Imagine you are in a maze. The idea is to find your way through a series of passages to find the end. Imagine there isn’t only one end goal to find, but you need to create a path that passes through three different, very specific locations in order to achieve the overall goal. Now imagine that the corridors of the maze aren’t well defined; there is only a thick forest that you are slashing away at with a machete to create the corridors.
Welcome to the job of the professional designer.
Okay, maybe that is a bit overdramatic. Design professionals see the world a little differently. We tend to see the built environment as a series of interconnected puzzle pieces. Our inclination is to ponder how we can make a contribution here and there to make it all fit together a little bit better. What I love about designing homes is that it allows me to work with people to help carve out a piece of that puzzle to make it uniquely theirs.
A good designer doesn’t pull an idea out of the sky and hope it fits your needs. The best ones are guides. They start with your goals, dreams, and (let’s be realistic) constraints, and find a path through it all to help bring you home. Most of our job is listening, interpreting, and doing everything we can to see your goals as ours. That’s it. Sounds easy, right? Why shouldn’t everyone design their own home, then?
Well, that’s where our expertise comes in. When you choose to work with a professional designer, you reap the benefits of years spent training in a host of disciplines: architecture, interior design, engineering, building science, and estimating (to name a few). Our unique blend of experience serves as a filter for the project goals and constraints.
Working with a designer can also reveal opportunities that may have gone unrealized, but remember they can’t do it alone. It takes a village to do lots of things; building a good home is one of them. Design-Build is a great way to reap the benefits of having all these disciplines under one roof…all the issues when dealing with building or remodeling a home can be tackled in a more fluid process. Decisions in one arena inform decisions in another; decisions based on real-time feedback from construction managers and estimators, all filtered through the goals that you’ve established with your professional designer.
Think of us as the place where budgets, building codes, building science, and design meet your dreams. Dreams are why we’re here in the first place, however; they need to be balanced with a myriad of other things that most people don’t think (or even know) about. So, the next time you bump into a professional designer, remember – we’re trying to help you find your way home.