Get Control Over Your Home Renovation Project

renovation blueprintsFrom our experience successful projects start from the inside out, from proper space planning, budgets, and in applying the design to your life style. And in our opinion, the most successful renovations involve a team where interior design, exterior architecture, construction issues, and budget are addressed simultaneously. Remodeling is not so difficult, you might say, renovating a kitchen, a bathroom, or the interior entrance to our house is a minor undertaking. Come spring, then we’ll find a local contractor we can trust and go from there. Then we start exploring other ideas: enlarging or re-arranging a current room lay- out. Whether to take out that wall and add to the kitchen. Perhaps create a sunroom flowing gracefully off an open kitchen. A prime candidate for a small addition that also comes to mind is the neglected master bedroom suite with its limited closet space and too small a bath.

Now we are talking ADDITION? Well, maybe we should talk with an architect first…Or should we?
Sound familiar?

As the ideas and the scope get bigger, so does the complexity of the parts involved. Without an integrated approach, you may end up getting too far into the architectural design process before you know the implications to your daily use of the space or whether you can afford to complete the project.

It is painful to break the news to a client with finished and filed plans that are all wrong. We are often called in as interior designer and contractor well after the addition is designed and filed for, only to find that all the questions we usually pose to the client in our first meeting never were asked and therefore never taken into consideration in the final plans. It feels even worse to be the messenger of the bad news that the beautiful design the client just spent thousands of dollars on is not going to give them what they were after, and is going to cost triple what they expected.

On the other hand, in a small remodeling project that you manage yourself, you might miss out on some space change opportunities. Without looking at all your options you could end up spending a small fortune on a remodeling project, when a new layout of rooms and closets, which make better use of the space you have, can be achieved for a fraction more.

Few people have the time or expertise to properly oversee a construction or renovation project. Few contractors have the ability to make design decisions when the demolition shows a pipe in the space where the built-in cabinet was supposed to go. Without the integrated approach of a design-build team, the homeowner will have to make critical and daily on- the-spot decisions that will impact the overall outcome. The wrong decisions can result in poor workmanship, clumsy design, unnecessary budget and time overruns, and an overall disgruntled client – contractor relationship.

To have a team consisting of interior designer, architect, and general contractor from the beginning to the end will eliminate many of the pitfalls of remodeling and better assure that you get what you really want and need.

Most of us think of the next few months as a time for parties and family gatherings. Then the dreariness of January and February until finally spring kicks in, and then we can start our house projects again. Wrong.

If you are thinking of a house renovation project for the spring or summer of 2007, you should look for a design-build team and start planning now. Your control over the project will not be in jeopardy – and you will be assured proper execution from start to finish.

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