The Remodeling Design & Planning Process

We provide the full range of traditional design-build services: design and planning assistance, construction and administration services. They begin at the project's inception and continue through closeout. By working with you from the conceptual stage we can provide a coherent, comprehensive package that is best suited to your specific needs.

The Four Design Phases

Design takes place in four distinct phases.

• Information Gathering

: Gather as much information as you can about the space to be remodeled. Get ideas, write them down. Create a folder of pictures from magazines, printouts from websites, and any other information that helps you visualize what you want.

• Concept Formation

: Develop a concept of how the new space will look and function. As you refine the concept, start weeding out the materials you gathered that do not fit the concept.

• Concept Plan

: We then take your ideas and develop a "concept plan" and preliminary budget. This plan is an overview of the project showing how the elements will be placed in the space and what the project will look like when it is done.

• Construction Drawings

: Once you have approved the concept and proposed budget, we then produce the final working drawings from which the project will be built.

Information Gathering and Concept Formation

We don't design your space, you do. You determine the features you want, the feel of the space, and how you want it to look. All we do is capture and formalize your ideas, making sure the space can be built with reasonable economy and environmentally friendly mold and follows all the building code and design rules. For this to work, you need to have a very good idea of how you want the space to look and the features you will want it to contain.

Identify Your Likes and Dislikes

Since you are already thinking about remodeling, you probably have a good perspective on what you don't like about the existing space. But it is also important to understand what you do like, and what you may want to preserve. Retaining the features you like is just as important as fixing the aspects you do not like.

Ask yourself questions about your requirements and jot ideas down on paper.

If planning a kitchen, discuss the existing kitchen space and layout with all the primary users of the kitchen in your household, listing the good and bad points of your current kitchen. Investigate the traffic patterns in and through the kitchen. Analyze the day-to-day meal preparation tasks. Try to formulate a "normal" daily meal preparation routine.

Find out about your family's desire to do more in the kitchen. Is there an area of interest, such as baking, that you would like to do more of if space or facilities were available?

Get a good idea of what works and does not work in your current kitchen. If a land-line phone is located between the sink and range, and this works for you, then you probably want to keep it in this location. What could be done to improve it? Maybe a shelf beneath the telephone for a notepad would make it even more convenient. How about a charging station for those other phones you keep in your pocket or purse?

For a bathroom determine what about the existing space works well. Is there adequate storage in or adjacent to the room in convenient locations? Are vanities and sinks at a comfortable height for all members of the family? Is there adequate light? Where is the hamper? Is it well ventilated? What is the best feature of the room? The worst? Is access from adjacent rooms sufficient?

For some ideas of what may be included in your remodeled space, take a look at the articles listed at the end of this page.

Keep a notepad in the space to be remodeled. As you are using the space, jot down any thought or idea that occurs to you.

Start an Idea Folder

Before you start your formal planning, you should have a very good idea of what you want your new space to look like — the cabinets, flooring, moldings, countertop — and have decided on a basic palette of colors. Research all of the information about new products and features on the market. Good ideas are available in magazines, on the Internet, and in books and magazines at the library. If you find a picture of a room, a feature, or an idea you like; clip, or copy it and put it in a folder.

The folder does not have to be anything elaborate. A notebook or file folder will do. It doesn't even have to be an actual physical folder. Several websites are available that provide virtual folders. Pinterest, for example, provides powerful tools to help your organize remodeling ideas as does Houzz. You can store all of your favorite home design photos and product shots, notes, PDFs, and other details of your home project. You can also allow comments and photos from others, getting feedback from a wider audience to help crystallize your ideas.

Collect images, material samples, color swatches, and samples for your new space. To remind yourself what you like about an item, make notes on the back or, if it is an actual sample, on a piece of masking tape attached to the sample. Be sure to note where you intend to use it and why.

Use your smartphone camera to snap any unexpected ideas you may encounter. Restaurants, showrooms, appliance stores; really just about anyplace may contain just the color, fabric, tile, paint or fixture you have in mind for your new space.

