Interview - ShelfGenie

Kitchens and closets represent spaces of concern for most of our clients. We spoke with Alex from ShelfGenie to offer possible solutions.

What are benefits of Shelf Genie as oppose to a full kitchen remodel?

We are a great alternative for someone who is happy with the layout of their kitchen, but frustrated with the functionality. We provide a cost effective instant solution that will create more storage and better access usually with a one day installation. We are also a great option for clients that are thinking of selling their home in the next few years. We improve the look and functionality of the space at a fraction of the cost of a full demolition giving them a much better return on their investment. We also have relationships with door manufactures and wood renewal companies that address the outside of the cabinets.

How does the design process work, does the client have any input?

Our consultations are free and are a collaborative process. Client input is required to create the most fulfilling solution. When you call and schedule an appointment, our appointments are fun and we ask you lots of questions concerning how you use your space and what items are you trying to store. What’s driving you crazy? Are you a Costco or BJ’s client? Are you organic or do you have lots of can goods. Do you cook a lot or have cast iron pans. These are all important questions to better know what solutions to create. Once we figure out these elements, we design and price out the solution on sight. No waiting. Once approved, we produce the pullouts in our factory and will complete the project within six weeks. Our installations are usually done in one day.

You mentioned many of your clients are older adults, why do you think that is?

Usually it’s because the kids are out of college and they are starting to focus on their own needs and want to make the space easier to function. Some clients have mobility issues such as bad backs or knees. Pullouts are a very high impact solution for these clients. It allows you to age in place and remain independent.

I associate pull out systems with kitchens do you have solutions for other rooms?

Absolutely, we are not restricted to the kitchen. We work in bathrooms, garages, home offices and entertainment units. Pretty much anywhere pullout shelving systems can be of help. Since our installers are finish carpenters, we can create functional spaces under staircases or convert closets into double pantry areas. We even have put in our pullout shelving in furniture to hold TV’s, DVD’s and CD’s.

What are some of the most interesting or creative projects you have completed?

There a few that come to mind, one was the conversion of a garbage compactor into a functional garbage cabinet. We removed the compactor, built the cabinet with toe kick, put in 2 pullouts (1 for garbage and recycling, the other above it for the garbage bags), ordered a matching door and installed it. When we finished, it looked like it had always been that way.

Another interesting project we did was for a client that had done a renovation of the kitchen space including changing the access to the upstairs. Unfortunately, they had to keep the old staircase as is because underneath was the staircase to the basement.  We created a 4 pullout pantry. Since we are all custom, we could make the depth of the pullout as deep as necessary. So, the bottom pullout was 19” deep, the one above it was 25”, above that one 36” and the top one was 5 feet deep. It became an incredibly useful storage space.

Interview - Inna Agujen

When we saw how Inna was allowing clients to visualiz their future space virtually, we had to know more.

Tell us a little about your background before you were a realtor?

My background was in Animated and Feature films creating visual effects and 3D environments. I worked for Blue Sky studios, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. My position was Senior Technical Director.  Before Blue Sky, I worked for FX Boutique in NYC creating commercials and animations. 

You have an interesting service you offer your clients when they want to look at house, what can you tell us about it? 

Yes, I am one of the partners in a company which manages the marketing side of my listings. Procyon 7 LLC. One of the services we offer is 3D scans of homes for sale that allow potential buyers the ability to view online and in VR using glasses like google Cardboard to better visualize their possible future.

We also create 3D renders of houses to-be-built from architectural plans. Then we create VR, videos of 3D renders so that house can be viewed even before it is build. Everything is put together online for potential buyer to see. So all of my properties get its own website with all of this content. 

What is the most interesting or fun home VR experience you have had? 

I think the most interesting VR project I did wasn't for my listing, but for the Westport/Weston Y. Since a 3D scan needs to be done when a building is empty, it was challenging.  The YMCA is always full of people from 5am to 10pm. I had to be there at 4 am in the morning before opening and it was kind of surreal experience to be in this huge open space alone. 

Can clients view the designs remotely? Do they need a headset?

Yes. Headsets are so inexpensive nowadays especially Gcardboard.  You can actually make one yourself with cardboard or buy one on amazon for 5$ then put your phone sideways and you are now emerged into VR experience.

What have you noticed is the reaction people have to the VR?

Inna Agujen Realtor Virtual Design

People have an amazing response to VR and it makes my job of showing houses a lot easier. I can highlight the areas that we want buyers to see and not miss. When you show a house in person you can sometimes miss awesome features. Also, people tend to like playing with this interactive tours especially with doll-house view which is called that for a good reason, it literally makes house look like a dollhouse that you can spin and see any room from any angle.

