Savvy homeowners considering a renovation know the value of good design, thoughtful planning, and accurate pricing. If you’re thinking about remodeling, there are dozens of variables to be considered, selected, and determined. The habitual approach of seeking free estimates and competing bids is fraught with unforeseen consequences and open-ended questions. What exactly is the best plan? What fixtures and features are included? What challenges and opportunities will be discovered? What impact will these have on the final cost? Do you hope for the best and let your costs and selections get finalized while your house is being torn apart and put back together? There’s a better way. You can sort out all of these details prior to the project by working with a professional design-build remodeling company.

To understand the long-term value of the design-build approach, I like to compare buying a car to remodeling your home. If you want a car, you probably have a budget since it’s a major purchase. Either you have identified a particular car and budget accordingly, or you have a set budget to start looking for a car you can afford. Remodeling is similar. If you want to remodel a bathroom, you can have a detailed plan created and then determine the cost to build it, or you can work to design and specify a renovation plan that is compatible with your budget. If you have $15,000, you’ll be buying a used car or planning a partial bathroom renovation. If you have $50,000, you have several options for new vehicles or a better bathroom renovation keeping in mind that certain high-end car models or bathroom details/finishes will cost even more.

Unlike vehicles, your desired home renovations are not built in a factory. The options for altering and improving your house are almost infinite. Professional advice and guidance will help you steer clear of bad design, poor functionality, and faulty products. Quality design assistance is a service worth paying for, which leads some people to hire a designer or architect independently. Then they learn that their bathroom renovation may cost $60,000 to $75,000 to build. However, since architects and designers are not contractors, they often do not provide accurate estimates of the true costs. A design-build company helps you avoid this pitfall, guiding your project toward a target budget. If the first concept is too expensive, then a design-build team can suggest alterations to the design and your selections, delivering a plan which fits your needs, wants, and budget.

Some homeowners make the mistake of paying for design and then getting competing bids to select a contractor. One contractor notices that the electrical system needs to be updated, but the others don’t notice this. The bids were free, so the amount of information you get varies significantly. These types of quotes are hard to compare. You hire the lower-bid contractor only to learn that the building code will require the electrical updates that were anticipated by the higher-bid contractor. Did you save money? Multiply this oversight by every detail involved in improving your home, and you start to realize the value of paying a trusted professional to accurately price your renovation from design through construction.

You could hire a design professional to create a plan and then hire a professional contractor to provide accurate pricing, but what if a problem arises during the construction? Who’s to blame? A design-build firm is accountable for the entire design-build process and project outcome. This avoids those nightmare scenarios where the designer blames the contractor (or vice versa) for oversights or cost overruns. The design-build company should provide a construction contract with a clear scope of work at a fixed price. You, the homeowner, get a detailed and specific remodeling plan reflecting a thoughtful compromise of your needs, wants, and budget.

With a design-build company, all of this happens prior to signing a construction contract. This process allows you to make informed decisions. Maybe you have to wait to renovate because you have discovered that the project features you really want are going to cost more than your budget. Maybe you’ve determined, along with your contractor, that you can approach the project in phases so you can afford the improvements you need now on a timeline you can live with.

If you use a trusted car mechanic that you depend on to diagnose and fix your car, then you know exactly the sense of control and value that I am talking about. Remember that the renovations will be happening in your home. Comprehensive planning, effective communication, and project safety/cleanliness are important details to consider. These services take skill to coordinate and cost money to provide, which helps explain why those free estimates and contractors seemed cheaper than others. In the end, hiring a trusted and professional design-build remodeling company is about long-term value and your ultimate satisfaction with your renovation.

Chad Speight, CR, is a National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) Certified Remodeler. He is the owner and president of Chads Design Build located in Madison, Wisconsin, which has three NARI-certified Universal Design Certified Professional team members on staff. Chads Design Build is the NARI of Madison 2022 Contractor of the Year (CotY) award winner for the Universal Design Bath category.

Photographs by Kyle Wege, AIAP, of Crimson Sun Studios

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