Want to remodel your kitchen or your bathroom but think you can’t afford to hire a designer? Think again! In today’s competitive marketplace, more and more General Contractors and Remodeling Companies are hiring professional kitchen and bath designers to help you design your perfect project – and, the good news, they are staying price-competitive with construction companies that don’t have designers. Why are they doing this? Because they feel (and rightly so) that if they can take the design work (and expense of time and money) out of your remodeling equation – but stay price-competitive – they can win your business over their “designer-less” competition. And you know what, they are right. More and more people are too busy or too lacking in design confidence that they appreciate having a professional help them discover their personal style, give them color layouts and plans, do the shopping for them and provide a selection of products (sinks, faucets, countertops, cabinets, backsplashes, to name just a few) for them to choose from, all from the convenience of their own home.
Designing your kitchen or bathroom can take several weeks if not many months of your time – and gas money – going from appliance stores to cabinet showrooms to paint stores to tiny tile boutiques, etc. You will have to work with a different showroom designer for each part of your project. You become the “lead” designer with a staff of busy, overworked – perhaps indifferent, and even sometimes un-trained “designers”. You will still have the responsibility to “pull-it-all-together” and make the design work – wouldn’t it be nice if you could afford to have someone from HGTV just come do it for you? Well, maybe HGTV won’t be coming to help, but you can get your design done for you, if you search out a design-build Remodeling Company. They will do all the work for you. You can choose to spend a few hours and a couple of meetings with one designer (or design team) and be confident in the final design, or spend months on end and still not be sure what your kitchen is going to look like, if the tile backsplash is going to work with the tile on the floor, with the paint colors on the wall, etc.
Why Not –?
Why not let a professional do it? Most people don’t, because a designer can cost thousands of dollars and add significantly to the cost of your kitchen or your bathroom remodeling project. So, it makes sense for General Contractors to add professional designers to their staff and include the design service for you. But, how do they do this? How can they afford the cost of a designer when you can’t? Well, for 2 reasons:
- Most independent designers charge anywhere from $60 to $250 an hour for their time depending on their experience and the market they serve. This is because they have a business to run with all the overhead expenses, and sometimes long gaps between paying clients. A designer on staff with a salary costs the General Contractor much less than the independent designers charge, so their design costs are much lower than yours will be. And, they can spread those costs out over multiple projects. The designer gets a steady income with no business expenses; the Remodeling Company gets to provide the design service at a much lower cost per design hour.
- A design-build Remodeling Company will not only design your project for you, they will shop for all the products you will need (presenting you options to choose from that are within your budget) and then sell them to you at market-competitive prices. Since they are in the industry, design-build Remodelers can take advantage of buying the products at trade rates; this allows them to cover their design costs and even make a profit, while you are paying for construction and products at competitive rates. And, you’ve saved your time and money by letting them do all the running around for you. If you calculate the amount of time alone you would have to spend and compare it to your hourly income, you’ll get a pretty good idea that this is looking like a better and better deal all the time.
Design-build firms are not for everyone. The DIYer — probably not; the bargain shopper — definitely not; but, the busy professional, the overworked homemaker, the dual income family — these are the people who would most benefit by searching out a Remodeling Company that has on-staff professional designers with a “turn-key” solution to kitchen and bathroom remodeling needs.
Finally, we have great news for you — Design Build 4 U provides ALL these services and more, and right here in Chicago. Call us today (773-598-5533) and let’s get to (“not”) work!