3D Rendering & Virtual Staging

Interactive Tour

YMCA Project

Interview - Marci Klein of Modify Furniture

After visiting Marci's workspace at Modify Furniture, Linda and I had a lot of questions and Marci shared her insights with us.

Why did you name the company Modify?

I chose the name Modify Furniture for several reasons…our furniture is MODern, Modular, and MODifiable.

What do you mean by environmentally friendly?

There are several aspects that go into a product being eco-friendly. The most obvious being the actual materials used. We use aluminum that is 30% recycled content, and sustainable bamboo which is actually not a tree but rather a grass. Bamboo is harvested every 7 years (as opposed to trees which typically take 30 years to grow to harvest) and is considered carbon neutral. Our sliding doors are steel which is also recyclable. 

Beyond the actual material, it is important to look at the finishing materials. For example, we use organic powder coating on our aluminum and steel components; they are applied in powder form and do not release aerosol toxins into the environment. Our bamboo is hand finished with a low VOC oil-wax, safe for the environment and the customer alike. 

It is also important to understand manufacturing processes. For example, recycled materials that started their life in the USA and were then shipped to China to be broken down, manufactured into a new product, and then shipped back to the USA may not, in fact, be particularly green. That is why at Modify, we opted to do all manufacturing in-house or as close as possible. The few processes that aren't able to do in-house are within the lead recommended 250-mile radius of Bridgeport, CT.

Lean manufacturing is another component to being green. For example, at Modify, we make each piece of furniture to order and stock only a small volume of our colored panels. Therefore, we NEVER have overstock products that wind up in a landfill. We also optimize all manufacturing to result in approximately 5% waste (pretty good by industry standards).

We also flat pack ship our furniture mostly assembled. So a credenza that would take up 85inches x 18 x 40 and require freight to be shipped fully assembled will fit into a box 1/5 that size and can be ground shipped saving space for more products in the truck. 

We are constantly investigating new materials and manufacturing methods to work to improve. 

Where do you make the furniture, overseas?

Almost all of our manufacturing is done in-house at our Bridgeport, CT workshop. What we don't do ourselves is primarily done within 250-mile radius of our workshop. You can read about our partners in the “Our Gratitude “ section of the website.

From an organizational standpoint, what makes Modify work well in small spaces?

The polychrome modular line is designed specifically to offer a stylish and highly customizable storage solution. The products range from a low media unit/bench to full wall units. They are made with an aluminum frame and are structurally stable without any doors for customers who want to showcase their decorative items or they can opt to have easily removable steel doors to hide unsightly items. As the colored doors are easily swapped, the furniture can be adapted to the customer’s changing tastes and needs:

The back of the unit works in the same way so the furniture can be placed as a room divider or kept open against a wall for ventilation and cord management. 

The inside of all units is completely open to offer maximal versatility. I am able to add extra custom shelves based on customer needs.

Our coffee table is one of my favorite products as it has access to storage from all sides and has 36x36 x7 inches of storage inside.

The clean slate desk design offers a unique storage solution (the invisibin™ system) built seamlessly into the top surface to give a clean minimalist look with easy access to writing tools, calculators etc. My Drop-in Accessory line products also fit seamlessly into the desk surface and add a playful, personal, and functional touch.

What made you decide to start your own company?

I believe I have always been a designer and maker at heart. Since I was young, I would daydream about how I would reign in a space to make it more functional, or how I would make a toy that worked better. Growing up with my dad, who was an engineer, a favorite hobby was to work together in our basement workshop, making pinball machines, Snoopy houses, to name a few. Moving into a home and doing our own renovation respired that creative itch and somehow, modular furniture that offers high-end design, with a smaller footprint just seemed to fit.

What is your favorite piece to make and material to work with?

Hmm, that is tough. I have to admit that exploring the unknown and playing with new materials is much more fun that repeatedly making the same piece after I have “mastered” that design. We make a LED light (not yet available online) that incorporates recycled colored glass pieces to play with overlapping colors somewhat like a kaleidoscope. The beauty of this design is that depending on the colors and how I lay out the glass, each one is completely unique.

Interview – Kate Koeppel of Koeppel Design

Koeppel Design is a graphic design studio based in San Francisco, CA. In 2013, Koeppel Design launched a line of handcrafted products for the home, designed and manufactured in San Francisco.

