Designing the perfect home is an exhilarating experience. You’re planning out how you want to live, how you want your home to perfectly reflect your life and make everything better. As we always say: a house is not a home until you love where you live. 

But the reality is, just as wonderful as the design phase is, the construction phase can be equally draining. Things go wrong, contractors don’t show up when they’re supposed to, and details are overlooked. The challenges of the construction phase are why we do what most architects won’t – we stay on board and make sure your home is getting built the way we designed it. 

Put simply: the job isn’t done until you move in. 

Pre-Construction to Construction

Most every architect is going to be with you every step of the way before construction starts. They’ll work with you on how you want to live, they’ll help you pick design elements and décor, and they’ll get your plans drawn up and sent for permitting. 

But, once those permits come in, their job is done, and they pass the baton to your general contractor. Never to be seen or heard from again. 

Now, once that baton gets handed off is where issues normally arise. What those individual issues are that snowball to make the construction phase so difficult are different every time, but with experienced architects overseeing construction they usually are just small bumps in the road instead of those sinkholes that eat cars. 

Nipping problems in the bud – before the conflate into timeline and budget derailing problems – is why we remain on the job site, confirming that the build is going as designed and proactively managing the whole process. 

Construction to Move-In 

It can feel that construction drags on…and on….and on. The marble slab won’t get there on time, so the countertop guys won’t come to make the final measurements before they cut the slab, and their measurements guy is booked four weeks out. Even if the marble slab arrives the next day, four extra weeks just got tacked onto your renovation. 

Or the tile guy used the wrong grout and they need to come fix it before the next phase of a bathroom renovation can continue. 

When we visit a job site, we always painstakingly go over the details – not just with the general contractor, but with the subs the GC hired to do the work too. We look to confirm that each step was done correctly (and have them fix it if there was a mistake) and then go over what’s next to make sure they understand what’s in the design. 

While at times it may not feel like it, doing so drastically shortens timelines in the construction phase of a build. It catches small errors that would be costly (both financially and time-wise) to fix before they grow out of proportion. 

Getting You Into Your Home

Whether you are looking for an architect that will be with you from design to move-in, or if you are looking for an expert to become your representative in the construction process (even if you already hired a different architect), contact us to schedule an appointment.