If a company offers free design, you’ll likely get what you pay for. If a company is offering “free design” it’s likely that the design fees are somewhere hidden in the overall cost.
“The design can make or break the project,” says
Steve Walton, Senior Design Consultant for Marrokal Design & Remodeling. It’s the least amount of the cost of the overall project but it’s highly critical to the success of your remodel. “With our process we’re going to talk to homeowners about what furniture is sentimental and how it will fit in the remodel, sun orientation, views, traffic patterns and flow, and our clients’ lifestyle—this is how we build the project. We don’t build it from a, ‘Oh, I want to add an 8 x 10 room.’ Instead I find out how my clients live and what they’re all about and then the project is designed based on those answers.”
Does the remodeling company offer several design options to help you stay within your budget?
“You have to be open to a certain budget range that you’re comfortable in and then you should really spend time up front reviewing a lot of different designs so that you don’t get locked into one design at one price point. That happens a lot. People will hire an architectural firm and they’ll end up going through weeks and weeks of planning or drawing. They’ll get a set of plans down to the point where they can then send it out for bids and then usually they find out that they’re over budget.”
Marrokal Design & Remodeling creates options that are best suited to its clients based on customers’ desired remodeling needs.
“The first meeting we have with the clients gives them specific costs for, say, six different concepts. That gives homeowners the freedom to choose based on their financial comfort level and design needs. It’s a huge difference from the architect drawing the plans, then the homeowner having to get bids on the project. This is why we’re so successful because we give clients the flexibility to choose the design and project that creates the best value remodel,” says Walton.