Architect vs. Residential Designer: Choose Your Dream Home Designer Wisely

William Reid: Hello gang, Bill Reid with The Awakened Homeowner. I promised you some adventures while we tackle your remodel project, and here we go. I'm sitting — for you podcast listeners who may not be able to see this, and this is mostly a podcast — but I am sitting on a paddleboard on Lake Almanor, California. Another one of my thinking spots. So you can see this is a pristine lake that is a little bit of a secret up here in Northern California, just east of Mount Lassen National Park. It's just a wonderful place to live after growing up and spending my entire career in Silicon Valley. This is our home here on the lake that we bought 25 years ago and have been paying for it ever since, but now we live here. So I'm going to move back to a more normal video after this. But I just want to give you a sense; this is where a lot of the thoughts and ideas come. What more do you need to do some processing and thinking?

We're going to be moving into "Understanding Design Professionals," and the objective here is to educate you on architects and residential designers, to begin with. This is also going to be a talk about why design is so important. The most common topic in the world with homeowners talking to each other about projects is budget. You may know my last series on budget rattled some cages there. A big part of going over budget is bad design, and I'm serious. Bad design begins with you as the homeowner, you as the person out there trying to find a designer to do a job, and you don't even really understand the process or who they are or what they provide, and what's good and what's not good.

So, "Understanding Design Professionals" is this next episode coming up, and I'll do it out of my basement studio here. We're going to talk about architects, we're going to talk about residential designers, the differences between the two, and why they both can serve the purpose depending on your project and your needs. The episode after that will be interior designers, which are huge for me. There's my Almanor hat right there. So that's where we're at today. I'm going to tell some stories about some architects that I've run into over the years and the different characteristics of each one of them. They all could work; it just depends on you, your experience, and your project. So I'll see you in the studio, and we'll get into it. Meanwhile, I will be back here rowing away on the lake to finish up my thoughts on the episode. See you soon.

Alright, everybody, I'm back off the lake, and we're going to dive right into "Understanding Design Professionals" to continue on the mission of getting your head right before you tackle a project. Now you may remember, and if you don't, I'd recommend you go back and look at the budget series that I just finished. We'll probably continue on that as we get down the road and get more and more questions. But this is a series beyond the budget, if you will.

So, everybody comes up with budgets in their own way, and a lot of them aren't really based on any kind of data. They just kind of go off gut instinct, rumors that they've heard. Some people do go through a little bit of a discovery period, which I highly recommend, which I did in my first series called "The Discovery Series." But I want one big overriding principle to be remembered: if it's not a realistic budget, if it's not a budget based off any information that's valuable or dependable, you will already blow your budget before you even begin the project, before you even begin design, if you will. If you go into a project with misinformation, delusions, as I call them in many of the episodes before.

So, the world of design is what this series is about. It begins with understanding design professionals. Now we're going to talk about what architects are, we're going to talk about what residential designers are, and then in the next episode, we're going to talk about what interior designers are. But one thing you have to remember is that these are the people that are going to take your discovery exercises, your budget exercises, and then transform them into solutions that achieve both of those objectives. If you don't go through either one of those steps, you're already digging out the cliff from underneath you, and they will not be positioned best to meet your goals. Everybody has a dream. They love these ideas and inspirations, and they've saved them and talked about them and shared them, but it takes work to build that dream. And it begins with quality design.

There are so many people on the internet, on Facebook groups. I know I keep pummeling that, but I keep pummeling that because there's just so much bad information out there that there are people that are going to think they're going to go into their 4,000 square foot new custom home at $200 a square foot, and it's a complete joke. So we're not going to — we're not going to let you do that. Or at least you're going to know going in that it's not very likely. Maybe you can pull it off. I have no idea how. And if you do, you're probably going to surpass this podcast and come up with a way of how you realistically did that.

