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Mike Beirne

Mike Beirne is a seniot editor of Custom Builder magazine. A Jesse H. Neal Award winner, Mike has tallied 26 years of journalism experience plus numerous news and feature writing awards, including honors from the Society of Professional Journalists, Hoosier State Press Association, and Indiana Associated Press Managing Editors. He also operated a masonry restoration business for more than two decades,

Awards

Wise Counsel

The ability to step back and look at the big picture is a luxury, particularly for anybody running his or her own company. A common anecdote I hear from builders who...
12th Nov. 2015
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Pushing the Framing Envelope

Being able to walk between two studs without bumping your toolbelt against the wall frame or having to turn your torso to fit through the space is a simple pleasure that could...
8th Sept. 2015
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My Dumpster Sins

Writing a couple of articles for this issue and for the previous one about recycling and salvage conjured memories of my Dumpster misadventures years ago. When my brothers and...
8th July 2015
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Forward Thinking From the Past

Efficiency is in the blood of a carpenter, and Florida builder Josh Wynne, profiled in “Custom Builders on the Move,” relies on a lot of common sense to build what he has learned...
11th May 2015
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Walking Away From Trouble

A while back, a homeowner down the block from a project I was working on asked me to stop by and give him an estimate. He had a big house by city neighborhood standards...
24th March 2015
Affordability
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Accuracy and Affordability

When I see surveys that show most Millennials aspire to buy a home, I think of Australia. I was a travel marketing reporter once upon a time, and advertising agency reps for that...
26th Feb. 2015
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Labor and Profit

During a question and answer session at a recent industry conference, a home builder asked Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi for his thoughts about the labor situation...
11th Nov. 2014
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The Ownership Stigma

Numbers can be funny things. When the population for a subset of consumers is large enough, then plausible projections follow about how that group will impact macro economics....
12th Sept. 2014