Episode 78 - Wellness and Lighting: How Kristin Reinitz Lights Up Mysa Hus Part 2
Episode #78 | Wellness and Lighting | How Kristin Reinitz Lights Up Mysa Hus
Kristin Reinitz is back to finish our deep dive into the world of wellness lighting at Mysa Hus, and things get real about EMFs, kill switches, and whether Faraday cages belong in family homes (spoiler alert: they don’t). We talk about how your lighting impacts circadian rhythm, how good LEDs mimic the sun, and why most of your EMF problems come from the phone in your pocket. It’s everything you never knew you needed to know about lighting—and a few laughs along the way.
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. 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
Think about the color of light when you first get up and the sun's just coming. Imagine pink and cotton candy, right? And the light does the same. So it's not going to be that noon, 5000 Calvin at 7am at noon, one, two. It will be as our seasons change here in Minnesota, your lighting adjusts as well. It just keeps following that sun path.
Mark D. Williams 01:17
Welcome to cruise builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today, we're back with part two, or episode two of our lighting, and we're back with Kristin Reince from Admin one and Aurora one lighting to finish our conversation from last week. Last week, we talked about the importance of good lighting in the home for both comfort and utility, and we also touched on how to integrate natural light into the home and incandescent light versus LEDs EMF consideration in lighting. So let's get back to the conversation.
Kristin Reinitz 01:44
We're just trying to cover our costs. But again, like when we work with electricians, they see, oh, we got more poles. We've got more labor in there. I didn't have to do any of the ordering. I was he didn't have to track all the changes on plan. We're handling all of that, so we just try to make their lives easier. And there's plenty of times, even on on Misa driven has been a great partner to work with. We like them a lot where there's just, we communicate a lot. You know, Luke will be on site and be like, Kristen, what about what do you think about this? And I'm like, You're the one on site. What do you think just because there's a lighting designer involved doesn't mean I have to be, I'm the final word on all lighting. Like he has tons of experience. We went back and forth in one situation, and I was like, No, you're right. Do it. Do what you're doing. Like, I agree. And I think with interior designers, like, they want to provide the decorative fixtures, I just stay out of it. So when I do lighting design, I'll make suggestions on. Here's some areas I think we need some decorative. Here's where we want some pendants. Here's some other things, but I just mark them on plan. The interior designers who who finds them and does the spec. There's some some that I can access if they want help with it. But otherwise decorative, I just stay out of it and again, try to give advice on, like, here's the lighting going on throughout the rest of the home. So do your decoratives? Are they going to dim? Well, you know, like, send me specs and I can give advice, but I know interior designers, they want that decorative package, so I'm there to help, just support them with it too.
Mark D. Williams 03:16
What you know from a wellness standpoint, what are some trends that you're seeing in lighting, like, when you go to your lighting showrooms, and like, Yeah, I'd like to shift a little bit to like EMF. We had a client recently electromagnetic fields where, and I know Lance has got that little meter and, you know, dirty electricity, some of these terms that I'm just now starting to, you know, discover and really get a big interest in, give us some broad overview of, like, the signals that are going on in the house, and we, for sure, have to get to the funny story towards here at the end that's worth waiting for. But why don't we start with EMF and just trends that you're seeing around wellness as it regards to lighting?
Kristin Reinitz 03:56
Yeah, I would say, like on the EMF front, we've just get, we're getting a lot more questions about it. And so we did. We went and got a meter, because we have another client who big home, tons of stuff going in there, and she just asked the question, you know, this AV, equipment and lighting, what's happening with the EMFs? And so we tested our own show home, went around and kind of used this meter on everything. And really, none of our stuff was a bad offender. It's more like, I don't want to hate on our appliance people, but it was some of the those big appliances that were the worst offenders, the range the refrigerator,
Mark D. Williams 04:35
only when they're being used or when they're off, to if they're plugged
Kristin Reinitz 04:39
in, if there's current going to them. So it's the current, I guess that does it. But most of our lighting got no reading or very, very minimal. The worst thing that that we found was your phones, the cell phone that's by far the worst. Even on our AV racks, we the me. Were up on like, every single piece of equipment, and none of it was anything we were concerned with. It was like, hundredths of where it would have to be before you would even start to have a concern.
