In 2011, I was intrigued with a news story by ABC's Diane Sawyer about building a home out of 100% American made materials.  The more I thought about it, the more I got excited about the possibility of actually building this type of home in Louisville.  Many who know me know how I like to pioneer new ideas and concepts into our local building industry and building a "Made In America Home" seemed like the natural thing to do.  Call it patriotism, call it trying to do the right thing, call it whatever you want, but I believed if more builders adopted this policy we might make our nation a little more resilient and improve our economy.  So in 2012, I found the right client who believed in this concept to build American and we started the process to build an American Made home in Louisville Kentucky.  

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If I only knew what I was getting myself into, but building American is tougher than you think!  We spent months and months researching products to use in the home and we got a lot of support from both local contractors and national manufacturers!  Charmaine at Bemis Church Manufacturing in Wisconsin said "I must say I admire the fact that you are using all Made in America products."   Ben with Premiere Outdoor Spaces in Louisville told us "I have been thinking about your build with American initiative and I really think it is excellent.  There really needs to be more people like you, so thank you for stepping up and leading the industry."  Everyone we talked to about our initiative loved what we were doing and helped us find the products we needed to build the house.  In the end, it was a huge undertaking and learning experience and we accomplished what we wanted to do which included; educating the industry about American Made building product options; educating consumers about Made in America homes; and most importantly constructing a home that was over 90% American Made!  Considering most new homes are only 40 - 60% American Made, we made a tremendous difference in adding somewhere between 280K - 420K more dollars worth of American Made building products into the home.  Just think what that could do for our economy if every builder in the country did this?  We went to the extreme to get the American content percentage as high as possible, but according to the Boston Consulting Group, if every builder bought just 5% more American Made building materials, we could create 220,000 new jobs. Absolutely amazing when you think about it.  Our client absolutely loved their home, said it was the best they had ever lived in and said they could see the quality difference, which isn't something every new home buyer can say!

 

Since this home was completed, Kelly and I continue to be an advocate for building American Made homes and ask all of our clients to look for and purchase American Made building products whenever possible.  I have spoken to members of the Kentucky Home Builders Association about our efforts and have collected numerous awards for our Made in America homebuilding initiatives.  Lastly, Kelly and I have started a new business to help builders across the nation incorporate more American Made building products into their homes and that will be launched very soon - Stay Tuned! 

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If you are interested in building an American Made home, please let us know and we can make it happen!  We, with YOUR help, CAN make a difference!