Design Process: Assessment

Assess to Determine Scope of Work, Budget & Timeline

Designs should be intentional. Whether you are taking on a renovation, remodel, room refresh, or another sort of design project, you want to be thoughtful and thorough. So, assessment is key. In this blog, I explore how to assess to determine your scope of work, budget, and timeline.

Overthinker doing what she does best.

In my last blog reviewing the design steps, I mentioned that the steps are not necessarily sequential. You will jump back and forth between steps, and this is especially true for the first step. So go ahead and tell yourself now that you will need to be flexible and that adjustments will be made as you go. Starting off you want an initial idea of what you are aiming for, but as you begin completing other steps, like shopping or speaking with contractors, you may realize you have to re-evaluate one or all of the following: scope of work, budget, and/or timeline.

For instance, you may not realize how long a certain selection will take to come in after ordering. Perhaps a custom sofa will take 6 months to be completed or a tile you want is out of stock and will not be available again for months. This could impact the timeline or the design if you choose not to wait. Or maybe prices have jumped higher than you anticipated since you last had to furnish a home. In this case, you’d have to decide if you want to increase the budget, reconsider design choices, or stretch the renovation out over the next few years to help financially. As you can see, these three things (the scope/design, budget, and timeline) can become trade-offs you have to negotiate. Although changes are inevitable in the world of design, it is still always ideal to do your due diligence from the get-go to eliminate any unnecessary disruptions.

Recliner Shopping - shopped till I dropped, literally!

I never anticipated the amount of time it would take me to find just the right recliner. It was like a nightmarish version of goldilocks. But that’s what I get for being particular.

Now that we've addressed that, let's dive into the first step more.

Scope of Work

Take time to really evaluate what changes you need and want to make. Whether you are coming up with a design plan for a home you've lived in for years or for a home you just acquired, reflection is key.

First, start with a list of anything that has to be repaired or replaced for the integrity of the home as well as the safety and health of its residents. These tend to be things we hate to put money towards because you usually can't see them, but they are vital. Such items might be electrical, plumbing, structural, or HVAC-related.

This is where my husband and I started. Even though we couldn't have an inspection done with our offer, we had one scheduled days after closing on the house. We wanted to know if there were any problems that needed to be addressed immediately as well as any for the foreseeable future - as both will be important to determine the scope, budget, and timeline. In addition, before we even got to cosmetic improvements, we did maintenance calls for all our home systems and utilities, which then revealed repairs needed. We ended up replacing all switches and outlets in the house, repairing some plumbing issues, replacing our water pressurizer, redoing the screens on the screened-in porch, patching up some roof areas, cleaning our chimneys, and more. We also knew that our roof would need to be replaced within 5 years - a very important consideration when planning our budget and timeline. Replacing a roof costs tens of thousands of dollars. So, whatever we budgeted for the reno, we had to make sure we were keeping a nice chunk of change on reserve for the roof.

With these costs in mind, we could then move on to evaluate changes we wanted to make in the house, be it for functional or aesthetic purposes. Ask yourself some questions. How can the space work better for you? What would help achieve this? What do you dislike visually? What would you like to see? How important are each of these to you?

I like to start with a more general list, such as:

• Paint the entire interior of the home

• Paint deck

• Add more lighting to most rooms

• Update both bathrooms upstairs

• Add more architectural detail and character with millwork to common spaces downstairs: living, dining, and family

• Reno Kitchen

• Reno mudroom

• Update Powder Room

• Furnish house (furniture, art, décor)

Then, I start to break it down into more specifics (usually after doing some of step 2, design ideas, which will be covered in the next blog). Again, your stages will blend with one another. My scope of work was revised many times as I gathered ideas and inspiration, sourced items, and obtained quotes. (I will discuss more about how to narrow down design decisions in an upcoming blog.) Eventually, the list looked like this:

• Paint Interior: all spaces (walls, ceilings, trim, and doors) minus the mudroom and powder room

• Paint deck

• Lighting:

  • Replace foyer ceiling lights

  • Add sconces in living and family

  • Replace chandelier in dining

  • Add ceiling fans/lights in each bedroom and office

  • Replace lighting in primary bathroom

• Primary Bathroom

  • Demo and replace everything but closet and flooring in vanity area

• Hall Bathroom

  • New flooring, countertops, cabinets, and accessories

  • Reglaze tub

• Family room: paneling on all walls*

• Living: board and batten, 3-piece crown

• Dining: moulding*

• Reno Kitchen, Mudroom & Powder Room: TBD (we knew from the start that these would be future projects - given our limited time before moving in and our budget, we could not focus on these yet)

• Furnish house (furniture, art, décor)

• Foyer: console table

• All of Family and Dining: tables and seating

• All Bedrooms: beds, rugs, dressers, nightstands

• Offices: desks and storage

• Basement: shelving system

This list was not just formed by design ideas I developed or discovered online. The list also reflects conversations with painters, contractors, and other trades to help me determine the best approach to achieve my goals. For instance, I called a couple of companies that reglaze tubs to learn more about the process in order to determine if it was possible for our tub and if it met what we wanted to achieve for the hall bath.