Mark D. Williams 05:12
I mean, that's interesting about the phone, because most people, I mean, men, carry it in their pockets. I don't know. Where do you normally carry your phone? Do you carry
Kristin Reinitz 05:18
in your pocket? Yeah, or, like, it's on my nightstand. Yeah, at night, that's the worst spot.
Mark D. Williams 05:23
It was like, what a foot or how far before the EMF signals die off a phone, roughly
Kristin Reinitz 05:27
a foot, or something like that. I don't remember exactly what I said. I made the move for different
Mark D. Williams 05:31
reasons, because I think wellness. I think the thing I've discovered a lot about wellness is I think wellness means different things to different people, 100% and I you know, some people, for instance, reverse osmosis. They like the idea that there's no minerals. Some people are like, like, we're working with Pentair on Mises, where they're gonna reintroduce minerals back into the water after they purify it. So it's like, everyone's totally different. I heard something the other day where, like, having reverse osmosis, actually, if you're drinking it, would absorb maybe chemicals or minerals in your body and, like, leech them out of you. I'm like, well, that's interesting. So, like, there's just so much stuff I don't know that I'm really passionate about and learning about, but I actually, and maybe it's because my phone knows, you know, if you're into the big brother conspiracy theorist was, I'm really not, but like, I am being served a lot of wellness stuff on my Instagram right now, and one of the things I just bought over the weekend was they make, like, a little copper chip thing that goes on the back of your phone, okay, that it says that it harmonizes EMF signals, and then you can get one that's size of your phone you can put in your office, and it's like a 90 foot. You can get the power big it is, will block signals for like, 94 feet, or, like, harmonize them. But there was an article Ian, forget the name of the company off the top my head, but it was at the Timberwolves arena, because you have, let's say you go to a stadium and it's loud. It's hard to know if it's the environment, how many people, blah, all the lights everywhere. But they were just saying that, like with all these phones, this tech, this company, was putting these EMF Harmonizers all around the stadium, and the idea was that it would take, let's say, what, 20,000 cell phones, however, much, if MF signals coming off of those a lot, and it's somehow harmonizing the frequency into a single frequency. I don't I know. I just saw the or I just went to the company's web page, and then they had this one for phone, so I ordered them. I They're in the mail. I'm curious to see. I don't know if I'll know any difference, but it was just, I'm just really intrigued. Now, let me know if you need the meter. All right? I do. Well, I'm definitely gonna use the meter. Yeah, we'll tell you what. I'll come down when we have our next collective I'll just bring,
Kristin Reinitz 07:27
obviously, yeah, bring it, and we'll bring the meter and do a little
Mark D. Williams 07:30
little beta test on it. So, okay, so that's EMF a little bit. I there was an architect that I had on recently, the non toxic architect. She's out in Washington, DC, Travis price architects, and they're, they're starting to do, she called them kill switches. So, like, you would have basically an off switch. So like, when you're sleeping, you would turn off all the outlets. Now I think this is predicated on, you know, not having your phone in your bedroom, which I for me personally, and all this might be controversial. There's no judgment here. But like, I think it's the best practice to have it for me. I bought eight months ago, another builder and I kind of made a pact with each other when we're talking about not having phones. And so now, after my kids go to sleep, you know, I'll go downstairs, I'll check to see any text. I'll look at my schedule for the next day, because I've made the mistake of not checking my schedule once, and I totally missed a meeting because it wasn't around and but I now leave my phone downstairs. It's great you don't Doom scroll. I did mine more for time versus like EMF stuff, but then to find out, Oh, wow, not having your phone by your bed is actually probably better for you well.
