FAQs

Our design process follows six milestones that all center around open communication. Your design journey with CRD will begin with a Design Programming Meeting in your home, which is our opportunity to learn more about your goals, take measurements of your home, and gather ideas. This is followed by a Schematic Design Meeting, where your designer will get your feedback on some initial floor plans or design directions. You will then have the opportunity to review the next round of drawings, 3-D renderings, and preliminary pricing at the Schematic Estimate Meeting. This is followed by a series of Design Development Meetings, where you will further refine your design. At the Letter of Intent Meeting, you will review estimated pricing and make the decision to move forward with construction. Finally, at the Construction Agreement Meeting, you will have the opportunity to review your final pricing and construction documents before signing a fixed-price construction agreement. From there, construction begins, and soon you will be enjoying your remodeled space.

See Also: The CRD Design Build Process

CRD has four project designers on staff. When you start your project with us, you'll have a designer assigned to you. He or she will stick with you throughout the design and build process. Your designer will tackle the aesthetic challenges that are unique to your project and also work with you as you make your selections and go through bidding and scheduling. While you will work with your own designer, you will benefit from the entire team's knowledge and experience, as we foster collaboration.

See also: Meet the CRD Team

At CRD, all of our designers are trained interior designers or architectural designers that have a background in the art of interior design. We consider all the spatial and architectural requirements for your project. That means laying out interior and exterior walls, roofing, structural elements, doors, and windows. We also consider the safety aspects of your project, ensuring that your home meets building codes so that you and your family stay safe. We also tackle all the aesthetic details--everything from the flooring, paint colors, cabinetry, lighting--all the things that make the design holistic and well put-together.

See also: Do I Need an Interior Designer for My Remodel?

All of our clients and projects are unique. Some of our clients are more hands-on, and they're more interested in spending time at tile showrooms or out at plumbing fixtures showrooms. They really like to be hands-on and make those decisions. On the other hand, some of our clients are just not as interested, or they simply don't have the time to spend their weekends at showrooms. Whether you prefer to be hands-on or hands-off, your designer will guide you through all of those selections. If you'd like, we can meet you out at a showroom and help you work out all the plumbing details, or maybe your designer will just make selections that he or she thinks are the perfect piece for your project and then present them to you.

Design build is a full-service approach to home remodeling that includes both the design and construction. The design-build approach tends to offer homeowners better efficiency, accountability, communication, and convenience for their home remodeling project.

Having design and construction under one roof is more convenient and offers greater cost accountability. When the design team and construction crew work together, project cost can be estimated accurately during the design process, so there are no surprises when the time comes to start construction.

CRD is exceptional in the fact that we focus on our clients and their goals--how they want to live in their home and how they want it to look. We are exceptionally good at putting our feet into our clients’ shoes and figuring out how they want to live in their space. We want to transform the client’s home so that they will not just be living in it, but they will love it.

Initially we like to invite clients into the office to talk about their home. We can use a multitude of online sources like Zillow, Redfin, and Google. Oftentimes our clients send pictures of the space they’d like remodeled. The point of these meetings is to get to know our potential clients and their home. We also demonstrate how our 3-D CAD system can help them visualize their project design before it’s built. Following this presentation we visit our prospective client’s home to get a better understanding of the property we’ll be working with.

Prices vary widely depending on the area of the house being remodeled, how old the house is, and if any major structural alterations need to be done to the existing home to achieve the design goal.

CRD is a fixed price construction company. We set a fixed budget once the design is finalized. Only major unforeseen conditions uncovered during construction could affect it, which is extremely rare. The only other way the budget would change would be if the client decides to change the design after construction has begun.

The design process usually runs three to five months. The size of the remodel will have the biggest effect on the design timeline.

In most cases, no. However, if we are remodeling every bathroom in the house, for instance, you may have to move out temporarily. That said, we provide a temporary kitchen if needed, and we can sometimes remodel baths one at a time so one is always available. We take great care to keep dust out of your main living spaces as well.

CRD uses both. We have lead carpenters, who act as project managers, at each jobsite to oversee the work being done by our subcontractors.

CRD warrants its work for 24 months starting from the time we sign the construction agreement. As the warranty comes to an end we always reach out to clients to let them know in advance in case any last minute fixes need to be made.

This has only happened once since we’ve been in business. If you were to start the design process with us but then find a home for sale that perfectly meets your needs, that’s perfectly okay. We would just bill you for the design work that has been done, and your project will end there.

Design-build is unique in that it is an all-in-one, encompassing philosophy. If you choose to work with CRD, your designer, your project manager, your estimator, and your lead carpenter are all working under the same roof. We communicate with each other constantly, and if anything comes up on a job site, we're all available to address it. This can be a significantly smoother process compared to, say, working with an architect and trying to coordinate design changes with a separate building contractor in the midst of construction. Among other benefits, the design-build process can help facilitate communication between all members of your remodeling team. We have chosen the design-build approach because we believe it promotes accountability, efficiency, speed, quality, and communication.