I wrote a story in the beginning of my book, the Prologue, about two couples. This is a story based on real-life events and facts that I know about what people go through. The story is about Ben and Jane, who took the wrong path, and then about the McMillans, who took the right path, and how their experiences in the same development came about and how one was extremely poor and one was extremely good. And the paths that they took to hire their design professionals, the due diligence that they took. Even though it's a fictional story, I really recommend that you take a look at it on TheAwakenedHomeowner.com website, and you go to the "Book" navigation. You'll see a little popup that comes where you can download it for free. You do have to put your email address in there; that way, I know I'm not getting spammed to death. And then you'll become part of the community, and you can always unsubscribe if you want. I'm not a big spammer, or I won't bombard you with information. So the quality of the design work begins with the quality of the designers that you hire.

What design work means is, like I said earlier, the designers interpreting your visions and ideas, your budget that you have in mind. And then they translate that into design solutions with all of their own ideas. So they're going to marry all your dreams and ideas to solutions with all their design tools. If you hire an inexpensive designer, or if you just hire a draftsperson to do your job because you think you know what you want because you have all these pictures and ideas, and you've downloaded a set of plans from the internet and you think you know what you want, so you just want to have a draftsperson copy a design, you just have to keep in mind that you are already compromising the quality of the outcome of meeting your expectations. If you want to do that, you can do that, but you have to have a certain level of experience, meaning you've done projects before, that you know what to look out for, you know the questions to ask. This podcast and this mission I'm on is about helping homeowners orchestrate the design and construction of their project. In fact, that's the subtitle of the book: "Orchestrate Your Dream Home," because that's kind of what you're doing. And I'll talk about that a little bit later too.

So let's get into understanding architects and residential designers; that's what we're going to talk about today. Architects are the best solution for you when you're designing a custom home, in my opinion. Now remember, I've coordinated the design and construction of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homes, major renovations, and remodels, and I operated a design-build business, meaning I had my own design staff and my own construction staff. All my design team were residential designers or interior designers, not licensed architects, because we really did do a lot of big renovations and remodels in the Silicon Valley area. And when I did need an architect, I brought an outside one in to help us with a project.

So, an architect is a professional that has studied architecture at university, has received a degree in architecture and different areas of architecture, and that also passes the state board exam to become a licensed architect. Now the reason I'm mentioning that is because there are many people out there doing design work for homes that have a degree in architecture but do not have a license in architecture from the state. And that's what I call residential designers. And there are other people that could fall into that category of residential designers. But architects focus on residential construction, commercial construction. Some architects focus only on renovations and remodels. Some focus on new construction or multifamily, all the way up to grand scale projects. So an architect is made up of formal education, licensing from their state. And that classifies them as a person that is qualified to call themselves architects, to label that on their business cards and on their websites and on all the media that they use. If you are not a licensed architect, you are not allowed to use the word "architect" in your media, anything that you publish. And I'm bringing that to your attention now because you will see that happening where people say "ABC Architecture" or "Architectural Design," and one of your first questions are going to be, "Are you an architect? Are you a licensed architect?" So those are some of the big key elements.

Now architects for new construction are usually your first point of contact when you're beginning your project. Now, a lot of people talk about talking with their builder first. Now that's okay too if you want to get to an architect from a potential builder. So some people may have a relationship with a builder or have been heavily referred to a builder, a general contractor that could potentially build your home. But without a set of plans and specifications, they're not going to be much good to you until you actually get with an architect. A builder can refer you to different designers or architects to begin the design of your project.

In all the years I've been doing this, and it's been a long time, I have experienced different types of architects. I'm going to list out a few here. And I'm not saying that one is worse than the other, but I want you to understand, as a homeowner, when you start engaging with architects, there are different types, and they may or may not be a good fit for you. So the first one I call is the gatekeeper. So a gatekeeper architect is a person that, on your hike, we'll go back to one of my favorite things to do, on your hike, you arrive at the trailhead, and there's a person sitting in a worn-out lawn chair at the head of the trail, maybe a little scruffy looking with one of those trail hats on, and hiking boots that are untied and a little disheveled. And that's because he has been sitting there a long time, and he has been up and down the trail a few times, maybe hundreds of times. And you arrive at the trailhead, you've never been on that trail before, and you ask George, we'll call him the gatekeeper, "Can you help me navigate this trail? Or tell me where to go? Or can you take me along and show me the way?" George doesn't get up from his chair, has a little bit of a grunt and shuffle and says, "Here, just take this. Here's a map. This will probably help you, and if you get in any trouble, just yell." So clearly, George does not want to get up from his ratty lawn chair and help you all the way along.