Kristin Reinitz 08:31
And I think that brings up a point, like, wellness is different to everyone, but isn't a goal. I think a big part of wellness too, is just like protecting the family time like that is wellness is like having that time at home with whoever's at your home, if that's your kids, whatever. So I like the idea it would be hard to do it. My husband would love it. He'd be on board. But yeah, I think that is a piece of wellness we don't always consider part of wellness is just like, how are you shutting off? We are hit all day long. And I say it all the time. I'm communicating. I'm over communicated with all day long. My phone's buzzing all day. It's phone, it's text. I can have 20 different text chains in a day, and then I can Doom scroll. And then, you know, if you turn the radio or a TV on, it's just there's information overload, and at the end of the day I'm wiped. I am wiped by information overload. So this idea of, like setting the phone down, put like putting it away. Now let's set the mood in the home. Let's get some, like, relaxing music going. Let's set the lights. I That whole idea is just, I really like it. I can latch on to that a bit of like,
Mark D. Williams 09:45
I mean, that was a big, big, huge part of MISA houses creation. And we have to, we have to, you have to tell your version of the story that about the Faraday cage. So I part of MISA house is, you know, I'm the brand archetype of the home. I'm a family of three kids. Nine, seven and five, soon to be six, and he or he Tate, would be very excited about his birthday. That's what I'm thinking about. And anyway, the idea was, you know, we protect family time, you know, from 530 to eight. I mean, that's the time we're eating dinner, you know, all that time, games, whatever quiet time. Anyway, so I really, I wanted this house. Well, it's not my home, home. I still, I wanted to, I want to tell the story that it would attract someone to out of this. Could you create an environment like everyone, I shouldn't say everyone. Actually, I've never met anyone that has gone to like a cabin or the mountains or a place where there's no cell phone reception, like the Boundary Waters and you your phone doesn't work. So after about a couple days, you stop checking your phone all the time. You start leaving your phone, you don't need it anymore, and it's relaxing. And people, myself included, like, you wonder, like, oh man, why am I relaxed? I'll tell you exactly why you relax, because you're not being overstimulated at 24/7 and so I came to you, and I said, the fair, a Faraday cage, is an electric mesh over a house that you would feed current into. So basically, like, I think of like NSA, or like, keeping security, you know, super safe stuff from whatever. That wasn't what I was going with. What I was trying to go is like, could you protect your family so that not only could you turn off your your Wi Fi, but your kids someday, when they're in high school, they couldn't have it jump to the neighbor's Wi Fi or a cellular network. And so now you have to, but that's the premise of what I asked you, you got to go through your side of, like, what people told you? Like, who is this guy?
Kristin Reinitz 11:23
Yeah, yeah. So you called asking, just being asking me to do some research around it. And luckily, we have, you know, one of the world's most intelligent security people on our team. And so I went to him. His name is Joe Salzman, and I just asked him, like, have you heard of this? And immediately he's like, Who is this guy and why? What does he want? And not knowing, defensively, yeah, not knowing you're a builder, he was just totally creeped out, thinking you're a client, asking me to Faraday cage, a cabin in the woods. And so he immediately sent me some articles talking about like cell phone jammers being used on the highways people are driving in. It's a felony. You cannot do that. But what you and I had never even thought about that Joe brought up right away was Kristen. That's exactly what the mafia would want. That's what a serial killer would want, or like the worst people in the world would love to be able to take someone to a cabin, and now no safety service, no fire can be called out. Someone's in danger, like alarms, nothing monoxide alert, nothing will be calling out. And so, yeah, I mean, he
Mark D. Williams 12:34
was for peace and quiet. Turns out it's quiet, all right. It is
Kristin Reinitz 12:37
sure is by like, so not okay, but we learned because you and I had no idea.
Mark D. Williams 12:49
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Kristin Reinitz 14:22
you were literally, like, calling your patent lawyer, I know, to see if this was, like, something you could do before you even created it, right? And then I had to shut down your dreams. I'm so sorry. I think it's hilarious. Yeah, it brought like you just mentioned, though. So I was just thinking about this, like, you know, Misa, who's is, like the Scandinavian feel we were in Norway this last summer. My husband and I went, and we kind of kept hearing that all kind of like the trend in Scandinavia, Scandinavian countries right now is even though, like the uber rich, like their weekends are spent at a cabin completely unplugged, like no running water, no. Electricity. They're not the, what we call, you know, a cabin that's like somebody's house. It's just another mansion. Like, they really are shacks that they just go enjoy the nature of. And so Misa, who's like, again, just is following that trend. So, so well. And we were there, like, just thinking about lighting in these over there too. And it's like, yeah, they're just, they're very they were minimal, like, they need the unplugged part. And I think we aren't as good at as good at that example of, like, self discipline, go away and put the phone down.