-Can you discuss your background and how you first got interested in storage solutions?                                                     I've always had an interest in collections (buttons, stamps, ephemera, vinyl) but as I've gotten older I've realized the tendency to collect is a slippery slope towards disorder if I, or anyone really, is collecting without reflection. I didn't plan for my design career to be so closely informed by my love of music or by my tendencies towards order and structure;but it happened very naturally! I consider myself very lucky to have built this funny job of design + organization + music, because it hits so many of the right buttons for me.

-You have mentioned you believe a well-organized collection is going to be a well-used one, can you expand on that?
Sure, I think that its much easier to enjoy a collection if you know you're not going to be frustrated by it. If you can't find what you're looking for, or you've forgotten whats on your shelves, it is harder to invest quality time in that collection. I get a lot of pleasure out of listening to vinyl, because it forces us to take a break from work, our phones, etc. This is something that my husband and I enjoy together, and our friends and family often come together to spend time listening to music, socializing and unwinding together. Our vinyl collection is large, and it could be intimidating, but it is easy to access because it is organized with a clean visual system- any friend can stop by and pull out a record, which makes it more fun and social. We get to share what we love with the people we love.

I think a collection, (no matter the content) says so much about a person's values and interests-- I am often so delighted to be "invited in" to other people's collections- whether they collect a certain genre of music or time period, its like a little museum of that person's life! I design products to help others engage in more active, analog experiences, because I hope that my work encourages more people to pause more often to enjoy whatever media format they collect-- and if it happens to be more organized and looks good, even better!

-Can you discuss the importance of products being handcrafted?
For me, it is important to know and understand where I am investing my money, because I want to understand the full life cycle of a product. I'd rather have only few things that are well made than lots of possessions that are poorly made, or will need to be replaced. I really respond to objects that I know were handcrafted, it feels more meaningful to know where something came from, and how it was made. When I launched our first collection of products, I wanted to make the products that didn't exist on the market, and I wanted to make useful, durable products that I would use in my own home, and would be easy to incorporate into other people people's home aesthetic. In business we try to honor the values that we think makes good community- we work locally, we support other small businesses, and we try to use all our resources and materials very carefully and responsibly. 

All our products are made with a high grade european birch wood. Panels are laser-cut and engraved by machine, however every other part of the production process is done completely by hand. Every product we produce goes through multiple rounds of inspection to ensure we're delivering the strongest, cleanest and most useful product we can. All of our wood products are hand-sanded to ensure a clean, smooth finish.

-How does the custom creations process work?
We offer quick and simple customizations of individual record divider panels, (this will be available starting Oct 1-Nov 10th only)  but if a client has a large collection they need help with, we also do fully customizable design.

We work with clients to help customize systems that will work with their home, library or personal system. We can make dividers for any kind of media, storage system or space. We can do any size or shape panel, and we can laser-engrave just about anything! We usually start with a conversation about the collection, and after getting all the necessary measurements the process is pretty simple- We'll mock up a design, then once it is confirmed we'll move into design and and production. The whole process for a custom set usually takes about 3-4 weeks depending on the size of the order, and how busy our production team is (this is available year-round, expect in December).

-A lot of our clients don’t know what to do with their vinyl records, what are your best recommendations?
For me, taking the time to listen to vinyl is an immersive experience that you have to be present in. The format dictates that you have to be physically present to move the needle, flip the record, and be ready with the next LP. Listening to a full album is about taking a break, and actually focusing on the experience of music- physically being present and engaged as opposed to a possibly more passive music experience, say in streaming music.

I think knowing what is in your collection, is a big step towards actually using and appreciating it, no matter what you collect. If you've got a ton of vinyl LPs, CDs, or DVDs I think the first step is to put them in a place where you can see them, and then organize in a way that makes sense to you. The method doesn't matter so much, whether it is alphabetical, by genre, or artist, but that way you can see what you have, and its easier to find the things that you love. I've personally found that I'm more likely to spend time listening to my music collection when I can see it, and when its easy to access.  Our products also help preserve and protect collections, which is really important for vinyl collectors.

-What are your most popular products and why?
Our record divider collection is by far what we're best known for. Our record dividers allow our clients to build a organization system that works with their collections, no matter how they like to organize. Alphabetical organization (and our A-Z dividers) tends to be the most common way vinyl collectors organize, but I don't feel like there is one right way to catalog- its more about finding a system that works for you. Many of our customers also love genre panels, so they can use a mix of genre dividers and alphabetical dividers together.

Around the holidays, we offer gift certificates which is a pretty popular way to give the gift of organization to collectors in your life! We offer wood gift certificates in any denomination.