ChiefArchitect

William of HearthStone Homes placed 1st in the Chief Architect Residential Home Design Contest in April! He fell in love with log home design back at the very beginning. “My family is my number one passion, and residential design is my second. I often find myself doing plans in my down time, just to relax. I fell in love with residential design in high school, when I took a board drafting class. Putting pencil to paper and laying out rooms and shading in stone hatchings, was a dream come true to me. I was already an avid artist, doodling my own comics and painting. I was the Art Letterman for my class and graduated with honors 12th in my class. Being from such a small town it is all about picking the right career when you finish high school. So I chose design. “After graduating from Walters State Community College Magna Cum Laude with an AS in Drafting and Design in 1999, I took my first design job as a Project Designer for Hearthstone Log and Timber Homes in Newport, TN. I started out right out of school working with AutoCAD to do revisions and with Hearthstone’s production software (Cadwork, Informatique) which is used for the CAD/CAM manufacturing of their log homes. Eventually, Hearthstone invested in Chief Architect (version 6) in order to create preliminary and concept design plans for their customers. Chief quickly became one of the primary design tools we used to generate design plans. “In 2001 I left Hearthstone, Inc and floated between a couple of jobs taking my knowledge of Chief Architect with me to each. Eventually, I went to work for R. Allen Design who was using Chief Architect X2 almost exclusively to produce plans for customers. Coincidentally, they sub-contracted work back to Hearthstone, Inc. Last year I was fortunate enough to return to Hearthstone, Inc. full-time. My experience with Chief Architect allowed me to jump right back into the deep end of the pool as if I had never left. Hearthstone began in 1971 as a restorer of old log homes in the Appalachian Mountains. It wasn’t long until there were more people who wanted those homes than there were old logs for restoration. So, they set about learning how to craft new homes in the old Appalachian style. Today we design and build everything from hand hewn log homes to timber frame homes, to hybrid homes that fuse both log and timber designs. Personally, I fell in love with the log home back when I started designing. The craft, the design, the look, and the feel of these style homes are in my blood. Being born and raised in these mountains, I really appreciate the hard work and determination of my ancestors and am excited to be back at Hearthstone Inc. doing what I love to do. “Chief Architect has provided our company with a quick and easy solution for us to get preliminary and concept plans, models, and renderings in front of customers. Chief also accepts exports from our production software, which we use to operate our CAM manufacturing Essetre and Hundegger machines. This means the actual timber we will eventually produce looks just as it is supposed to in a customer’s Chief model. “Over the course of my eighteen years of design experience, I’ve used AutoCAD, Revit, DataCad, Archicad, and more… Chief Architect by far has the most user-friendly interface and does the best job.” Connect with William Hearthstone, Inc. wwoody@hearthstonehomes.com 800-247-4442

Justin Link placed 2nd in our Design Contest – Remodel/Additions in March. He is from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, and owns a small drywall business called LX Drywall. “My wife, Helen, and I are really just home renovation enthusiasts, but I’ve had an interest in design and remodel as far back as I can remember. As a young child, I remember looking through Sears catalogs not at toys, but at the furniture and home décor imagining what my home would look like when I became a “grown-up.” “I received my first design software as a gift in high school. It was great except for the lack of library content and the difficulty of attaining ceiling details. I just couldn’t get over the fact that the final result never looked professional. “I stumbled upon a trial version of Chief Architect’s Home Designer Pro about a year ago and loved it! The libraries in the trial version were way better than the software I had previously used, plus not only were ceiling details a breeze to compose, but the entire program was much easier to navigate and the final result truly looked professional! I purchased Home Designer Pro shortly thereafter and it was exactly what I was looking for! The possibilities are truly endless. “I designed the remodel of my entire home using Home Designer Pro. It was a huge help in determining what ideas worked and what ideas didn’t work. It was also a great aid in determining colors; if a color didn’t work I simply chose another one until I found one I liked. I enjoy designing homes and spaces just for fun as well. I have designed a couple renovations using Chief Architect and it always impresses customers!” Connect with Justin LX Drywall justinlink@lxdrywall.com 705-257-1608