Benefits to the Owner of a great Construction Document set
An underappreciated but oh-so-important part of our interior design consultancy is the Construction Document Set aka the
Design Book
This set of documents is comprised of drawings and specifications, usually in AutoCad, Word, and Excel formats. There are hundreds of selections that go into a custom home, and they need to be communicated to the builder, contractor, makers, and craftspeople in a way that gives them all the information they need to price, purchase, build, and install what we have designed, and the owner has approved. This step is very important to protect the owner. It should be completed before pricing begins and preferably include the builder’s input during design decisions. Some advantages to the owner include:
1) When pricing a project, the owner gets more accurate pricing when there are few question marks and hard numbers the contractor can build from. Perhaps small items like wallpaper or cabinet hardware don’t need to be decided, but the more items finalized and documented the more accurate the pricing and schedule.
2) Two proposals can be solicited that are apples to apples if there is a well-documented construction set. Then conversations can be had to determine areas that are not as important to the owner and can be changed or removed line by line.
3) If decisions are not clearly documented and communicated the owner will likely pay for all errors made. Regardless the owner often pays, so streamlining communication and reducing miscommunication is in their interest. It is cumbersome for an owner to keep up with all the changes on a project and keep track of the additions and credits during construction when there are so many ‘game time’ decisions.
4) Projects take years from inception to final move-in and anything not well- documented will be forgotten.
5) It takes a well-versed interior design consultant to document each decision in the specific vocabulary and way of working for each subcontractor. Being familiar with all the trades needed to finalize an interior and giving them the information in the format they want is very helpful and gets a more highly detailed project that is well built.
6) To ensure lead time delays do not impact the schedule and the design and to secure the best pricing, Items can be ordered (and stored) earlier. One too many favorite finishes have been deleted from a project because they were ordered last minute. This can be very disappointing to the owner and result in more design fees.