Now, a gatekeeper is an architect that does have experience but is not really ready to take you all the way through the journey, meaning they are going to provide minimal design help. They will be providing mediocre design work, and it could be for a variety of reasons. It could be because they don't have the experience, because they're at the end of their career, and they are just tired and just want to be able to get through as many projects as possible. Their creative juices are drying up. Whatever you want to say here, but you're getting the gist. Probably this is a person that is qualified. They have the credentials and could probably get you to the top of the peak of this, but you're going to have to be looking out for yourself all along the way. And this could work for people that have experience in remodeling or new construction and designing projects, but will require a lot of attention and a lot of direction to this person so that you can get a set of plans suitable to submit to the county or city for a permit.

And I want to talk about this. I don't think I've talked about this yet in previous episodes. But there's a term, I don't know if I came up with it, but I think I did. It's called "the permit push." And what a lot of architects and designers do is they try to go down the path of least resistance, meaning the absolute minimum that is required to get a building permit so that a homeowner can start their project as fast as possible. And of course, a homeowner is going to be like, "Yeah, let's get going. Let's get going." Because once I know, once you pick up the phone or once you log in and enter your name into somewhere, you're ready to go. You finally are taking the plunge, and the mindset is, "I want to get it going as fast as I can now. I've been thinking about this for five years, but now I want to do, go as fast as I can." So George is going to say, "Let's do this. Here's a plan to the trail. Here's the absolute minimum information that you're going to need to get there, and you may have to improvise going up the trail, but let's go ahead and get you there as fast as you can, as we can." Not knowing that you may have to traverse some big caverns and creeks and rivers and bears and wolves to get there. He hasn't been up the trail in five or 10 years, maybe, and doesn't realize what has changed up there. But let's just go ahead and get you the minimum set of plans so that you can get a permit and get started.

Here's what happens. You feel like you've really accomplished something. You've got this big roll of plans in your hands, and you go there and you get a permit because it's just the absolute minimum. Turns out there's no directions on the plans. There's no warnings that things are coming up that you may have to hop over or repel down or up or climb up to get to your destination. None of that's in there. And another word for those are details, plan specifications, material specifications, equipment specifications. And you're also not getting any creative design work; you're getting the bare minimum. Yeah. You've showed him some pictures, and he drew the bathroom the way you wanted it and the kitchen overlooking the lake or whatever. But it's just not the level of detail. But you don't know that. It's very possible that you don't know that. You're just so excited, and you don't understand what you're getting and what you're getting yourself into until it's way too late. You get your permit issued, you go to your contractor, and you show him his plans, and after he is done laughing and giggling about your plans, he says, "Let me know when they're done, and I can provide you a contract and a proposal to build it." And you look at each other and you say, "Huh? Let me know when you have all the specifications so I can price out the job thoroughly, huh?" Or even worse, a contractor takes those plans, provides you an inadequate proposal, an incomplete proposal, and you find all that out during construction. The gatekeeper is not necessarily your friend, as you can tell.

Now, if you are, like I said, a seasoned person that has done many projects and you want to manage this person and push this person, you might be able to get the least expensive design solution out of this gatekeeper, and then you'll have to improvise a lot on the plans. Not really my best recommendation if you are a novice homeowner trying to tackle a significant remodel or new home project, so keep George in mind. That's the gatekeeper. If, when you start making phone calls and you see him sitting in that lawn chair, be aware.

