William Reid: [00:00:00] This will be episode number two, and this is the beginnings of starting a project. The discovery phase is going to be a multi episode endeavor here, and there's a couple primary objectives here. This is the activities that you should, that I recommend you do before you actually start engaging with an architect or a contractor.

Like I said earlier, picking up the phone and getting on the internet and looking for highly rated contractors. This is about you pausing and getting your mind right before you take the leap. Yeah. This is the foundation of building your expectations, both from a design perspective and a budget perspective.

The first episode of this series is going to be what I think [00:01:00] steps you need to take to set the expectations and start building and sharing those expectations with. Prospective architects or designers whom you would usually first engage with on a project, especially if it's a significant remodel project, especially if it's a new home construction, you'll be talking with an architect or designer to begin with.

I'm gonna open this episode up with a quote, another quote, but this is a short one. As I was writing the book, I ran into this, and it goes like this. Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. Gloria Steinem. So yes, you're dreaming and you're swiping through the pictures and you're saving all of these idea books.

Hopefully. 'cause your architect's gonna need that at some point. But there's not a lot of people out there talking about [00:02:00] how they got there. When you look at these projects online and whether you know it or not, you're beginning to plan your project. , but most homeowners just stop right there.

They just get all these pictures together. Even if they do that some people don't even do that and just expect everybody else to read their mind. This is a good step for you to start doing is saving pictures. But we're gonna set that aside for a minute and we're gonna start talking about how you share these expectations.

Or how you can really empower an architect or a designer to help you. And we're gonna start first by putting together a document of some sort. It could be a Google Doc, it could be a Word doc, it could be anything that you're comfortable in writing about or writing with, . We're gonna share some things, and the first one is the personal profile. This is where you [00:03:00] share a story about your family, about yourself. The reason you want to do this is because this is a very personal business very personal endeavor. And your architects are going to want to learn as much as they can about you, about your family, about the dynamics of your family.

How many kids do you have, how many kids are you planning to have? Are there other people that are planning to move into your home? That should be planned for things like this. So that is the goal of the first step is you need to set aside some time to share your personal profile with your architect.

Okay, so here's the steps you're gonna want to take to share your personal profile. Now keep in mind I'm visualizing [00:04:00] this being documented somewhere in a Word file or somewhere. Let's first start by coming up with your project title. You could call it the Smith remodel or the Smith Custom home or whatever you want, and that's as simple as that.

Let's just have a project title that everybody can use and reference all the way through this entire project. Now the next thing you're gonna want to do is upload an image of, it could be an image of your family. Of you or maybe your home. It's whatever you want to do to help an architect or a designer start to really get you.

Probably a family picture would be nice, but that's up to you. The next thing that you're gonna want to do is you're going to want to write a narrative, just a short paragraph that's what I call a lifestyle snapshot. you're gonna wanna include a, it's like a short story about your [00:05:00] family and the occupants of your home.

Include the children, the partners, the spouses, the pets, your careers, future plans and goals. Anything to help a design team get to know you. Here's an example, a quick one. We are a busy family of four with Ben Jane and the two kids, Nathan, age 10 and Betsy age eight. We don't have plans for more kids, but do enjoy our pet dog rufuss.

We both work in the high tech sector, often work at home, but have limited time to tackle our project. We enjoy spending time with the kids in their sports. Nathan is starting a band and Betsy has a passion for gymnastics and music. Ben and I enjoy mountain biking. Our parents live close by and enjoy spending time with the family.

So this is just a little taste for them to get a sense of, okay, [00:06:00] you're not one person, you're four people, maybe six people. You have a pet that needs to have plans for, and so on and so forth. Whatever you can do, the more you share, the better. And then the next thing you're gonna wanna do if you're comfortable, is list out the family members such as, the husband, the wife, the partners, the children, the grandparents, whoever are going to be the occupants of the home.

