What to Expect When You Hire a Designer for a Remodel or New Construction Project
A new build, a full remodel, that luxury kitchen you’ve been dreaming of, where to start can be a daunting process. Here, we explore both what to expect a good design process to look like and how we approach projects at Hyde Evans Design.
Here's the breakdown of what to expect in four basic phases.
Pre-Design:
We get asked all the time: who should I bring on first, the architect, the builder, or the designer? It really depends on the project. For a large-scale remodel or new construction, it makes sense to bring on the architect and designer around the same time. Each brings a different point of view to the process, and having someone focused on the interior alongside someone focused on the exterior can speed things up and be a real time savings.
Once you decide who should be part of your design team, carefully vetting them for schedule, communication style, and experience with similar projects is important to the success of the project.
At Hyde Evans Design, we've worked with all sizes of architectural and construction firms in Seattle, the San Juan Islands, and greater Palm Springs. We help determine who would be a good fit for the size and style of a project so you don't have to. During the pre-design phase, this is also when we take a deep dive into how you live, your likes, dislikes, and goals for your future home. For a remodel project, the existing spaces are measured and documented to make sure we can create accurate, buildable plans for construction.
Design Development:
This is usually where clients start asking how many options they'll actually see before something feels right. The honest answer is several, and that's by design. We explore concepts and test how they'll work with your home's architecture, whether you're remodeling an existing structure or starting from a proposed new build. Interior architecture is a large part of what we do in-house, so plenty of remodels never need an outside architect at all. When one is involved, we work closely with the broader design team, architects, builders, and landscape architects, so the exterior and interior read as one cohesive idea instead of several good ideas competing with each other.
This is also where decisions start to compound. Floor plans, cabinetry design, kitchen and bath layouts, lighting plans, material selections, and plumbing and hardware specifications all get worked through here, and the earlier you're decisive about a floor plan, the less it costs to change your mind later.
Documents Phase:
A question we hear at this stage: if nothing is being built yet, why does this phase take as long as it does? Because a complete, well-organized document set is one of the biggest predictors of whether a project stays on time and on budget. For construction-based projects, whether a remodel or a new build, we add architectural detail to the drawing set of plans and elevations for submittal to the contractor, for pricing or to begin building. Every plumbing, lighting, hardware, material, and paint selection gets compiled into a material schedule for the builder, and if there's an architect on the project, our documents get rolled into their construction set before submittal. By the end of this phase, the large majority of architectural design decisions and material selections are made and documented, which is exactly why it's worth asking to see the documents before they go to your contractor.
Administration and Project Management:
Once construction starts, clients often want to know who's actually watching the details day to day. That's us. We make site visits throughout this phase, communicate with contractors and tradespeople, and work closely with the architect and builder to make sure the design is executed according to plan, not improvised on site. This phase runs in parallel with the build itself, so it's worth asking any firm you're considering how often you'll actually hear from them once the crew is on-site. At the end of the project, we coordinate delivery and installation of everything we have purchased through our professional storage and moving facility.
A Distinctive Approach, Start to Finish
Our vast knowledge of architectural details, our close partnerships with contractors and architects, and our cultivated network of specialists from around the world all ensure the result speaks to you and how you live. We treat every space holistically and on an individual component level, shepherding each project from concept to reality with an unrelenting standard for quality.
If you're weighing a remodel or new construction project, let's talk through what these four phases would look like for your home.