I’m Ron Czecholinski, a dreamer and builder. Starting around 35 years ago, with a dream of building my own home as an owner builder, I began working for a general contractor and learned home building and every aspect of remodeling from the ground up. Influenced by the back to the land movement, I quickly got interested in alternative building methods and energy efficiency. I attended Shelter Institute in Maine, one of the first owner builder schools in the country, and turned my attention to passive solar design. I started to build my first house and struck out on my own as a contractor with a focus on building sunrooms. I was a green builder before it was “green”.
At the end to the 80′s I changed direction and got a seminary degree – I started working on emotional healing, conflict resolution, and communication skills. For the next 15 years, together with my wife, I focused on community building with much of that time spent living in intentional community. During that time I also stayed involved in building and cooperative business development.
Dreaming and building again, today I am in the process of repackaging my experience and interests. I am developing a co-housing type of community with creative small green built cottages. I also work at the relational aspects of community building with a focus on conscious communication, participatory decision making, and conflict transformation.
Much of my focus today is on consulting – my wife and I love to help people create healthy homes, as well as collaborative living and working environments. Our experience is hands on and goes beyond the nuts and bolts of construction – we focus on the relationships with those we work with. We understand the dream and challenge of building – we have experienced the pitfalls and frustrations along the way, as well as the satisfaction of our completed homes and the friends we have made.
Also see my websites for DIY Home Building and A CoCreative Path.
Email: ron.czecholinski (at) gmail.com Call: 608-669-8226
Hi, I’m Laurie Czecholinski – I fell in love with a dreamer and can say, the words to that old song don’t apply here! Together, our passions and experiences have blended to shape a dream.
From an early age I was drawn to recreating the spaces around me, organizing, decorating with whatever I could find and giving rooms a fresh look with paint. While my friends were playing with dolls, I was beginning my first big project. At 10, when I asked for and received my first electric sander for Christmas, my vision began – soon that beautiful oak beneath the painted woodwork in my parents home was going to be restored! My next project would be bringing life to a spare room, just waiting for my big brother who was returning from the Navy. Memories still linger of swirling around on the stool at Henkell’s Paint Store, looking through paint colors, wallpaper books and dreaming of the next project.
Today my passion lives on with vision and conviction. The 25 years of experiences shared with my husband – the remodeling of many homes, the traveling, our work, the blending of our passions – has helped to shape my conviction of a wabi-sabi way to life. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese word meaning the beauty found in ordinary things, the simple, the appreciation for the living in the moment and embracing the beauty of imperfection. This has transformed my decorating style into a mindset, allowing any home to become a welcoming and safe place to be.
Today, our lives can become so complicated and busy, and we need our homes to provide a healing place of refuge. a place where our own creativity is seen in the space and colors that surround those that live there. My passion is in helping others to create this wabi-sabi art. The canvas is yours, you are the artist, and the tools are there for you to reach for.
“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”
-William Morris-
Email: laurie.czecholinski (at) gmail.com Call: 828-778-0461
From a Few of our Friends
Ron and his wife Laurie moved into the house next to mine. I had, on a daily basis, the opportunity to interact with them and watch the meticulous planning and care they put into their work. I was impressed not only with the creativity they showed in redesigning the kitchen, bathrooms, etc., but also with their obvious professionalism in the selection of materials and meeting deadlines they set for certain milestones in the project. Because of the quality of their workmanship and their integrity, I too sold them my home. It seems very rare these days to find the skills and integrity that both Ron and Laurie possess. I have no hesitancy in recommending them as creative designers and builders, and I strongly expect that all others who have worked with them would confirm my experience. Stephanie C. Haas, Gainesville, FL.
As with most homebuyers we had spent some time looking at many homes to purchase our first one. Part of our dilemma was that we have a standard of quality and esthetic harmony that we care to have in the house we live in. The materials they chose and the color schemes all work together. There is a harmony to the house that literally everyone that sees it gets a good feeling while visiting. Besides the look of the house, the use of quality energy saving appliances and windows, that look good as well, is a major plus. It’s as if they built the house to the standards that they would like to live in it themselves. My wife and I love our home and enjoy the feeling it gives us. We highly recommend Ron and Laurie. They have the skills, taste and work ethic that should be a standard in the field. Keith Scheaffer, Gainesville, FL
My relationship to Ron and Laurie Czecholinski began when they viewed and subsequently bought land and an outbuilding we had subdivided behind our home. The house has been masterfully done with impeccable taste, inside and out; from the landscaping to the mechanicals, from materials to design—everything appears top-drawer. Their attention to detail and their knowledge of construction was evident in our many conversations as the project progressed.
Perhaps, as noteworthy as their artistry and skill is the integrity with which they conducted all their affairs. I appreciate this couple and commend their work. Vicky Dunn, Madison, WI.