Lastingnest inc.Contractor in Seattle, Washington
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Video walk-through of the home we just completed!
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We built a home, and Christopher Vacirca and I designed and built these stairs. I honestly think they're glorious. The handrail is made from the original wall plates from the house they tore down to build this one. I milled the old growth CVG Fir down in our shop and Chris installed and sanded it once (as did I) then Joe Vacirca took it down to 220 and oiled it the first time. Then Marty Kenney pulled out the 400 grit wet/dry...and made it so smooth......It contrasts beautifully with the sawn fir stringers and treads.
And who cleaned up the plaster work did 1,000 things whatever else? Jonathan Stenzler. And who painted the whole bloody house Eduardo Alarcon! There are more folks, who should chime in... we are grateful to get to build this.
Lastingnest inc. updated their cover photo.
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Just about done. The home we've built just had it's blower-door test this past Sunday. Tried not to have my expectations too high as this is a 3200 square foot home with some high ceilings, which is a lot of air sealing!!! However, when it was all said and done we achieved a score of .98 ACH (Air Changes / Hour)!!!!!!
What does this mean? The average new home scores a 6.
An Energy Star home needs to score a 4. We are 4X tighter than that, and we did it with locally sourced building products.
Lastingnest inc. added 4 new photos.
Building an addition near Carkeek Park, expanding a cool mid-century modern home but keeping it's character and expending it's special features like the exposed beamwork. We are also properly insulating and updating the systems.
Every morning we make progress.
We build things. We finish things. We talk to folks about creating more beautiful projects... Do you have a project?
Send Mike an email!
Lastingnest inc. updated their cover photo.
Lastingnest inc. updated their profile picture.
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Fun tour of a house we are building!
Lastingnest inc. updated their profile picture.
A little tour of the awesome backyard cottage we are building on Capitol Hill!
It was yesterday, 24 years ago that David Canfield and I got into his Volkswagen squareback and drove to Olympia to create Lastingnest inc.
It took stops at five different places to get insurance, bond, business license, then finally, we had to drive to Bellevue to pay the Man $40 for our General Contractors License.
After a phone call, it was on that day my Mom ceased calling me an "itinerant carpenter", and after all this time I still like doing this for the exact same ...reasons.
I like houses.
I like people, and I am ever so interested in our individual houses, and how we inhabit them. The feeling of the space the nature of the components the colors the texture of things around you that make it Your home.
I love matching folks spaces to their dreams and needs and realities and negotiating the space between.
It is my highest art and sometimes is so hard you can hardly believe it. It is hard to be a Builder and survive what we have survived and still be beloved by Every single client.
And I know we are not.
But we have tried.
Every single time.
And so this is a thank you.
To every person who has ever called or emailed that we didn't end up working with, thank you. To all of you with whom we have, I hope your patience was rewarded.
To every Architect, thank you for your vision, ability to draw, and patience with random phone calls.
To all our subcontractors: We are only four. At my last count, you all are way more. You make Lastingnest what it is, we are forever indebted to all of you.
And to every person out there, who at some time, whether you wanted to or not, spent some time working as a carpenter for Lastingnest, I have a vague idea of how much of a pain in the ass I am, but I hope it was a fair trade. I hope you learned and had fun, I hope I fulfilled my promise of not just telling you what to do, but also teaching you how to do it and involving you in the "big picture" so that you could do it yourself one day.
And so, the biggest THANK YOU of all: Jon Stenzler and I have been partners now for 18 years, and there is no way this company lives without him. He is the Yin to my Yang he is patient and thoughtful, he is so nice he drives the Lastingnest van with the logo on the side and I fear not. His ability to see the best in people is transcendent.
It doesn't always work out, but he creates a space for all the folks around him to get to be their best self, because he is always trying to be that, and it makes a difference.
I look forward to cutting more wood, still think this is still fun, and for the most part, couldn't be more tickled with how it's all worked out.
Lastingnest inc. updated their cover photo.