The next one is one of my favorites. I call them the adventurer. And the adventurer is a fun, really fun person to deal with. These are, let's call them, let's call him Henry. So Henry the Adventurer. Henry is, he's on the younger side, but is, but does have some projects under his belt. In fact, there are a lot of projects that he has under his belt that have won awards, that have been featured on websites in architectural magazines. And Henry has a staff, a small staff, has a little architectural office in town and has that progressive feel about him, that cutting-edge feel about him. And the creative juices are just flowing like crazy. This person is ready to create a masterpiece for you. And because you have done your due diligence, you've gone through the discovery steps, you have even spent some time on budgeting and trying to come up with an investment goal that you may recognize that term from previous episodes, that this person even feels more confident. They're like, "Okay, these people know what they want. They know what they want to spend." It's probably not enough, but we'll talk about that. And this person is passionate about your project. This is a really good sign that your project is on the right track. But let's be careful. There are a couple of things that are going to come with this, and one of them is, brilliant design can lead to higher construction costs. A designer with staff can lead to higher design costs. That's not a bad thing, in my opinion.

Now, if you hear people talking about, "Oh, I spent $5,000 to get all my plans drawn for my new home." But Henry comes in and says it's going to be $45,000, and you're online talking to everybody going, "Wait, what the heck? How could it possibly be $45,000 to design my new 4,000 square foot home?" Which is about 10% of the cost of the job. No, probably not. That's probably less than 10%. Probably more 5%, we'll get into that later. My math's off. But if you're going to build a 4,000 square foot home, you're probably going to spend two or three million dollars for a nice high-end, medium to higher-end custom home. So you could do the math on your own. In fact, $45,000 is probably too little for that type of job. But anyway, let's probably double that maybe. But here's the thing. There's something about spending more money on design. There's two things about, two components. Let me get to this point. I'm trying to get to a point. There are two things that kind of revolve around the cost of design. Number one, think about the cost of design relative to your dreams and visions and ideas for your project. So if you spend $5,000 on design with a gatekeeper, or you spend $45,000 on design, or $55,000 or $75,000 on design with the adventurer, with Henry, George versus Henry, there's a much better chance, and I'm willing to bet that you're going to get a lot more, you're going to meet your expectations a lot easier with the adventurer than you are with the gatekeeper with George. I'm also willing to bet that if you are smart and realistic about your budgeting, that you are going to meet your budget goals. Or at least be able to have intelligent conversations with Henry, the adventurer, about your budget relative to your goals.

So you're going to spend more money on design, a lot more, maybe 10 times more than what you think. But all those inspiration pictures you've been swiping through in the middle of the night, bugging your partner with, are going to be achieved with an adventurer type. What's going to happen with the gatekeeper is you're not even going to realize that you are not achieving your goals until it's too late. You're going to be out there under construction, you're going to walk in, look up, and the ceiling's flat, and you thought it was going to be vaulted. You're going to — you're going to wake up one morning, and there's going to be five change orders in your inbox from your contractor because of all the things that you thought you were getting that now you're paying for. This is why people go through miserable experiences. This is why people go over budget. It's not the only reason, but crappy design, inadequate designers, are a big part of budget overruns, and it's not 100% their fault. It's all about you and your input and you choosing the right designer, but I get it, you don't know. You don't know what the difference is. "Who? I didn't know there were three different character architects that Bill's talking about," because there's another one I want to talk to you about after this.

So that's, again, that's the mission we're on here with my Awakened Homeowner podcast and book and community. And everything I'm doing here is I just want to rattle the cages, shake the bushes, and get you dialed in. So you know who you're talking to; you don't just pick somebody because you thought that they were a nice person. Another thing about the adventurer architect is, one, it'll be hard for you to handle, but, or hard to deal with. But there are great ideas out there, unlimited ideas. I won't be the first person to tell you the implementation is everything. So there's no shortage of ideas. You can come up with great ideas. I can come up with great ideas by looking at pictures and thoughts and ideas. And now with technology these days, it's just unlimited. It's the implementation, it's the execution that is what it's all about. Great architects that are design-centric sometimes can get themselves overloaded with coming up with all of the quality architectural details that are needed in order to actually make it happen. You're going to be asking Henry, "Wow, this is a great idea. What do we need to do to make sure my contractor knows what needs to be done?" Then during the design phase, you're going to be asking potential contractors, "Is this enough information for you to be able to price out and build this project?"

