Episode 77 - Wellness and Lighting: How Kristen Reince Lights Up Mysa Hus Part 1
Episode #77 | Wellness and Lighting | How Kristen Reince Lights Up Mysa Hus
Let there be (better) light! In this episode, Mark sits down with Kristen Reince from Admit One and Aurora One Lighting—one of our powerhouse partners at Mysa Hus—to talk all things lighting design, warm dimming, and how not all LEDs are created equal. They dig into what makes lighting feel good, how it supports wellness, and why your electrician might just send Kristen a thank-you card. Bonus: we finally answer the question, "Why do electrical walkthroughs always happen on the coldest day of the year?"
About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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Mark D. Williams 00:00
We're just weeks away from the International builder show down in Orlando, and like we do at every international builder show the Monday night, we do a meet up of contractor coalition alumni. So if you're interested in attending, we've got a great event from about six o'clock to nine o'clock. Stop by anytime you're gonna see builders from all over the country. You've got Brad Levitt, Morgan, Molitor, Tyler, Grace myself, and Nick Schiffer, as well as all of our sponsors over the years. If you've never been to the contractor coalition summit before, but you've heard us talk about it, it's a great place to come meet everyone, see what it's all about. So you can register for our May event in Colorado, or our November event in Charlotte, or just come and meet and greet and see if you like the vibe. All the details are a contractor coalition summit.com under the Monday night meetup at K biz, we hope to see you there.
Kristin Reinitz 00:49
Typically, what I have found is, once electricians work with us, they realize we're doing all their paperwork. We're doing all the ordering. So like, they get to show up on site and do install and like not have all kind of the back end BS work. I'm trying to take care of that for them, so I want it to be worth it for them too.
Mark D. Williams 01:15
Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark lane, your host today, I've got a very special guest. I've got Kristen Reince from admit one and Aurora one lighting. Welcome to the studio.
Kristin Reinitz 01:24
Thank you. Welcome to the office. I can't believe never been here before. I can't believe
Mark D. Williams 01:27
I've never been in. I mean, we're only, like, six months into Misa who so I guess we just meet there. We do usually. Or your office, I guess, or my office, yeah. Well, that's amazing. You're one of our sponsors as well for the architect collective and the builder collective, which is amazing, yeah. And I wanted to start bringing on our partners for Misa, who is here. We're about probably six months away from the artisan Home Tour, when the home will be completely ready for the public to come through. And you know, we've really had, wellness has been a huge part of my life journey. But also really Misa, who's in specifically as it relates to building an entrepreneurship. And I was recently, I think I was sending you some articles and whatnot a couple months ago, just talking about lighting and LED has been thrown under the bus pretty hard over the last six months to a year, maybe longer you're in it. So you probably heard it a lot more, but I was just talking to someone, and they're just talking about, you know, the warmth of incandescent light bulbs and how they miss it. We've chased energy efficiency so far, but we've lost sort of, like how light affects us. And someone was mentioning how it affects your mood. So, like, they've done studies about, oh, I know I was talking to a superintendent of at Orono High School, actually, and for whole nother lighting issue and stadium light issues, real fun and anyway, they were just talking about how, like the LEDs that are in schools, they have found terrible and there's huge problems with kids moods exasperating. I would imagine ADHD all the normal things that are difficult anyway, especially as a young adult and adolescent. Anyway, I say that with a preamble for the whole audience, is that we're talking mostly about lights. I'd love to talk specifically about why we chose the lights that we did, kind of what the broad spectrum is and how lighting affects, you know, your wellness, yeah.
Kristin Reinitz 03:13
And so I could start by just saying LEDs are not all the same. And to your example, there's called color rendering index. Is what it's called. It's how we, like, test the quality of an LED light. And the ones in the schools, yeah, they test really low.
Mark D. Williams 03:31
What's the range on that? Like, because a one to 10, one to 100 like, one to 100 like, what would a bad school like a cheap light? What would it
Kristin Reinitz 03:39
what would Ian residential like? I won't use anything under, like a 95 No, wow. 90 plus for residential. I don't do commercial work. I'm just guessing. It's nowhere near that. Would I just am assuming, honestly, because they're going for the price, like, that's their their driver, versus on the residential side, we have other factors we can take in to consideration. It's not usually just about price. We're looking more about the health and wellness aspect. And so like when you when you started telling me about Misa, who's in your goals around it, I knew I wanted to be involved, because I knew we could do better with lighting and we I just knew I could, I could use products for you that would help, help your goal, not take away. And so I didn't want to just, oh, there's just lights in the house on and off. It was, I want to be much more intentional. We can have that incandescent look that people are missing by using the right product. So I knew right away, you you talk in wellness on Misa whose I was like, get me involved.