Mark D. Williams 15:33
It's funny, because I don't know if you found this, but like, for me, between Mark Williams Custom Homes, Misa house and the curious builder, because I'm obviously the same person, and all of these things, but they start, they start blending together. So like curious builder boot camp, we have it coming up, actually, 13 days from today. We're recording, and we're going down to Costa Rica, and we've got, yeah, that's right, Lance is coming, and we've got, what, 23 builders from around the country, no phones, no alcohol, two a day workout. So the whole point was, when I went to the Boundary Waters, you know, and I go, we actually, we just planned the trip. We're going out the end of September, you know, you get four or five days with no phones, and it's in your in your sleeping on the ground. Now, is sleeping in a bed more comfortable? Absolutely. But there's something about the minimalistic, like you just don't need much. It's, it's very, the simple things in life, just really center you on a lot. At least for me, it's just, I love being in the mountains. I love being in nature. That's a big part of it. But oddly enough, going back to this phone thing, the hardest thing that has been for the attendees of curious builder boot camp, and it was never meant to be the main thing. It was just a segment is people giving up their phones. I can't tell you, of the 23 people coming. Seven of them have asked, like, on the sly, for like abilities to like have their phones I'm like, and the fact that they're asking for it tells me that how important it is to keep that very sacred. And there are emergencies, of course, when we have it's not like we're abducting Costa Rica and like, there's ways, if you know you have to call back through the hotel or whatever. We'll figure it out. But it just really we have become so dependent on our technology, and I love it. You're a technology company. We love our technology. That being said, there is something really rejuvenating about unplugging from it
Kristin Reinitz 17:13
well, and I think just again, to the point of like humans connecting with nature is relaxing and calming. I tell a story all the time, but like, even with lighting, we lived outside for 1000s of years. We woke up with the sun, we went to bed with the sun, and then we moved into white boxes and put a big one, big light in the center of the room. Well, of course, we're not comfortable, right? Like, of course it's eye strain. Of course, we're having trouble sleeping at night. We're screwing up our own circadian rhythm. And so I think Misa, who's again, is a good example of like trying to bring those natural elements in. That's part of wellness. Ian, even the lighting, trying to mimic what natural light does and can change throughout the day. That's what good LEDs can also do is kind of adjust what they're doing throughout the day, adjust per time of day, because those are really, like the lighting signals our brain what we should be doing, what activity, what time of day is it? It's all by the sun. So again, now we live in white boxes and then throw one big light fixture on the ceiling and wonder why we can't relax in our home.
Mark D. Williams 18:24
So is that? So maybe we'll close with this. So like, if there's another brand, maybe there is. But like, you talk about circadian rhythm, I've only ever seen the ketra, right? Yeah, which is a manufacturer, correct? Lutron is who owns ketra, okay? And that light bulb, basically you could program in where you are in the in the northern hemisphere, which is where we are. Obviously coordinates in. You put your coordinates in, and then basically, it's gonna mimic the so if you turn it on at 6am but Okay, so like, right now it's walk us through, like, from the time you turn it on to the path of a day, yeah. But also, like, what happens when you're up before the sun is up? Because obviously, like, right now it doesn't get light till, what, seven o'clock, 705. Yeah, and so, but like, you know, I'm up at 430 like, I need lighting on now. I usually only have the, I'd like very soft lighting, as you it's 430 in the morning. I don't want to be blasted out, right? So I usually just leave on the under counter. Lights on until I make my coffee, get breakfast ready, and then, maybe I'm ready. If I'm gonna read the paper, I'll put on on the lowest dim setting the two sconces, yep. Anyway, that's my preference. Walk us through how the circadian rhythm lighting works. And like, I'm sort of hacking my own lighting sequence. But also like, how would a light come on if the if natural light, it's not even light out. Like, what would it be just always the lowest rating until sun comes up?
