✅ How to Be a Great Client and Partner
I’ve had experiences where owners were engaged with the plans and had creative ideas. Then, when you sit down with them to go through the plans page by page, it’s clear they don’t understand what they’re getting. Once I explain how something is going to look, they say something like, “Oh, that’s not what we thought it would be.” Big design decisions were lost in the translation. We were about to build something the owners didn’t understand. So understanding the plans is really important.
Homeowners Jon and Mari were in a similar situation and had this tip.
Make sure your architect is able to communicate clearly about the plan. In our case, we were looking at a lot of 2 dimensional drawings. I've seen other 3d renderings, which would have been really helpful for us for understanding how the house would look in 3d space. Some of the changes that are happening now could have been avoided if we would have been able to grasp the relationship from the floor to the windows, for example. And it would have saved us at least tens of thousands of dollars.
Be careful when you see something that appears to be a problem. It's counter-productive to start telling the GC's employees or the subcontractors what to do outside the presence of the GC. It sets up a confusing situation where the worker is not sure how to proceed. The best policy is to ask or talk to the GC first. If something comes up when the GC is not there, be sure to keep them in the loop. They need to have a clear picture of where things stand, what was discussed, and any decisions that were made.
I like doing nice things for the crew, so I would drop by and give them cherry limeades or a box of cookies. Buy them pizza for lunch once in a while. But skip the beer; I don’t want them drunk on my jobsite.
Homeowners Jon and Mari:
One of the big breakthroughs we had was standing on-site with the GC and his superintendent. We didn’t have a deck in the plans and we were trying to imagine how it could work. All of a sudden, it was an epiphany. We understood the levels of the deck and how it related to all of the spaces. It needed to wrap around the corner, flow into the pathway, and connect to the lower property. And it made absolute sense because everyone was standing there and thinking about it together. That was one of my favorite moments.
Here’s an example. Let’s say the plumbers have installed a showerhead during the rough-in phase. At this point it’s just wood and pipes. When you step into the shower and account for the height of the future floor, it’s obvious the showerhead is too low and needs to be raised. It sucks, but at that moment it’s a $300 change that takes a day. If you hesitate and decide to do it later, after the tile is applied, it may be a $3,000 change that takes a week. And mess. And interruption on your life. This is why it’s important to observe and test what you can, and be prepared to react when something needs to be corrected. Otherwise you’ll be kicking yourself every time you take a shower for years to come.
When I built my house a few years back, one of the first early disagreements I had with my (now) ex-wife was about the choice of bathtubs. This decision highlighted that we needed boundaries and a clear delineation of who was making what decisions and why. Figure out what you are each passion about and then let the person with the passion make the final call on the decisions related to that.
It’s my experience that doing any huge project like building a house, starting a business, long-term travel, etc., is going to shine a bright light on both the good and bad parts of the relationship and supercharge them. Be prepared.
Getting through is all about acknowledging one another and being open and honest about shortcomings along with strengths and weaknesses. This could mean having discussions about your passions and what you want on your plate. Alternatively, if one person has no interest in a specific part of the project, the other person can take it off their plate.
My advice is to figure out the boundaries and develop a game plan before you start building. In some ways, this is like project planning your relationship as much as you project plan the house. If you don’t have a solid foundation, it doesn’t matter how many fun things you add on.
Homeowners Monique and James took a similar approach:
I think we've taken a divide and conquer approach, which has helped us play to our strengths. Early on, the design decisions moved really quickly because we had the same idea of what we wanted from the beginning, and we did a lot of the legwork.
Then, as the project got further along and more complicated, James became responsible for budgeting and all the decisions around scheduling and managing the finance process. I took all the on-site calls from the foreman and often made the on-the-fly decisions about the design. So I've taken over understanding all the architectural plans, James has taken over understanding all the line items and details and I manage people.
Something I try to keep in mind is that this experience is an enormous privilege. If you get pulled into the minutiae and the details and the frustrations, you lose sight of the fact that building a custom home is a remarkable experience. I feel like I've been lucky and that I’ve enjoyed the process. If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be to keep that perspective and not get frustrated by the little things that come up.
Architect Tom Kundig provides a perspective on his experience in working with homeowners.
People who build their own home tend to be very courageous. These people are curious about life. They're thinking about what it means to live in a house, rather than just buying a commodity and making it work.
The really important thing is to understand what your priorities are and be on the same page, because the worst thing you can do is have your architect become a marriage counselor.
Be honest with one another, know your strengths and weaknesses and work with a team who will be there when you need help with a decision. It also helps to be honest with your builder, be honest with the architect, and tell them where you want to participate, where you want guidance. This communication is super important.
Building a home is a huge project and nobody wants to work with a couple that’s constantly in disagreement. I’ve seen a lot of examples where one party just throws up their hands and tells the other person to make all the decisions. It always backfires. The couple has to find a way to work together because the bitterness will linger. If they wait too long, any attempts to accommodate that person’s needs will be expensive and cause delays.
Jon and I worked together before we were a couple and we have a lot of respect for each other. We have been in difficult situations before trying to get things done, and we have a similar sense of humor, which helps a lot. We also have a similar aesthetic, we both can look at something and say that looks bad, or I can live with that, or that looks great. I think if we hadn’t had that or if either of us had been super precious about something it would have been much more difficult.
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