Remodel Series, Part 2: Working With Architects and Designers

It happens on a lot of remodels. The drawings look right and the bid looks right, and then the walls come open and the two stop agreeing. Whose problem is that? Too often it lands on the homeowner.

Plenty of kitchen and bath remodels never need an architect. Once you start moving walls, or the city wants stamped drawings, you’ll have an architect, a designer or an engineer on the job as well as a builder. Finding them is usually the easy part. Keeping the drawings, your budget and what gets built pointed the same way is harder, and that’s the part we take on. We bring the designer in and manage the work, and you deal with one company.

In Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, design and building are mostly separate businesses, and most of them are small.

Don’t read too much into the engineering number. A lot of those firms never work on houses. Even so, whoever draws your remodel and whoever builds it probably work for different companies, and somebody has to connect the two.

Do you need an architect or designer?

For a lot of kitchen and bath remodels, no. If the walls are staying where they are, we can plan the cabinets, counters, tile and fixtures with you directly, the way Part 1 runs a kitchen. We’ll help you pick the tile and the natural-stone countertops and match the paint to your indoor lighting. Color consultation comes with our painting work at no extra charge.

It’s different once you’re opening up rooms, changing the roofline or touching a load-bearing wall. The same goes for a house in historic district review, or a city that wants stamped drawings. Then you need an architect, a designer or an engineer, and sometimes all three. On our remodeling projects we make design referrals if you need them, and referrals for drawings and engineering during permitting where they’re required. Already have an architect or designer? Good. We work from their drawings.

Settle it on paper first

A design question settled on paper costs a phone call. The same question after the cabinets are in costs a lot more. We can’t promise you a number. We can make sure the questions come up while they’re still a phone call.

Before the drawings are final, we go through what each choice will cost to build. That way the design and the budget don’t meet for the first time on bid day.

A house that’s already standing hides things. We walk it with the plans in hand and raise questions while a change is still a pencil line. When something needs an answer, we take it to whoever owns it, whether that’s the architect, the engineer or the designer. You shouldn’t have to carry messages between offices.

Design deadlines, permit submissions, plan check, orders and the trades all go on one calendar. Through construction, the scopes, change orders and where the budget stands stay in writing, and you see the costs and the decisions as they happen.

Who does what on your remodel

We hold CSLB license #803672, B-2 Residential Remodeling and C-33 Painting and Decorating. That license covers building the remodel, running the schedule and handling the permits. It doesn’t cover designing it. We don’t do architecture or engineering, and load-bearing work goes to an appropriately licensed contractor.

Part 3 is about the trade partners who do the plumbing, the wiring and the rest. The paperwork is on our project management page and in our post on how permits work on our projects. When you’re ready, request an estimate or call us at (650) 961-7415.