Is one of the first things that an architect is gonna be looking for from a programming standpoint. Programming means that we're going to create the structure of the home by the amount of rooms and spaces for the occupants to use. And they're gonna be tailored to the occupants. So if you have two kids, but you're planning to have more, or you want at least have a provision to have more.

That's going to fit into the personal profile of the occupants of the [00:07:00] space. What I like to do is just, have the first name, the last name, and the relationship I. And you could even include the ages if it's relevant that you're comfortable with. But that is the idea here.

So we've given them kind of a narrative, a story, and now we're going to list the actual occupants of the home. And the architect knows they need to design for a boy and a girl. Children, and a husband and a father and a wife or husband and a wife, sorry. Or whatever your life situation is.

This is what they need to know out of the get go. To build a good foundation of what I call the personal profile. You also might want to consider uploading pictures of your family. Of the individuals or group. You may have done that in the cover, what I call the cover photo of the project, but you can elaborate a little bit more.

Just show two or [00:08:00] three or four pictures of the family. Remember, we're looking for a personal connection early on, as early as possible for an architect or a designer to really understand who they're dealing with. And this is, and I'm gonna emphasize this because. It's not uncommon for, one person to lead the design of the project.

In fact, that's probably what will happen from your perspective, from the homeowner's perspective. Or maybe it's a team of two partners. It's difficult for an architect to understand how to go about the design if they don't, and they're gonna ask you these questions they normally do. Professional architects will be some of the first questions out of their mouths.

But why not get a jumpstart and why not give yourself some time to think about it ahead of time? Because you may wanna be growing your family or shrinking your family. Maybe they're gonna get ready to move out and you wanna downsize, . So again, showing [00:09:00] profile pictures of the family members can be really helpful.

Another thing that you can do is you can also, plug in your social links if you'd like. You have a Facebook account, Instagram, LinkedIn. Maybe you even have a family website that you'd like to share to give them a sense of your lifestyle. So remember, we're talking about tailoring a remodel or new home project to your lifestyle.

If you have a public profile on Facebook or Instagram, why not share it with the people that are about to enter your life? And it gets pretty personal. So why not do that? So that's the the next thing that you're gonna want to do. What we've covered so far is you want to set up a personal profile.

You want to create a title for your project and get creative with that. That way the name of this project carries all the way through all the titles [00:10:00] on plan pages, the folders in your computer are created with this project name. It's consistent all the way across.

That's another key element. You've uploaded a picture too of. Your family is a cover. Remember, this is gonna be a report that we're gonna generate at the end of this discovery stage, and then the lifestyle snapshot. Get a little creative, in fact, mess around with AI a little bit if you want, and chat GBT and just type in write me a lifestyle snapshot or lifestyle story of my family and this is who we are.

And they'll create something for you. Then you can edit it. Family members, list out the family members if you can, to give a little bit more details , and back that up with some pictures to help the architect and designer instantly connect. And then lastly, upload some of your social profiles to really give 'em a sense of the lifestyle.

[00:11:00] Now we're not done yet. What we're gonna wanna do next is I want you to be thinking about some questions that could be answered or asked by your architects and think about 'em ahead of time and answer them within this document that you're gonna be providing them. One of the things that you're gonna want to do is let 'em know what you're, what you want.

We're gonna get to that later into the dreams and visions section. But this is just more about, what type of project are you looking for? You're looking for a new home or a remodel and renovation. That's it. let them know right out the beginning, right outta the shoot.

I want a new custom home, or I'm planning to do a remodel it and expansion. That's the next thing. The other thing that your architect is really interested in is your experience, and the reason they want to know this is they can tailor their. Offerings to you based on [00:12:00] your experience and also how they explain things.

If you've if you've already built, two custom homes in the past or done three remodel projects in the past and hired multiple contractors and architects, then they're gonna gear their whole presentation and even their communication differently than to somebody that has never done a project before or has very limited experience.

