In this edition of HomEcology Podcast, Moneca Kaiser discusses investment homes
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you’re listening to the home ecology
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podcast with monica kaiser
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let’s begin
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uh we’re here with monica kaiser of
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monica kaiser design build uh an expert
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in her field and we’re going to
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specifically be talking today about home
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renovation investments
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and before i go any further
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i’m just going to
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let monica introduce herself so actually
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monica can you talk a little bit about
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yourself and your background sure liz
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i’m happy to be here um
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i’m uh i came at this in an unusual way
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i studied philosophy actually in
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university
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and i loved it and i wanted to go
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through and
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become a philosophy professor
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but a couple years in i found that
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i don’t know my head was so full of
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knowledge and i felt like a great big
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big big head and if i fell over
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like a bug i wouldn’t be able to get up
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again and the knowledge didn’t belong to
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me
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and it led me to wanting to work with my
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hands and
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so that’s sort of how i came into
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carpentry okay yeah all right and uh
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how’d that lead you now to interior
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design
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yeah so there’s not really a life for a
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woman as a carpenter in this at least
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there wasn’t 30 years ago and sadly it’s
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kind of the dark ages in this field
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and there’s still very very
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male-dominated profession
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um we don’t have anywhere near a
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critical mass of women
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so
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i always knew i wanted to have my own
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business
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and i’ve always been an artist in my
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heart and i studied art and tai chi and
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meditation with a beautiful buddhist
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teacher for the last 30 years
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yeah
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and so that all came together with a
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deep understanding of feng shui
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in a organic kind of way my teacher
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taught me that
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um so i haven’t sort of
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read about these things and philosophies
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ever since i left university it’s been
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all experiential learning from this
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wonderful teacher
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and
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my business is another
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wonderful design challenge of creating
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something that’s harmonious mutually
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beneficial
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and kind to the people we work with we
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call them our clients friends plus
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clients
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and kind to the environment and kind to
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um
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the community
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so yeah okay and speaking on that uh you
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actually have a unique approach to home
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design can you touch a bit about on that
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yeah
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be i think it goes back to my
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philosophical
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passion for
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um
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building on very very solid foundations
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and
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we have a concept of home ecology
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that i’ve
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articulated that i guess i’ve kind of
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coined as a way of expressing being in
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harmony with our values and
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designing our homes so that they’re in
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harmony with our values and i believe
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that when we align our lives with our
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values in a very intentional and
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conscientious way our lives become more
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meaningful and we’re more happy
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and we’re more generous
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we it’s sort of it’s not this endless
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stream of wanting
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you know granite countertops and then
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quartz countertops and now they have
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this new even higher end countertop and
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you know it’s not always chasing the
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greatest countertop it becomes more
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about oh my countertop’s durable i built
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this house to last 200 years i’m good to
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go what can i give to my community now
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mm-hmm okay
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um now let’s get a bit into uh you know
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actual renovations and the investments
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themselves and renovations and interior
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design is often uh considered a
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significant investment
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uh can they be considered good
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investments then
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yeah so this is a really important
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question because
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you know
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they say we have less time than we did
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during feudal times
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and i feel like mortgages and home
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ownership is a bit of a scam by the
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banks it’s making them very very rich on
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our interest
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on the interest
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and we’re working very very hard to pay
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off these homes
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and they’re the most expensive thing
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we’re ever going to own unless we’re you
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know trust fund kids with a yacht or
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something but basically the biggest
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investment we’re ever going to make is
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this house this home
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and we can be very cavalier about people
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will add something on or rip something
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off or tear something out or whatever
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without a master plan and without any
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respect for the level of investment this
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is like
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it’s like
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it’s absurd to me so we really need to
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honor that these houses are valuable
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they’re expensive and
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they’re eating all our leisure time like
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this is this is not just costing us
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money it’s costing us time and worry and
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concern okay well speaking on that
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master plan
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i’m assuming that is certain types of
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home improvements that you could make
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what ty what are the type of home
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improvements that are the best
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investments a homeowner can make
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well it all starts with something we’ve
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never heard of but as soon as somebody
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buys a home they should buy a master
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planning session and do a complete
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master plan for that home
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before they it’s okay to live in the
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home without the master plan but before
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you almost hang a picture you want a
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master plan okay anything beyond hanging
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a picture actually
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because
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what has to happen is we have to start
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thinking about
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homes as systems and understand that
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every time we affect one part of it it
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affects all the other parts
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so
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if
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we just had a client you just did a port
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blog piece on it on
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