Designing Your House – Part 1

The first part of information that we need in programming your project is often the most straightforward.

What is the address and legal description for the project? I actually like to confirm this prior to the first meeting so that we can research the property to make sure that we know which municipalities, zoning, HOA and other requirements we need to account for.

Do you have a contractor selected? If you do we will work with them to make sure that your budget works in conjunction with the design. If you don’t have a contractor picked, how would you like to go about selecting one, would you rather negotiate something or go through a bid process? Maybe you’re planning to act as your own contractor or maybe you would prefer to work with an owner builder assist setup. This decision will help dictate the architectural process.

What is your schedule? Is it realistic? How much time do you need to allot for your reviews? We prefer that clients come to us an average of 12 weeks in advance of their date for submitting to a building department. Some clients need longer to go through the process and some clients go much faster. I stamped two sets of plans today, one that took 6 weeks and one that took 12 months, both of them on time lines that the clients dictated. Some building departments review quickly and some are very slow. We will work with you on your schedule to make sure that it fits with the project.

Finally, we need to verify and make sure that we have all of your contact information including who you want on the contract.

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