Design-Build Construction

Starting with an idea instead of a set of plans

Most owners do not begin with plans. They begin with a sense that the kitchen is in the wrong place, that the family has outgrown the second floor, or that the back of the house should open to the yard. Design-build is set up for that starting point. Instead of hiring a designer, waiting for drawings, then shopping them around to builders, you work with one team that carries the idea all the way to a finished room.

At Modern Remodeling we bring a designer into the project alongside Steve. The first conversations are about how you live in the house and what is not working. The next ones are on site, in the basement and the attic, looking at what the house is made of. Only then do sketches start, and they start with the structure in mind.

If you already have an architect and a finished set of plans, our Construction Management or General Contracting pages are a better fit. Design-build is for owners who want the design and the building handled together.

The process is not rushed. Some owners need several rounds of sketches before the plan feels right, and that is time well spent, because every hour on paper is an hour that does not have to be spent tearing something out later.

The builder at the design table

Plenty of good-looking designs fall apart at the first wall opening. A wide opening between kitchen and dining room is drawn without anyone asking what the wall carries. A second-floor bath lands over a joist bay with no room for a drain. A vaulted ceiling assumes rafters that turn out to be undersized for the span. When the builder only sees the drawings after they are finished, these problems arrive as change orders and delays.

With the builder at the table, they arrive as conversations. Steve can tell you on the second sketch that the wall you want gone is bearing and what it would take to carry it on a beam, or that moving the sink six feet means a new drain route through finished space below. You decide with the real trade-offs in front of you. Some ideas get better. Some get dropped early, before anyone has drawn them in detail.

He has 20 years in the trade and holds an unrestricted Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License. That experience does the most good at the design stage, when changing a line on paper is still easy.

The person who helped you decide where the island goes is the person telling you the counters have been templated.

Drawings that match what the house can carry

Once the direction is set, the sketches become drawings: floor plans, exterior views and the details the building department will want to see. Where the work is structural, an engineer sizes the beams, posts and connections, and those members are worked into the drawings so the framing plan and the finished ceiling heights agree with each other.

This is where the existing house matters most. New England houses often hide their structure behind plaster: balloon framing in older colonials and Victorians, a fieldstone foundation where an addition has to tie in, a ranch roof with no ridge beam sized for the vaulted ceiling someone wants. We open what we need to before the drawings are final, so the beam pocket on paper lands on real bearing in the house.

The drawings also become the written scope and price. Because the same team drew them and will build them, the line items are specific: which beam, which windows, which finish allowances, which decisions are still yours to make. You see the number while the design can still change to meet it. Allowances are written as real selections where we can, so a placeholder number does not quietly become a surprise once you visit the showroom.

Permit and construction with the same team

When you approve the design and the scope, we file for the permit under Steve's license and handle the building department's questions. If the property is in a local historic district, exterior changes go before the historic district commission first. If a bedroom is being added on a septic system, Title 5 brings a design-flow review. We tell you early which of these apply, so they shape the schedule instead of interrupting it.

Then the same team builds it. Our crew does the carpentry, licensed electricians and plumbers do their work under their own permits, and inspections follow the stages the state building code sets: rough framing, the trades' rough work, insulation, final. Because nobody is reading the drawings for the first time, questions on site get answered quickly, and the person answering was in the design meetings.

You also keep the same contact throughout. The person who helped you decide where the island goes is the person telling you the counters have been templated. Steve built the company on better communication and making sure the job is done right, and design-build is the format where those two things are easiest to keep together.

Changing course once the design is set

Designs change after they are approved, and that is normal. A cabinet layout feels different once the walls are framed. A window you liked on paper looks small once the opening is cut. In design-build, those moments are easier to handle because the person who drew the room is the person standing in it with you.

When you want to change something, we tell you what it touches: the structure, the trades, the materials already on order, the inspections already passed. Then the change is written up and priced before the work changes. If it is a good idea, we say so. If it would cause problems further down the line, we say that too, and explain why.

The same goes for what the house reveals. If a wall opens and the framing is not what the drawings assumed, the designer and the builder work out the fix together, and you get one answer instead of two people pointing at each other. That is the practical reason to keep design and construction under one roof.

See the rest of our construction work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.