So ask yourself these questions and answer them ahead of time. Have you ever taken on a significant remodel or renovation project? Yes or no? And if you have you can elaborate on that if you'd like. Have you ever taken on a new build project, yes or no? Some of the answers that you could include to your own questions are I have taken on significant projects, but had a poor experience, and you can elaborate on that.

Have you ever hired an architect before? Yes or no? [00:13:00] Have you ever hired an interior designer? Yes or no? Have you ever hired a contractor or a home builder? So these questions are gonna tell an architect where you're coming from before they even meet you. So they know that they need to explain their services in greater detail, perhaps.

And then you can have a little box there to share your experience. I hired a architect and designer. To do a major remodel project on my last home, and they didn't listen to me, or they didn't provide, adequate solutions. And I hired a contractor and you can explain your experiences with them, specifically what you weren't satisfied with.

This also helps an architect maybe even find you a contractor that would be a better fit for you than your past experiences. Or if you've never hired these people, they're gonna talk with you [00:14:00] about what are the things to look out for. And I'm gonna bring that up too when we get further down this path.

So share your experiences. This could be a narrative and could be part of the package that you send them. Now, another thing that is really important in the world of design, in dealing with clients, dealing with you architects, dealing with homeowners. Is, how much time do you really have to spend to dedicate to the project?

And the reason I'm bringing this up is because many homeowners, set their expectations, throw a couple pictures at the wall and say, figure it out. I'm a very busy CEO or executive, or. Whatever you are, and you're so busy that you're not gonna have a lot of time. So one of the questions is, do I have ample time to spend with the design team?

If the question is, you don't know, or [00:15:00] Yes or no but if you don't know or the answer is no, and you haven't had that much experience. Then you're gonna want to seriously consider who you hire as an architect, because you're gonna really depend on them a lot to create your project for you based on maybe even just verbal explanation that you give them.

This is a really important step here because this lays the groundwork and helps them achieve your expectations. If you have plenty of time to work on the project let's say one of of the partners doesn't work outside of the home and can allocate time to go shopping, to meet with architects and designers on a weekly, maybe even more often, a weekly basis as a project's getting designed.

If that's the case, then, and you have experience in this. [00:16:00] Then you're gonna be able to be right as part of the design team. So think about this in depth. How much time do I really have to spend on it? 'cause I can tell you, if you're building a new custom home, it's a full-time job. It can be a full-time job for you as the homeowner to tackle a project during the whole design process.

Remember, this whole podcast is about everything you do before you break ground. Everything you should do to meet your expectations. Everything you need to do to get one of your pictures up plastered all over the internet. So that's a big one. , if you don't have any time to plan on the project, the architect knowing this ahead of time is really gonna make a big difference for them. So that is the personal profile. So you're gonna create kind of a package of who you are, who your family is, how much [00:17:00] experience you have, and that could just be pretty quick, simple, answers to your own questions.

Questions that I'm posing to you. Let them know ahead of time who they're dealing with. Trust me, a good designers and architects are already formulating designs in their head from the day they meet somebody and the day people start conveying to them who they are and what they want.

The next step in this episode of discovery is what I call the property profile. So step one is the personal profile. Step two is the property profile. Pretty clear, pretty obvious what we're gonna talk about, but it's really important that the architect understand right at the beginning remember.

This is something we're gonna even send to an architect before you even meet 'em. Maybe you've been referred to an architect. By a friend or a colleague, and [00:18:00] you want to reach out to them visualize yourself taking this package that we're gonna create in the Discovery series giving 'em a call and saying, hi, I'm Mr.

And Mrs. Jones. Or I'm Mr. Jones. I. Was referred to you by a very good friend of mine that used you. We like to open up a conversation about doing the project with us. You can have a, dialogue on the phone and then you could ask them, would it be okay if I send you off a package to get us started?

I guarantee you an architect will be, they'll be a little surprised, frankly, that you've even done any of this homework. Once they see what you send them, they're gonna be excited. 'cause remember, it's busy out there architects, good architects, good designers, and even contractors are busy. If they know a homeowner has it together, they're gonna be more motivated to work with you, to ask more questions.