*These items are designs that changed after an initial phone conversation with a contractor or mid-renovation. As I said, the design plan is ever-evolving.

Budget & Timeline

Conversations will also lead to tweaks in the budget and timeline. We discussed different options for updating certain spaces with contractors so we knew what was possible and what it would entail (labor, cost, and time). For example, the family room goal of vertical shiplap ended up being cut from the project due to its high cost. However, the dining room design expanded due to misunderstandings with the contractor. The dining room already had a one-piece crown molding and a chair rail. We planned to keep all these and just add panel boxes below the chair rail for additional detail. However, the contractor ordered the panel box trim without approval from me, and when it came in, the profile was more ornate than originally planned. Consequently, the existing chair rail would not be proportionate. If we waited for a different trim to be ordered, we would fall behind schedule. So, we opted to use what was ordered and then replace the chair rail with one that better matched. This then snowballed into us wanting the 3-piece crown we had planned for the living room to also be in the dining room. Since it was a formal space, too, and was already getting upgraded profiles in all the other details, it made sense for a cohesive look.

Therefore, when figuring out your budget and timeline, I highly recommend calling local contractors to get rough estimates to aid in your planning. This goes for cost and time (ask not only how long a project will take for completion but also how soon they are available to start). You can search online for general information regarding these topics, but the numbers provided will vary a lot from site to site. Furthermore, from my experience, most sites underestimated the quotes I got from contractors. Therefore, they may not be the best reference. My conversations with contractors were the most helpful in finalizing my scope of work, budget, and timeline. They can also clarify the “order of operations” (so to speak), which can help your planning process. You want to know what order they will work on all the spaces as well as what order they will go in for each space. If you are renovating a bathroom, after the demo, they will be roughing in plumbing and electrical, tiling, installing cabinets, hooking up fixtures, and so on. By knowing the order, you know how to plan and prioritize your responsibilities (e.g. order tiles before the mirror as they will be needed sooner). Additionally, you know how to schedule different trades if needed.

Speaking of selections, when determining your budget and timeline, be sure to go beyond the professional's cost and schedule. Their estimates only cover so much of the design process; there are other steps that require money and time. You will need time to finalize the design, source selections, and order selections (and wait for them to come in). For instance, your contractor is not going to pick out paint colors for you. So, you have to give yourself enough time before this stage of the design to get paint samples, stare at them on the wall for days (in different lighting), and make choices. You will also have to pick out the materials and finishes needed for the work, such as tile and countertops. Not to mention the many other details in a design (hardware, light switches, art, frames for art, etc.). All of this takes time and money (not to mention, proper planning as some selections will require appointments with suppliers). And you don’t want to shortchange yourself with time when it comes to design decision-making. Otherwise, you may make choices that cost you a lot of money and regret.

Therefore, even if a contractor can start tomorrow, make sure you are ready to start tomorrow. Similarly, even if their estimate fits your budget, make sure their estimate plus everything else fits your budget (furniture, hardware, art, and décor add up fast)! Make a list of what decisions you need to make and create deadlines for yourself, coordinating these with the contractor's timeline. Additionally, outline what other costs are required outside the labor/materials covered by the estimates to ensure your budget is accounting for all expenses. And be sure to overestimate or have a contingency budget for unexpected costs. There are always surprises in renovations, and they almost always cost extra. In a future blog post, I will go over in more detail how to find the right contractor (and other trades) as well as how to work with them once hired.

As you go through this process, you will also be prioritizing the work you want done. If you have a lot of spaces you want to work on in your house, you may opt to do a number of reno phases. For us, we knew we would have at least two. We decided to save the kitchen, laundry room, and powder room for another time (probably two years down the road). The main reasoning behind this included budget and time restrictions. And we chose to group these three specific spaces because they are all connected and have the same flooring. Plus, their redesigns were not as necessary - they function well enough, they are just not pretty. And making them pretty would be a lot costlier than other spaces that needed a simple upgrade in aesthetics plus an improvement in function. We also opted to wait to paint the exterior (primarily the deck) until the following year given that our first phase was during the fall season and leaves were dropping all over the place, making it not the ideal time for that project.

So, that is the first step (and the step in between all the other steps). Hopefully, this gives you an idea of what goes into a design project and how to get started. In the coming weeks, I will be covering:

• Finding design inspiration and defining your style

• Narrowing down ideas and developing your design concept

• Space planning

• Sourcing selections and creating mood boards

If you have any questions about the above or regarding an upcoming/ongoing project of your own, don't hesitate to ask. As I like to say, consider PHL a part of your creative community. Let's design and discover together!