Mark D. Williams 04:47
You know, one thing that's sort of interesting. Early on in my career, I like a lot of lighting. I like to see. But now as I've gotten older and I'm more aware of how I feel about it. So I live in a 1919, House, and now I cringe at what I'm about to tell you is like when I bought the home, we did a huge remodel on it about four or five years ago, and in the great room, there were no overhead lights. And so I the classic builder mentality, more light is better. And so as well, before I met you. And so you get to get a jail free card for this. And so I put six recess cans, and they're, you know, nice, I mean, not like the DMF or ketra or anything that didn't even exist back then. And so I anyway, now it's like, I'd never have them on unless they're dim. And most of the time I wish I just had lamps. And we do have beautiful lamps, so a lot of times we don't even turn them on anymore. But now I've got these six holes in my ceiling that I'm not excited about. I love the idea that we have lighting that we can't see. And one thing that I've appreciated about working with you over the last six months is seeing how intentional you are with not only traffic patterns, which most builders and electricians are aware of, but more like indirect lighting and architects are light years ahead, pun intended, of where most builders are. And I love working with our talented teams where they're they're thinking about architecture and crown moldings and Cove moldings and cabinet details in a way like I've always appreciated them for what they are physically and how they fit the space. But I love talented people like you. They're also thinking about, well, then how do you light them? How are they lit, and how does it make you feel?
Kristin Reinitz 06:17
Yeah, and I mean, so often you get this beautiful plan from an architect, and then you've gone through all these selections and worked out all these fine little details, and then we don't light them. We put a light in the ceiling and point it right at the floor. And so again, knowing that we go through all of these steps, let's think about the lighting a little sooner, too, so we can incorporate it where we want to. I know even for you, Misa, who's you're like, oh, there's a lot of cans. But part of that is about the placement of the can. I'm not just right down the center of a room. A lot of times they're pushed more to the exterior, like to the walls, because I'm trying to light more the vertical surfaces. Actually, there's other ways to light the floor. If we need to bring lighting down to the floor, it doesn't need to doesn't need to be from the can above, which creates shadow over us aging in place. That's a problem. And then part of it too is I want, I want to let the decorative, the pretty fixtures, let them just be pretty. Those shouldn't be our main source of light. To your point of eye strain, glare, they don't always like they're not always the best quality light fixture in them. And so while they're beautiful and we love decorative fixtures, we want to use, maybe it's indirect or some other light source to help light anywhere where we really have a task, right? So kitchen island, for example, a lot of times, the decorative pendants, well, they're beautiful. We need them. They anchor the space. They're not the best task lighting. And if we are working under those all day long, we would be more tired. They strain our eyes, versus having some other cans in the ceiling that really are directing light right where we need it and want it onto that cutting surface again, just helping the wellness of like, we're not so worn out at the end of the day. Our eyes aren't strained the whole day just trying to make their way through the house.
Mark D. Williams 08:09
No, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I've always been very keen on natural light, so windows and the placement and the orientation of the home has always been my calling card. And well before I knew it was like a thing that is like, obviously, every architect is like, Yeah, hello, dumb, dumb. Like, of course, we're, you know, doing solar orientation. But 20 years ago, before I worked with architects, it was like something I was like, I've always said that a home that has windows in the right place to capture natural light will always feel bigger and be but also be cozier than one that's not and I used to always play this game when people would come through my parade homes or artisan homes, where people would always ask the common question, how much does this home cost, and how big is it? And I would always challenge people, yeah, walk through the house and on your way out, I'd like you to guess at how big it is. And in my 21 years of building, I don't know if I've ever had anybody guess the house smaller than what it actually is. They always guess it larger than it is. Yeah, I suspect that's because of lighting, or, sorry, Windows for me,
Kristin Reinitz 09:12
but that is lighting. Yeah, it is your natural light, which, again, is you bring in a lighting designer, because we're thinking about the natural light as well. Ian,
Mark D. Williams 09:24
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Kristin Reinitz 10:15
When I talk lighting design, I'm even talking about our shades. Do we have motorized shades or drapery? How are we controlling the natural light? So say, in those evenings, if we have a whole bunch of glass, and, you know, we don't want people to see in as much we know we're going to shut those down. Well, what's happening in the lighting in there in the evenings? Can it warm up? Be more incandescent? Kind of help our bodies, you know, wind down at the end of the day, and good lighting and good quality fixtures with warm dimming or circadian rhythm attributes to it, or technology within it, we help support that. But again, that's why like for us, we're trying to like, yes, we care about the placement, we care about the fixture, but then it does go into the shades. And now, how do you control all of that and keep it really, really simple? And so, like, that's our ask of we want to be in early so while the architects working on those windows, and we're thinking about what light is coming in, we're considering all of that into our own controls. What are those scenes going to be in the evening?