I'm going to really dig in deep into those during the design process, part of the world of design. But this is just a red flag for you that this is an area that I've experienced where, "Wow, look at the 3D renderings, look at all these pretty pictures and everything," but you start going into the details, and there are none, or they're very minimal. I've worked with some great architects. I can think of one out of Dallas, Texas right now, that his level of details were phenomenal, that everybody understood what was supposed to happen. In fact, they were so detailed, we had to ask questions about the details, but you know what? That's better than nothing. Because here's the thing: when your builder provides you a proposal to build your project off your architect's plans, and the plans and the details and the specifications are thorough, you're not going to wake up that morning with the five email change orders. Okay? So that's a really big one about the adventurer architect. The other thing about an adventurer architect sometimes you'll run into is they sometimes over-promise on time. When this person just gets out of control in a good way and starts creating this monster for you, sometimes they don't meet the timing deadlines. So just, you're just going to want to be aware of that, and you might want to be asking questions like, "When can we meet next?" And he might say, "Oh, let's do it Monday." "Okay, do you think that's really enough time for you to be able to provide enough details for us to make informed decisions? Let's do it Wednesday." That is one that you want to look out for too.

The other one that we have to be careful with on the adventurer architect, and it's worth working with this person, is budget. So you've come to this architect, Henry, who's wearing red-framed glasses, and his shoes are red that matches his glasses, and he's bouncing up and down and has his staff running around behind him picking up all the pieces because this is a really good architect, but a little flighty, if you will, with the details. The budget. So you've come to them in the beginning and you said, "Here's my 4,000 square foot home. And I really want to try to limit it to $2 million. That's about $500 a square foot. And I know you people out there keep saying I can do it for $100 or $200. I challenge you on that." And when I, 'cause when I'm talking about numbers, I'm talking about fully, just the whole nut, if you will. So you might tell him, "I got $500 a square foot in construction costs, and I want to spend probably about, at the most, 10% of that design costs on your fees. Are we going to be okay with that? Are we going to be able to work on that?" That would be $200,000, or that would be $100,000 in design fees and $2 million in construction costs. And I got to tell you, a 4,000 square foot custom home in a nice area, it might even cost more than that. So don't quote me on those numbers. You, maybe you can do it for less, you'll probably have to be heavily participating in it. But let's be realistic for this podcast. And then you can take it upon yourself.

But the budget is going to come up, and it may not come up. Actually, it needs to come up. So when you're going through the design process, and there are three steps through the design process, and I will go through with you later in this series. Yeah, but there's going to be called budget checkpoints. You are going to need to pull back on the reins of Henry sometimes and say, "Wow, this is an amazing 40-foot long, 10-foot tall glass door bifold system that introduces the outside to the interior. Do you think this is really going to fit within my budget?" Now, Henry may not know, or he may pretend to know, or he might know. It just depends on the level of the architect. George, on the other hand, might just grunt and groan and say, "We'll see how that works out." That's going to put you in a Monday morning change order hell, right?

So there are ways to deal with that with Henry. And in that, you can ask to pause a design. We can ask to engage with a contractor, a builder, at a particular stage in the design process to do some early high-level look at the plans and details. So the big glass door, the Olympic size swimming pool, the full basement, whatever it is on your project, and do some initial consultation. They're called budget checkpoints. One of the things you can do with a guy like Henry is say, "You know what? Let's declare that as an option. And let's go ahead and have something as a backup plan for something that may not be as elaborate in cost." A 40-foot tall by 10-foot sliding glass door system could be $200,000. I don't know, I'm probably not too far off. So Henry is definitely a possibility. But you're going to want to understand and be okay to invest in design to achieve your goals. Quality design work is just bringing everything to the surface now, during the design process, as opposed to later during construction when you walk up onto the job site over the weekend and you start looking around, realizing, "This isn't what I wanted." This happens all the time, more often than not, because people spent $5,000 or $10,000 on design and thought they were winning when they didn't know they were losing. That's the big point here.