Organize Your Requirements for the Space

List the features that the space should include and order them by priority. A good working breakdown is:

Don't be afraid to dream big. You don't know you can't afford it until we put the sharp end of the pencil to paper. We just may be able to work it in.

Carefully Measure the Space

If you are remodeling an existing space, measure the space. If you are combining rooms into a larger space, measure both rooms. Sketch out a rough plan showing all measurements.

To learn how to accurately measure a room, check out How to Measure Your Kitchen (And Other Rooms).

The Concept Plan

At this point, it is time to begin formalizing your ideas into a design. The concept plan is a series of designs intended to arrive at a point in which all of the features that you want to include in a space are incorporated into the space in a buildable design. Although we speak of it often as a plan, it is actually a series of plans, each one edging closer to the final design.

The first step is an initial planning meeting, preferably in your home. The purpose of that meeting is for you to share your ideas with us. We will spend most of the time listening to you — asking questions when appropriate for clarification. We will need your priority list, any photographs or drawings of items you would like in your remodeled space, and your sketches and drawings. We will also remeasure the space and make notes on potential construction problems.

With our notes and your ideas folder in hand, we will create a preliminary floor plan that allocates features to the space available. This sounds more formidable than it is. It is merely a process of putting things that go into a space onto the floor of the space to see how the objects in the room will go together. Once we have a workable floor plan, we begin looking at elevations to see how objects fit vertically. For example, in a kitchen design, we will look at elevations of each wall of cabinets. Here is where we adjust the height and depths of objects. We may go back and forth between plans and elevations several times to look at different options and tweak the design here and there.

When we have a plan that includes the features you want, complies with the various design guidelines and building and safety codes, and is "buildable," we start costing it to develop a preliminary budget.

Now we are ready to present the design to you. We will print out the floor plan, an elevation for each wall, close-up elevations of wall features if warranted, and one or more full-color perspective drawings. The perspective is a full-color, photo-realistic image of how the space will look when it is finished.

Many manufacturers of cabinets, fixtures, countertops, flooring, and other products will provide us with graphics models of the exact items you have chosen for your space, in the precise colors you prefer. These models enable us to make the perspective as accurate as possible. Using a series of perspective drawings, we can walk you through the finished space, showing as much detail as you want to see.

When we present the concept drawings, you will probably have one of three reactions.

The concept plan is an evolving plan. It's fine-tunable. We now begin refining the drawings to make the changes required until they match as closely as possible to the vision in your mind's eye.

This is the point at which adjustments are made to fit your budget, your lifestyle, and your physical characteristics. You probably have many more ideas for the space than can fit into the space or in your budget. Here is where we begin paring down and refining.

Eventually, we will reach a point at which the concept works for you and the budget is something you can afford. Now we start working on the construction drawings and final budget.

The Construction Blueprints and Final Cost Estimate

When you have approved the concept, we can then set about creating a firmer cost estimate. This is where the detailed planning really starts. Creating a cost estimate requires us to identify all of the materials that will be used, and determine the labor required for the project. If necessary we will obtain preliminary estimates from sub-contractors such as plumbers and electricians to see what their part of the project will cost.

When the project's estimated cost meets your approval, we can begin drawing up the final construction plans.

Unlike the concept plan, which is basically, a sketch drawn on a computer, the construction plans are very detailed. They show the exact placement of every wall, wire, pipe, outlet, fixture, cabinet, and switch in the remodeled space.

The blueprints are the drawings the various trades use to actually build the space. They will include detailed construction plans, elevations of every wall; hardware, fixture, and cabinet schedules; materials lists, and detailed written instructions, where required, for additional guidance.

A typical construction blueprint will contain ten to thirty pages of drawings and text.

Once we have reviewed the blueprints with you and you have approved them along with the final budget, we can begin construction.

Need to learn more about designing, planning and building a kitchen or bath?
Try these articles:

Rev. 05/04/18