Mark D. Williams 11:19
What are some things talk to me a little bit about LEDs that, like we said, mentioned earlier on, have taken, you know, a lot of hits. Are there any What is good about LEDs, and how can we still feel good in this space? If that, let's call it that 95 so you said that's a scale of zero to 100 and let's say at misus We're at 95 how would that relate to like an incandescent light bulb. Is it incandescent light bulb 100 or it wasn't even 100 either? Or is it hard?
Kristin Reinitz 11:46
You can't compare them. Think you can compare that. Okay, and so the incandescent feel isn't so much like you can't compare an incandescent bulb to an LED. Sure, led uses a lot less power. Things like that has some real benefit. But like Misa, who's, for example, we're using a warm dimming technology. That's what makes it feel like the incandescent and so instead of,
Mark D. Williams 12:08
because the Calvin's are changing, yeah, because then incandescent light bulb is, I mean, I know they come in different ones, but like they
Kristin Reinitz 12:13
come in different ones, but there's a curve of, you know. So if you think about lighting control, as simple as putting a dimmer on so you can dim your light down. That's light control, right? What LEDs have been kind of the bad rap they get is they look really blue, and even as you dim them down, that color temperature doesn't doesn't change, it just less output, right? Less bright. So with warm dimming, what we can do is, as you dim down that light, the actual LED chip is warming up, so it looks more like an incandescent bulb as you dim it down. So at Misa, who's in the evenings, for example, I bet they'll never have their lights on over 50% and it's going to be like a beautiful, warm orange kind of glow throughout their home. I have that in my own house, and it's been like, the best example for me has been living with it, and even down to, like, How Low Can the LED dim? So not all LEDs can dim down to a 1% many cut off at 10% Well, I promise you, at three in the morning, if you go to turn on a few lights to go find your restroom, one versus 10% of light, it makes a very big difference. So just living with it has been a very good example. Like my house feels so warm and cozy in the evenings, it's just like my favorite place to be, but it's all because of the lighting. And Ian my own house, my lighting very much goes around the perimeter, kind of of each room, lighting each wall, I don't have a bunch of glare in my eye as we're sitting around the house. Even in the kitchen, lights are where they should be, and it's just the entire environment is so comfortable to be in. That's what we wanted to create at Mises like you walk in and you're instantly comfortable, whether you know it's the lighting helping you do it or not. Don't care. I just want you to feel that warmth as you walk in, that Scandinavian like you. I just picture like a cold winter, and you want to go in and be cozy by the fire and the lighting, one would very much help with that.