Now, there's one other one I want to talk to you about, and that is the outfitter. I like the outfitter too. So you pull into the parking lot of the trailhead, right? And over in the corner is a person that is sitting on top of a horse with about three or four mules behind him. Got his trail hat on, clearly has been on this trail a bunch of times, and is waiting for you to arrive. This is Earl? Let's go with Earl. Earl's been up and down the trail, loves going up and down the trail. That's his life, and he helps people get up and down the trail. That's his career. His life and his career are the same thing. He enjoys, loves what he does. He's been around the block, so to speak, many times. And the outfitter is a seasoned, experienced person who balances creativity with practical execution. In other words, you're going to say, "Look, hi Earl, good to meet you. Here's where I'm at. I want to build a 4,000 square foot home. My budget's $2 million. I'd like to understand how much your design fees would cost to get us there. And I love this 40-foot glass door, and I want a basement. I want this." And Earl's going to look at you and try to figure out if you have the money to do it. And even though your budget's $2 million, then he's going to suggest that, "Okay, let's pull out the map to the trail and decide which direction to go with some of these options that you want to take and the different trails to the summit. And let's talk about how to approach those." And that way, we can respect your budget and make sure that we don't just completely blow you away.

Now, Earl has been around a while, and he may not be as cutting-edge as Henry, who's bouncing off the walls, creating just an amazing project, but Earl's creative. But Earl's always thinking about the condition of the trail ahead. He is trying to make sure that he balances the creative ideas with practical, pragmatic solutions. Earl has been in the trenches building projects with a handful of contractors that he's worked closely with. He understands construction. Henry's younger, never worked in the field in construction, but understands details and can articulate those to builders and can learn back and forth from builders and contractors and get by. But Earl is going to be the person that says, "Okay, my shoes don't match my the frames of my glasses, I'm going to be with you all the way along. Here's a horse for you. Let's get going." So an outfitter can be good for all different varieties of homeowners. It could be an experienced homeowner that has a good design sense, that's done projects before that can direct a little bit more of the design. It could be a homeowner like yourself that doesn't really feel like you need the fanciest of design and don't expect to be published in Architectural Digest. But you do appreciate detail. You do appreciate feasibility to make sure what you want can actually be built. Earl can really just be anything that you want. He will advise you. You'll say, "Oh, it looks faster to go this way on the trail." And he said, "It looks faster, but you got to be careful. There's a gorge that we'd have to cross there, it's a little bit flatter. And then we'll have to go around this summit that may or may not have eroded away. We're, it's unsure if we can get that path. If we go this way, it's a little steeper climb, but it's more of a direct shot, and there's less obstructions." So let's decide together which direction we want to go. So I'm a real fan of Earl. I've got another architect I work with out of the Sacramento area who's now running different offices for one architecture firm. And he is an excellent designer, very creative. But also comes from the construction trades as well. So he is a licensed architect, meaning he has the credentials, but he understands construction. So he's already thinking in his head that, "Okay, I love this idea, but now let me start thinking about how it could actually work." This is who you want. George, at the beginning, sitting in his lawn chair, may know how to do it, but doesn't really let you know. He said, "Outta the contract, we'll figure it out. I don't need to draw any details for that. We'll just let him figure it out." One of the worst things you can do to a contractor or homeowner relationship is make them figure out the details in the field. Henry, great ideas, works through all the details himself as much as he can to convey to a contractor, but probably had to have a contractor come in and talk with him and make sure that these details are right where Earl knows how to put it together, knows the details. And he also knows that you don't have to go overboard with the details, but he knows what the contractor needs from an architectural detail. Architectural detail is a blown-up area of a particular element in your home that needs more detail. That's really hard to see on just normal floor plans. So he'll draw the details that are necessary to do the work. So these are architects. And this is just my take on three architect characteristics that I've experienced that you need to be aware of. And if you can find a balance between these, you're going to be in a really good situation. And now you know a little bit more about what you need to know in order to make those decisions.

So the project type that you have, the project size, the level of complexity, how high-end a home it is, what your budget is, how much you're willing to invest in design, and don't go off of just what you think you should spend on design. You need to understand what the real value of design is, what the normal costs are out there. And then match that up with your profile of the architects that you're talking with.

