do not have much I miss about New York. I really love where we moved, and New York has a really stressful environment to live in. But I loved the house, I miss the house tremendously.
But the house that we're in today is awesome. It's much bigger than the house in New York. And I would say my favorite space is our screen porch. We didn't have a screen porch in New York. And North Carolina has fantastic weather.
And nine months of the year, you can be outside, and probably even more than that. And I eat breakfast outside every day and lunch outside every day. And it's my screen porch, and so I would say, yeah.
Sheri Scott (54:26):
It's great.
Mark LePage (54:26):
But I love it all. I'll send you pictures.
Taylor Davis (54:30):
I follow you on Instagram, I've been watching it. There's the little back house. You've got window boxes; I've seen it all.
Mark LePage (54:36):
That back house is a whole other episode.
Taylor Davis (54:39):
The back house, totally cool.
[Laughter]
Mark LePage (54:41):
That's Annemarie's house.
Sheri Scott (54:42):
Well, Mark, thank you so much for coming on and sharing first of all, your journey with EntreArchitect and how we all met. And then your journey with your renovation. I think we got a lot of good tidbits that our listeners can pay attention to, and maybe take into their own project.
Mark LePage (55:04):
Well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It was an honor and a pleasure to be part of this. I was excited to be on it.
Marilyn Moedinger (55:12):
It was our honor.
Taylor Davis (55:14):
Aw, you’re making me get choked up.
[Laughter]
Sheri Scott (55:19):
So, that was a great, great episode with Mark, and we all love him of course. A lot of stories about (laughs) the projects that he's done.
I thought it was interesting. The point I pulled out of it early on was just how architects tend to see potential in projects that maybe people that are going to see a house don't. The other ones that put in offers were going to tear the house down. And they saw some potential there and made it into a home that they ultimately loved.
Marilyn Moedinger (55:51):
Because they saw that potential, they were actually able to get a house in a very expensive area for real estate. So, because they were willing to see the potential in something that maybe others were passing by or that just developers were going to buy and tear down, that enabled them to kind of get into a market that otherwise they might not have been able to get into.
And I think that's the case for all of us. It's certainly the case for a lot of my clients in the Boston area. It's a tough market a lot of times. And so, you got to come in and see those opportunities for a project that you can really make special, even if it doesn't look very special on day one (laughs).
Taylor Davis (56:29):
I'll say this, the thing that came through for me was how much love they had for that house, and it was sort of part of their family. It's like a character in their family story. And I think lots of people feel that way, but architects, residential architects feel that way about houses acutely.
Marilyn Moedinger (56:48):
Yes.
Sheri Scott (56:48):
Yes.
Marilyn Moedinger (56:49):
We love them.
Taylor Davis (56:50):
We love them. So, we love on them, we love them. We love the fact that you love your house. So, working with someone who loves houses, like you love your house inevitably makes for a better project. That's why we do this, it’s because we love them so much. And you could hear so much of that emotion as he was talking about his project.
Sheri Scott (57:15):
And technically, being stewards of the home. And I think that's where we come in sometimes where we understand the feelings that go into a home and why you love a home. And being a steward of a building is very important. And they're not disposable. They're not supposed to be disposable and tear one down and build a bigger one behind it. So, yeah, I really liked that perspective of his.
Marilyn Moedinger (57:44):
I did too. And I also think that laced throughout Mark's stories and comments was also just that importance or an advantage of having someone who's thinking strategically about how to do projects.
So, it isn't just like, “What do we want the kitchen to look like?” But it's much more, “How do we get this project executed that fits our family, that fits our lifestyle, that fits our budget, that fits our plan, and our time horizon for being in this home?”
And I think that's something that I wish people knew more (and so, I guess we're here talking about it), that architects are here not just to draw up plans and that's it, but to help homeowners early in the process with strategizing, “What's going to be possible here? How can we make this work for you over the course of the 20 years that you might be in the home?”
So, there's master planning that's about the renovation, and we're going to do the electrical and we're going to fix the kitchen. But there's also master planning about your budget and your family and that kind of thing that we're there to do. And we have experience with that. And I hope people take that away from Mark's comments as well.
Sheri Scott (59:08):
And of course, we're always grateful to Mark for bringing us together.
Marilyn Moedinger (59:12):
Absolutely, yeah.
Taylor Davis (59:13):
100%. We would not know each other without him. So, we are very grateful.
Marilyn Moedinger (59:17):
I'm always surprised how when we say what the dates are, like how long we've known each other – (laughs).
Sheri Scott (59:22):
Yes. I know. We can't be that old, surely.
Marilyn Moedinger (59:24):
I'm like, “Oh, that was just a couple years ago.”
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (59:25):
No, we're not that old.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (59:27):
Thank you so much for joining us today on Home: The Second Story. If you'd like to come on the show and share your story, email us at admin@htsspodcast.com.
We'd love to have you as a guest. For more inspiring homeowner stories and tips, we'll see you next time.
[Music playing]
Voiceover (59:45):
Thanks for listening to Home: The Second Story Podcast. Feel free to share this episode with a friend. Contact information for all three of our architects are in our show notes. And don't miss future episodes.
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