Market Memo

CHICAGO — About eight hours into the judging process to determine the 2006 Master Design Award winners, it hit me. This business of separating the truly great remodeling designs from the really good is much tougher than it appears. Despite the long hours and many tough calls, each year we manage to attract some of the best remodeling contractors to serve as judges and to pore over the hundreds of entries we receive. This year was no different.

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I want to thank our excellent team of judges: Dennis Allen, of Allen Associates, Santa Barbara, Calif.; Patricia Davis Brown of PDB Fine Cabinetry, Vero Beach, Fla.; Tony LaPelusa, CR, of LaPelusa Construction, Niles, Ill.; Greg Miedema, CGR, CAPS of Dakota Builders, Tucson, Ariz.; and John Quaregna, CR, of Jay-Cue Construction in North Bergen, N.J. If you know them or meet them at our Master Design Awards event Oct. 18 in Chicago, let them know that you appreciate the excellent work they did this year.

In the next couple of weeks, those of you who entered the 28th Master Design Awards will be notified how you did. I want to take a moment to congratulate all of the entrants. The feeling among our judges was that the level of competition was higher than ever before. This year, for the second time, a copy of the actual scoring sheet will be sent to all entrants. The sheets include a series of scores and comments about the project. At the very least, those that did not win will know why and what they might do in the future to improve. The winners will be published in the October issue of Qualified Remodeler. Many are being considered for feature stories in 2007.

I brought our office camera to the judging this year. And I also took some short, low-quality video-clips. I invite you to download them and to get a flavor for the final judging process — a period at the very end of judging when a Best of Show project is selected from the “Gold” award winners.

If you are interested in attending our Awards Event, please contact Heidi Riedl at heidi.riedl@cygnusb2b.com. If you are on the staff of a winning company, your ticket is free. Others can purchase tickets for $25.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Market Memo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.