Now the next segment of this episode is residential designers, and this one we can go through a little bit fast because we've already talked about some of the design principles and what's important when you're working with different designers. The first one is we talked about were architects, residential designers. Now, that's a term that I use. It's used in the industry, but residential designers are not interior designers necessarily, and they're not architects. What residential designers are, are people that may have a degree in architecture, but don't have a license in architecture from their state. For whatever reason, some people felt it wasn't necessary, some people didn't have the finances to go to that next level. Some people are lazy. They didn't want to get it. They just wanted to do what they do. For whatever reason, it doesn't necessarily matter. Some residential designers are interior designers that have excelled in their interior design field and understand structure a little bit better and can draw and do drawings and floor plans and details to a certain level. They can't do it to a level of an architect.

So residential designers can be a good fit for you, and the reason you'd probably consider them is because they're often less expensive than a licensed architect. Now, residential designers, in my experience in looking at projects that are associated with architects and projects that are associated with residential designers, is that architects have a more sophisticated approach. They have more knowledge base; they have engaged in many more projects that are at a level to contribute to their experience and to their wisdom when it comes to designing your project. Now, that's all great, but if you're not designing a project that is out of this world and you just want to kind of use inspiration of plans that you found online, but you want a designer to help you recreate that design or modify it, a residential designer could help you with that. But be prepared when dealing with residential designers that they're not going to be, in my opinion, not going to be as creative, as cutting-edge as architects.

Now, that's a general statement. Now, I'll have to say in my business, I used residential designers, and they were interior designers who I trained or brought to the table experience in architectural plans, drawings, renderings. They were adequate to generate plans for renovations, remodels, even additions. I'll have to say, I challenged a lot of my designers to do that, and if they're listening, the hair is probably standing up on the back of their neck right now. Even though it was crazy time while we were running our business, they learned a lot, and these designers kicked butt. They prepared a complete set of plans, and when we got into crazy details, and we would bring in a structural engineer to help us, and it worked fine. And it worked great. And what's great about an interior designer as a residential designer is their aesthetic is there. So keep in mind that architects don't necessarily focus on interior design, right? The finishes, the materials, the overall, the color scheme. Now that's, I'm saying that, now there's a lot of architects that do that and frankly do it really well, but they don't necessarily focus on that. So that's another question you're going to want to be asking an architect. When it comes to the interior design, the materials, the colors, the specifications for tiles and stones, "Are you going to help me with that, or should we bring in an interior design person to work with us?" Some architects have interior designers on staff, but residential designers can be a really good fit for projects, usually for remodels, renovations, kitchen and bath design, maybe some additional work. I wouldn't necessarily recommend them for new custom single-family homes that are on the mid to upper-end side, and maybe not even at all for new homes, unless you are an experienced homeowner with a vision of what you're looking for and can direct them quite a bit. That is an example of residential designers.

Now here's a deal where I had a client that I worked with for many years. Here's an example of where they work and they don't work. We started with their first home in the Bay Area, and it was an existing home where they just wanted to renovate the whole interior. Substantial renovation, I would call it, where we removed walls and we put structural beams in to do an open floor plan and concrete footings underneath the house to support these beams. All new kitchen design, bathroom design, outdoor backyard design. And we were able to pull that off with my interior designers/residential designers. And how that worked is 'cause interior designers can be really good for space planning and colors and materials. And when you can bring all that together into one mind, the structural aspect, we can get somebody else to help us with that. So that's how I operated on many projects. So this client, we did two phases on the same home. So I provided design and construction services to this client for these two projects that were one after the other. It worked out really well.

This client then said, "You know what? I owned another lot in Northern California. There's no home on it, and I want to now design a new home." They came to me and asked me if I would help them, and I said, "Of course I will." Because they were really great to work with. And if you're listening, you know who you are. Now, in that case, what I did is I basically orchestrated the project. I brought in a licensed architect. I brought in an interior designer from my team. And then I brought in all the design consultants to design the project. And that's getting into a little bit too much detail at this stage of the game in this podcast episode. But the bottom line is I acted as their owner agent, if you will. I orchestrated the whole design of this very high-end custom home, accessory structures, accessory dwelling units on a hillside, and it took us over a year, might even take us two years, to fully design this project down to the T, and we were able to then budget the whole project out and phase it out and do all kinds of things because we had enough details. So that's an example where same client, two different areas, two different types of projects. And how you can strategically do that. So I would never have a residential designer, interior designer, design a custom estate for a client.

