Once a week, in the early morning from their home in Hong Kong, the owners of the familiar rose covered Greek revival house in Sconset poured their cups of English Breakfast tea and waited for Skype to connect them to Nantucket.
Simultaneously, on the other side of the globe, a legion of contractors, architects and designers poured their cups of Chamomile or Sleepytime while waiting for their American clients from China to appear on their screens.
It was this weekly routine, enabled via modern technology, that facilitated the recently celebrated
A very good question. With most of our design projects being residential in nature, we find that the majority of our clients have never worked with an architect before, so how would they know. It’s very likely that they have worked with builders, plumbers and electricians for basic home repairs and small remodeling projects. Yet, and I will be the first to admit it, working with an architect can be a very mysterious process. The good news? It’s not rocket science.
So, who does come first? In all honesty, it depends on the nature of exactly what you are looking to do.
Ever watch that HGTV Program called “Holmes on Homes”, where Mike Holmes saves homeowners from repair and renovation disasters? He’s typically brought in to correct the shoddy work of shady, unqualified and dishonest contractors preying on uninformed homeowners.
The best protection from such horrific renovation nightmares is to hire reputable contractors. But hiring reputable contractors will require a certain amount of homework and due diligence to ensure that you have the right contractor for your project.
We certainly can design a wonderful new residence for you,or an addition or renovation to your existing home. That’s the easy part. But what we don’t want to do is take you down a rosy path with a wonderful design, preparing detailed construction drawings and very specific specifications, putting it out to several builders for pricing, and discovering that the project is too rich for your budget. We’d rather integrate the subject of construction costs at the beginning of the design process and avoid what would be a very messy and costly scenario.
