Why Bids Don't Add Up

An addition, home remodel, kitchen remodel, or bath remodel, is more than a number. It's something you're going to live with. It's something you're looking forward to as bringing new value, excitement and utility to your home. And it's something you're going to have to live through, so you want it done right, without a lot of headaches, setbacks, and cost overruns. Instead of looking at bids, we suggest you look at the quality of the work each company has done before and its process.

As you interview each company, ask yourself these questions:

• Will this company do quality work?
• Are they good people? Will they treat me and my family well?
• Will they be able to understand and fulfill my needs and wishes?
• Will they use good subcontractors—people I want in my home?
• What structures do they have in place to make sure they will finish the job when they say they will?
• What steps will they take to minimize the disruption to my life during construction?
• Does their bid really include everything? Or will there be changes and change orders that will raise the ultimate price I pay?
• What are they sacrificing or leaving out of their bid in order to beat another company's price?

Why Bids Aren't in Your Best Interest

The purpose of a bid is to give you a way to compare one company to the next. But bids don't really compare companies. They compare price. So in creating bids, companies often sacrifice something to get a lower bid than the other company. Often, it's quality or service. Either they're going to use lower quality materials or they're going to sacrifice service, spreading their people too thin over too many jobs, or using substandard people.

Our Method
We want you to choose based on company, not just price.

So we will:

• Talk to you about your project
• Find out what your needs and wants
• Examine the structure of your home
• Help establish a realistic budget and prepare an estimate for the level of finish you desire.

After we agree to work together we then enter the design details phase where we:

• Developing designs and alternatives
• Identifying the materials and level of finish you want
• Outlining a general scope and budget expectation
• Completing a final concept
• Establishing a start and end date

From this final concept, we can develop a schedule and a final contract price. Both of which we'll hold to—unless you make changes or additions on your end.