Honestly, if [00:19:00] you really got it together. They're gonna even offer you, they may even offer you a better price on their services 'cause they know that they're going to be as productive as possible. All right, so the property profile pretty straightforward. We're gonna share with them, if you already own the property, we're gonna share with them the address of the property maybe even drop in a Google map.

Link forum so they can just easily, pick up on that. I also like to drop in maybe a realtor.com link or zillow.com. So if you're not familiar with those websites, most people are, it seems but realtor.com and zillow.com have property profiles. For just about every property out there, especially if you recently purchased the property in the last 10 years.

Even if you go to zillow.com or realtor.com, you're gonna see your house on there. 'cause some of the marketing pictures and data are [00:20:00] still on there. So an architect can, visualize them on the other end, clicking on the map going, oh, I know where this is. I know this property. I can see the lot now.

Many architects will import that into Google Earth and research the lot in the surrounding areas. If it's a new home or the surrounding buildings, if it's a remodel, all this is being done behind the scenes before you even meet 'em. This is what's cool is when you meet 'em, they're already gonna know a lot of this stuff, and if they don't, if they don't take the time in the beginning to go through some of this stuff, you can do it when you first meet 'em.

That is a big one, you're giving them a visual first you're typing in the address, you're giving some visuals with the maps and the realtor.com. Then if you don't have that luxury of the zillow.com having all the data, then you can type in, if it's a remodel project you can type in the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms that are currently there.

The existing house today. Or if it's a [00:21:00] new lot, a vacant lot where you're planning to build a custom home, then you can indicate the size of the property and things like that. And then another good smart step is to upload pictures or even videos.

Some people get really into this and they can upload pictures and videos of the property, of the existing building, let's say, from the outside and the inside, or at least just pictures of those. And again, the architect's getting, now they're getting beyond the Zillow pictures and they're looking at real life situations.

That can impact the design. Taking pictures of the whole yard area will help them visualize what's what's happening. Another thing that you can do is you can upload or let them know that you have existing documentation. So a lot of homeowners have old drawings they inherited from the previous owner.

Some [00:22:00] people even have like drawings that they did with another architect, years ago or even currently that they decided not to proceed with. The more information you can provide them, that are drawings or sometimes people even have surveys, the better. So the architect's gonna ask you, do you have any plans of your existing home?

That's one of the first things they'll ask you too is 'cause that helps them get a head start. And if you don't, that's okay. Most people don't have that. But if you do. Include it because this again, positions them to understand your property as best as possible. Now here we go back to a narrative.

Now property description is what I call it. You can see a lot in pictures and links . But if there's certain things that you like about the property or don't like about the property. Sharing more details with them to give them even a better, even a deeper perspective. So for example, [00:23:00] let's say your brand new lot has an awesome view to the Southwest and it's a sloping lot, you wanna make sure that you really take advantage of that view.

Or let's say you have an existing home. It backs up against a school yard and you are really concerned about the noise, but you do want to expand the home, so you wanna be sensitive to that. There's all kinds of like dynamics within a neighborhood that it's hard to see in the beginning and the more you can share.

So write a quick paragraph of, this is what I love this is what I hate. This is what I wanna mitigate. Some other questions that the architect's gonna come up with, probably prior to what we just spoke about is, have you already purchased the property? In some cases people are considering buying a lot, but not sure if it's the right lot to buy.

I still invite you to [00:24:00] my story, Ben and Jane and the McMillans. 'cause that's what happened to them. You may wanna reach out to an architect before you buy a lot. In fact, I highly recommend it because you don't know what you don't know unless you're very experienced. And they may tell you're crazy to buy a lot, this lot because it's too steep, or the utilities are too far away.

So they're gonna ask you, and hopefully you've told 'em already, that if you've already purchased the property, they're also gonna want to know if you have, what year did you purchase the property to give us a sense of how long you've lived in the home. Some people will buy a home and then immediately remodel it without even living in it.

