Our Step-By-Step Process
“Our first date.”
The first step for any project is a free 30-minute phone consultation. This helps our team get to know you, and where you are in the home building journey.
Much like a first date, the consultation is an important step to determine if we’re a match. We enter a relationship with our clients to draft their dream home, so all involved must be comfortable with one another. We will ask questions and seek an understanding of who you are, your lifestyle and interests, and why you chose Wagner Design Services.
At the end of the phone consultation, if both parties feel there is a match, we move forward. We’ll send you our home design proposal and agreement profile to be signed and initialed, and ask for a deposit to get started.
“The foundation for an enjoyable home, is planning.”
During the first meeting, we gather as much information about your design goals as possible.
Most clients come to us after exhaustive searches and already know what they like and what they don’t. We suggest you bring examples of both. Reaching a shared definition of your dream home means we need to understand what you like, and dislike as well.
Clients often bring photos, magazine clippings and even plans they love or singular elements of spaces they admire. We want you to be as specific as possible with this dream list, including elevations, exterior finishes and other small details. During the meeting, our team takes a multitude of notes and sometimes hand sketches a few rough floor plans to expand upon your ideas. This will make sure everyone understands your vision and the how and why you like the items you’re sharing..
In addition, this meeting is a great time to discuss your life and routines. Our client-designer relationship works best when there is a good amount of comfort. We’ll ask probing questions – the size of your vehicles, how you get ready for work in the morning and your habits in the kitchen. We may even ask about your laundry preferences – do you hang clothing as soon as it comes from the dryer, or do you send laundry out? As your home designer, we strive to identify what’s important to you in a home, even if you don’t realize it yourself.
Once we have a good understanding of both your desires and your needs, we start creating a design that will address both, while staying within your budget. This time-intensive and collaborative process ensures ensures that your new space is a stress-free environment that you look forward to coming home to for many years to come.
“It’s cheap to make a mistake on paper, erase on paper, and start again.”
We pull everything together and start the schematic design process with a confident understanding of your dream home. After the first designs are complete, we will email you several letter-sized PDF files of the plans and perspectives. We provide you as much time as you need to fully assess the design and details. Once you are ready, we will schedule our first review meeting.
“We make 100 percent sure you love your home.”
To get all the details correct, we now begin the review meetings. We generally offer three formal reviews, allowing us ample time to make sure you are satisfied.
1. Schematic Design Review– In the first review meeting, we go over your first comments and suggestions. Together, we review your home design inch-by-inch and discuss everything. We take notes and make mark-ups of any corrections. Our team will offer professional design opinions, so that you can make logical and informed decisions.
Following the review session, we recommend starting your search for contractors. You will receive updated pdf design files that include full size and to-scale sheets of the plans and 2D elevations. Use these plans during contractor interviews to get a current budget range for building your home. Knowing this estimate is crucial to finishing the schematic design. Once you have an estimate, we will speak again to determine if changes are needed after knowing the costs of building the design. We then incorporate these changes into the plans and move on to the next review.
2. Preliminary Design Review- This second review is to assess the adjustments made according to our previous meeting and budget estimate. Using a program called Revit, a 3D building information modeling (BIM) application, we create a viewer that brings your vision to life. At this step you will virtually walk through your potential home and see it as if it were built. You will have the opportunity to make additional comments, notes and changes for anything you see. The advantages of using this software far exceed traditional 2D models, which are nonetheless included in the working drawing package for the contractor.
3. Prefinal Design Review– We address the changes previously incorporated and gather your final input. At this stage, we hope to get your stamp of approval. Once given, we will finalize the working drawings for your builder.
“Never leave the contractor out.”
The design phase is now complete. Our team will now put together all the information vital for construction as you move into working with your chosen contractor(s). You receive one set of originals to keep, six copied sets for the awarded contractor and one pdf. The pdf is the same as your originals, save for the signature of the structural engineer, for liability purposes. Once the files have been delivered to the build team of your choice, the Wagner Design Services team will be available to both the client and the builder to ensure a smooth building experience.
“Your dream is about to come true.”
Andy Wagner’s 29 years of experience in the architectural industry and first-hand knowledge of building ensures the next part of your journey, the construction, is painless. With our professional drawings, your contractor will easily and quickly be able to complete the dream home we started. We wish you all the happiness and luck on your home building journey.