So some of the things about a residential designer that you're going to want to understand before you hire them is, do they have structural engineering knowledge? Do they have structural knowledge? And you're going to ask them that question. You can say, "Do you have enough structural knowledge as a residential designer and interior designer to be able to propose realistic designs?" And listen for their answer. Some of them might say no. Some of them might say yes, and if they say yes, the next question might be, "Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience then and how you've come to that?" Other people might say no, but, "I have the contractor that I use, or I have a structural engineer that I bring in," which is perfectly fine to evaluate the project during the design process. The other thing you want to do with a residential designer is make sure that you do evaluate, and you should do this with all designers, but residential designers in particular, make sure that you can evaluate from a layman's perspective their design work, for example. "Can you show me examples of the 3D renderings that you provide clients to help them understand your design ideas? Do you have a way that you can demonstrate all the finishes and the materials that you're using for a project?" What you're looking for are storyboards, mood boards, specifications, things like that. And then you're going to want to do a little bit of research online in your community to see what projects they've done, asking a residential designer and an architect, frankly. "Can you provide me a list of a few of your past references that can work?" Because they're going to pick out three or four of their best, most happiest clients. But some other follow-up questions or additional questions you can ask are, "Can you provide me a list of projects that are under construction right now that you could contact? Can you provide me a list of projects that you've just begun design work with the client?" You see where I'm going here? You're trying to get a better-rounded picture of the experience that other people are having, regardless of whether they're residential designers or architects. But in residential designers, understanding their capabilities more is usually the angle, because architects generally have it down more so than residential designers. But don't get me wrong. Residential designers can be very valuable and can do a really good job. It's just important for you to know if they're a good fit for you and your project. But just remember, they are not architects. They don't have licensing, and they may not even have any insurance. So you're going to want to get to that as well.

Let's try to close in on this one. This is an important one. This is the beginning of the world of design. The world of design is a multi-episode endeavor here, but it starts with the right design team. And when we get into this further, you're going to understand that it's not just one person that designs a job. There are multiple people that get involved. So selecting the right designer type: architect, residential designer. Then understanding the characteristics of each. So real quick, going back to residential designers. Residential designers, not only formed up by interior designers with more capabilities, they also could be contractors, builders that have a good design sense. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you feel like they're going to be able to meet your design objectives. I found that to be pretty valuable. They also could be people that are working for architecture firms as a junior architect that don't have the licensure. So there's a handful of different ways residential designers kind of surface. So keep that in mind.

So you're going to want to match the professionals to your project needs. You're going to want to verify the credentials for the architects. You can do that online, at your state boards, and get their license numbers and do any of that kind of basic stuff. You're going to want to make sure that they're a good fit for you. Personality-wise, communication-wise. This is important because you're going to be trying to convey all of these ideas and visions that you have, and you need to make sure that they're listening. A good architect begins by listening to their clients and then responding with solutions that meet their requirements. A good architect or designer offers suggestions and input to improve on your design and your ideas. A good architect or designer tells you in a subtle way if your ideas are crazy or unrealistic so that you don't go down some garden path.

So that is "Understanding Design Professionals," and that's talking about architects and residential designers specifically. The next episode is going to be about interior designers and why I think they're so important. Now, one thing I want you to envision, there's an orchestra in front of you, and you're the conductor. You're standing up on the podium with your hands raised high, and you are directing your musicians to achieve your new home. Now, you may not want to be on the podium, and that's okay. Your architect or your designer can be your conductor, and you can step off, and you can be writing the music, if you will, to feed them. And they can conduct the orchestra. They can bring the team together. Because there are many people that become involved in designing a project. You may not know how to play the violin, but you sure know when it sounds funny. Think about that. And the only way you're going to know it sounds funny is having somewhat of a trained ear. And that's what I'm doing here today. That is where we're at today.

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