Now that is fine, but you haven't lived in the neighborhood, you haven't lived in the existing structure. That gives you a much better sense of where the sun is who's the noisiest neighbors things like this. So they're gonna ask you that. Another big one they're gonna want to know is if you're located in a homeowners association, [00:25:00] and we're gonna get into that much later in this podcast, but HOAs, as they're called, can really control the design of your project, especially in new home construction.

Within planned developments such as resort areas or just any area that has a homeowner's association. This is something you're gonna want to know. Be maybe even before you purchase a lot, because HOAs are notorious for directing the design of your home from the exterior and have a lot of submittal guidelines.

So an architect's gonna want to know that. So be prepared for the answer to that question. They're also gonna want to know from a utility standpoint. What is the situation there? Is there water on the property? Is there natural gas to the property? Is there even sewer to the property? How about electricity and phone?

Again, if you have an existing home, it's pretty clear. You probably have a sewer line of hope. , but a new [00:26:00] construction. Now be careful because. Again, you loved this lot and Ben and Jane loved their lot, but they had to excavate a hundred yards just to get power to the building.

They didn't, they weren't prepared for that. , but they had already purchased the lot, so they were deadbeat, they had to stick with it. So the utilities just understand the utilities. The architect's gonna want to know that now. They'll find that on their own, but hopefully, ahead of time.

These are some of the questions that are you're first gonna get asked. Then there's other things that you're gonna want to consider in this. Step two I call it, of the discovery phase. You're gonna want to understand who your local jurisdictions are, your county building department planning department, so on and so forth, and what the zoning is of your property and down the road.

I'm gonna talk a lot about zoning, but the zoning of your city. The [00:27:00] zoning of your parcel by your city or your county will dictate how big of a home you can put on the lot, how close it can be to the property lines, and there's a lot of criteria there built into the, what's called the municipal code.

They're gonna want to know your zoning. They'll find that out for you. But if you know it already and you're a prudent homeowner that. Want to take a pragmatic approach. You've already kinda looked into it yourself, and I'll talk about that later. But you can always, peel back the layers depending how much time you have.

And then lastly for this step is you're gonna want to know if your property lands in any kind of FEMA flood zones, or what's called wildland urban interface. Architects refer to it as wie. So WUI, and this is all has to do with some relatively new [00:28:00] laws nationwide actually, that if your home is designated in these wild land urban interfaces, that there's certain criteria that it has to be conformed to when it comes to design.

And it can increase the cost of the home construction and then going back to flood zones. You'd be surprised. You might wanna look that up, especially if you haven't purchased a lot yet. If I already purchased it, then you are, it is what it is, and you'll have to decide how to deal with it. But flood zones can really throw you for a loop.

I had a project out on the coast in near Monterey, California. And it's a long story, but after much design work, come to find out that we couldn't modify the home to the extent we wanted because of the FEMA flood zone rules and regulations, and had to backtrack substantially to meet the codes, the homeowner had to make [00:29:00] a lot of compromises.

That is the first step. In this discovery stage we talked about creating a personal profile, right? That is so the architect and the designers can already see who you are. We talked about a property profile and now they can see your property. And we've talked about sharing your experiences with potential designers so that they can tailor their offerings to you and mold their narrative to you so they can help you learn and understand what you're about to get into. So that's what we're here to talk about today in the very early stages of the discovery. So next episode, what we're gonna get into is the fun part, and that is sharing your dreams and visions with an architect.

And I call that step three in my little program here, there's three stages of that. Stage one is your design [00:30:00] statement, kinda like your personal profile statement. Stage two is your inspirations and drilling down even further are your ideas. So thanks again for joining. This is a long journey I hope you subscribe to the podcast and don't forget to download that story.

Ben and Jane, 'cause we're starting to get into it, and you're gonna want to know some of these things and what better way to understand it by reading a horror story and a good story. So it's a little bit of both. Thanks again for joining. My name's Bill Reid and this is the Awakened Homeowner.