Kristin Reinitz 19:43
Yeah, well, it again, depends. There's so many ways I could answer that catcher itself. You, yeah, you could just turn it on in the morning, and it could be a very low, low level, more. What works really well like to again, it's gonna know where you are in the world. So. Knows what time that sun's coming up, what time that sun's going down. It's following kind of the if you think of the curve of the sun right, changes throughout our year depending what time of year it is. And so we can actually just it's based on timing. So let's say you get up in the morning and you you turn your light on, it's going to come up just as low as possible, then the sun's gonna start coming up, and your lights are going to mimic that throughout the day. So think about the color of light when you first wake like first get up, and the sun's just coming pink and cotton candy, right? It is, though, and the light does the same. So it's not going to be that noon, 5000 Calvin at 7am at noon, one, two, it will be it'll follow that. So what's nice about that is, again, as our seasons change here in Minnesota, your lighting adjusts as well. It just keeps following that sun path. Doesn't mean you can't jump in and override it. Sure I'd use my house the same way. In the mornings, it's all my under cabinet, like shelf lighting. There's none of my overheads on until the sun starts coming up then, then I turn on a little bit more. And kind of fake the circadian rhythm, sure, but yes, so quetra, we love it. It's one of the best products on the market. It's not just about the fact that it can do that circadian rhythm. Part of what makes be able to do that is most LEDs, like a really good high quality has like, four LED chips in it. A ketchup bulb has 16, whoa, correct Exactly. So there's a lot more capability there, and a lot more capability of the colors to mix to kind of get the quality we want and the right temperature we want.
Mark D. Williams 21:39
Interesting, if you were the last question. Otherwise, we'll go for four more hours. Yeah, if you are designing a school, and budget is not an issue. Oh, that would be so fun. How would you so you're in, let's say a lot of schools, they typically put the classes on the outside, so you have some natural light, but some don't. How would you, let's just assume there's no light, a natural light. How would you So, would you? Would you warm the bulbs up throughout the day, you're in a dark room, so without any light, you know, students go to start school at what, nine o'clock in the morning, 830 depending on where you are, yeah, and they finish at like, 230 is the lighting gonna be the same the whole time through? I mean, you're doing task work. You're doing, let's say, in your science class, you're doing lab, you know, lab stuff, if you're, you know, doing math. Like, how would you do that in a school setting, commercial setting?
Kristin Reinitz 22:24
So I can't think of it as just using ketra from the ceiling. So sure we could have ketra in the ceiling adjusting throughout the day, but to be successful there. Like, okay, what kind of task lighting do I have? Can if there's no budget, can I put like, a little lamp on every single student's desk. It would be amazing. My own desk at work, like we have ugly fluorescence up in the office. It is what it is. We'll get them changed eventually. At my own desk, I have lamps. And, like, my desk area looks dark if you're outside of it, you're in my area, though, I have lighting everywhere I need it.
Mark D. Williams 22:59
So, like, kind of like a like a helmet light that's down on the paper, where I have multiple lamps. Before this episode goes live, you got to give me a little video of my
Kristin Reinitz 23:09
office and using what I have. So yeah, first school would be a lot more individualized, if I could right, because you also have, like, little kids taking a nap at 11am right? So what's the lighting do in there? It would be more fun to have ketra in there. So, you know, there's ways you add little bits of color to like, maybe add a little blue, because that's really calming and relaxing. So the Nap Room gets blue in there, right? The lunch room. Brighten it up. Everyone's awake, running around, so being able to what, what each space you being used for, that's how I would start working on the lighting
Mark D. Williams 23:47
operational, yep. Well, this is amazing. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for audience a little bit longer for our Thursday session, almost double actually. Well, that's what happens when you and I get shut up. That's how it goes. If anyone wants to reach out to you, they can reach out to admit one, or Aurora one on Instagram, or obviously you can find us, yeah, just type in that. Or come to me says you'll be there, yeah, I will be there a lot. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thanks for tuning in the curious builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor. 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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