Design Process

The design process begins by listening to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re adding a bank of windows to an existing great room or designing an entire family retreat. The first meeting will cover a lot of ground and your initial thoughts are the foundation for the process. We will ask you to provide existing plans, personal sketches and surveys at the first meeting as those resources are available.

Small Projects

Small projects are often covered in one or two meetings after the initial visit. We may start sketching concept designs and looking at concept photos at the first meeting.  All meetings are interactive and plans are tweaked at meetings to expedite the design process. If you feel good about the proposed designs, we can have simple plans available for contractors to bid in a matter of weeks.

Large Projects

Renovations and new homes require a more involved process. We have a four-stage process that ends with a complete set of construction documents. The first stage allows us to find out the parts of your life that determine the requirements and spaces of your home. We pay special attention to your activities of daily living, the things you do over and over. By looking at these activities, we can often make your day simpler and possibly easier to manage.  

Most clients come to us with some type of scrapbook of ideas. We will look at those photos and some from the Sweetgrass Design Studio portfolio to better understand your aesthetic preferences and how to fit the function and budget of your project.

New clients often think that cost is a math formula: price X square footage = project $. Many elements go into the cost of the home; material/equipment selections, plan complexity and site conditions are a few that contribute to the cost.   Because of that interaction, we break the design process into stages to get contractors involved earlier in your projects so that you can understand the elements of the design that are generating cost.

Visualization Tools

We use 3D modeling as part of our process. This allows us to generate realistic views of what your project will look like both inside and out from multiple vantage points. In combination with photo images, you will have the best possible idea of your new home.