Mark D. Williams 14:19
Yeah, that's I'm getting cozy just hearing about it. You know, I was thinking about, you know, there's a lot of, there seems to be a lot of feelings around lighting. And I think, like, back to, let's call it, 10 years ago. I mean, really, up until lighting design, until I knew it was a thing, yeah, so let's say three, four years ago. So paint the picture for that. Let's say it's, yeah, 2020 I've been building for 1718, years. I mean, the traditional path was the electrician would map out where they thought the recess cans were on the bid. Yeah, so I'd set out the plan to bid. The electrician. Would they would, you know, give me a bid. How many cans, those kinds of things. This is what before we had, you know, the interior designers is just bid phase, and then at that point, you know, when they knew we had the job on our contract. Fact, I'd reach out to the electrician. I say, Can you please put together a lighting schedule so that we can react to it before we get there? Then we would go do an electrical walkthrough. And on site, we're walking through a lot of times, for whatever reason, they're always cold walkthroughs. I'd never remember a warm electrical walkthrough. I was remember the really cold ones in January, February, your toes are freezing. Everyone's like, just so cold. You know, you'd have a little space heater following the client around to go warm up your towers. Long. Oh, they're like, it's the longest meeting you'll have. It's like a three, four hour meeting. I don't know why we always did it that way, as a dumb in hindsight, it's like, just the dumbest way to do it. But anyway, that's what I was, guess. I was a dumb builder, and so was past tense, so much smarter now and and so anyway, then you would, didn't if you want to adjust them, you would light them, but you really, the electrician was 95% maybe the interior designer, depending on their straddle, would say, Oh, this is what we're trying to do it. And I'm not discounting electricians were, I thought were pretty good. Now you enter in lighting designers. You're a lighting designer, yeah. And you have a lot of electricians that are like, wait a minute, this person, so there's to paint that. Well, I'll let you. I know what my thoughts on it. Why are there so many feelings around lighting design? Because I feel like sometimes you'll ask, like, it's my job to educate the client what the process will be. So they're kind of fine with whatever I say. It seems like most of the feelings are between the builder, the electrician, the AV company you're working with, the architect, and the designer somehow, between the five of them, there's a lot of feelings going on. What's your Am I wrong?
Kristin Reinitz 16:25
No, there's so many feelings. I hear a lot. I hear everyone's feelings.
Mark D. Williams 16:30
So give the audience some perspective. And we have builders all over the country. A lot of people don't even work with lighting designers.
Kristin Reinitz 16:35
Some do, yeah, what I would say is, what it my best projects? If I say that, like, best process is a lot of times again, electricians do a great job. And there's price points where they should be the ones just doing it and walking through it. And your home will be great using just your electrician and not having lighting design. But in some of these, like, again, these larger homes, more per square footage, people are starting to think about the wellness factor with lighting in their home. And so they want us involved, just like just like their architect, thinking through these things a little higher level. And so what works really well is if an architect and a builder say, All right, we're doing this project. What works best is if I can see that plan really, really early, and give even a rough idea of, like, here's here's a first pass that lighting design just on 2d just on paper. Then when we get that stage of a walkthrough, the electricians already see, everyone's already seen this. So we're not just walking through like, pointing where, what feels right? We're walking through being like, Okay, we kind of have a plan here, what works, what doesn't, because it always changes when you're actually in 3d space and see, see the scale of things. And we just try. There are some electricians that make money on fixtures. There's some electricians that don't.
Speaker 1 17:59
Is that really unique to each business practice. Yeah, depends
Kristin Reinitz 18:02
on their business and like, just like some electricians can do a lot of lighting control, others are like, I don't want anything to do with it. It's just really up to them. We just try to be good partners with them. I'm not trying. I'm not out there trying to steal their work, right? I'm trying to partner with them. So let's put stuff on plan. Am I selling some of it? Is the electrician selling some of it. Typically, what I have found is, once electricians work with us, they realize we're doing all their paperwork. We're doing all the ordering. So, like, they get to show up on site and do install and like, not have all kind of the back end. Bs work. I'm trying to take care of that for them, so I want it to be worth it for them too
Mark D. Williams 18:43
well, and I would suspect too from a labor standpoint, they actually, most electricians would probably light like lighting designers, because there's going to be more lights shocking and there's going to be they're going to be a lot smaller, correct, right, the aperture, they're going to be a lot more intentional. And so it's not just flood the space with light and walk away. It's basically so. But there's a cost to it too. I think the client and a lot of the builders that might have will use the word feelings or whatever is like. Why do I need to pay either a for the lighting or B for the design work? But it's no different than if you are going to pay it into your designer. It's the same. It's the same proposition,
Kristin Reinitz 19:20
the same, and it does like for us, we don't make money on the design work we really like. We charge enough to cover the cost of getting it done. That's not where we make any money on it. That's just the truth of it.
Mark D. Williams 19:34
This is a mini series that we have going on with Misa house and all the different partners that we're working with, and we've been speaking to Christian Reince from admit one in Aurora one lighting. Join us next week as we discuss lighting and how it supports your circadian rhythm task, lighting and all the ways that wellness can be integrated into the home building. See you next week. Thanks for tuning in. Curious builder podcast, if you like this episode, do us a favor. Share. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.
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