Jenny Slingerland

*I started this response to just Melissa, but I think we all struggle with knowing the best way to know how to charge. Some do hourly. Some do by square foot. Some do flat fee. Some do a hybrid of two or more of these. If you have a way that works for you please feel free to share! I feel like I’m a little all over the place with my answer below, sometimes my fingers can’t type as fast as my brain wants and sometimes my brain can’t find the words I need to express myself clearly, but hopefully you can make some sense of it!

Read her question above first.

@melissa.manning Not silly at all! You will learn over time, just like with the rugs you mentioned, how long it will take you to select things like countertops. I know that if I am picking a natural slab (marble, quartzite, granite, etc.) that I will want to see those slabs in person, so I will need to include the time needed for travel in my estimated hours. If the client is a man-made quartz kind of person, I have a few of my favorites that I’ve used on multiple projects and I have samples in my library that I can use to show the client, so I don’t have to travel at all! Plumbing I don’t have to travel for because I know the lines so well now. For tile I am most likely going to go to a tile shop, so that would be one I need to add for travel time. Carpet, I have samples but if it’s not what I’m looking for, I’ll venture out. Hardware, I have a lot of samples from Top Knobs, but if needed, I will browse the cabinetry vendors samples as well when we are there looking at cabinetry samples. Depending on your area and proximity to showrooms, you may find online sources like Material Bank a great way to get samples.

As far as adding time for travel, I don’t typically say, “It’s 45 min each way to the slab showroom so that’s 1.5 hours travel time plus the time to pick the slab, so that’s at least 2 hours,” because the fact of the matter is that if you make that one trip to the slab showroom, you may select the kitchen slab, pantry, powder bath, laundry room and all bathrooms. So spread the time around all the countertop entries. If you think it will take you 30 min to pick each slab, only add 15 min for travel to that showroom, knowing the other 8 or so slabs for the whole house will also have 15 min for travel attached to each of them. If you are only doing a kitchen remodel, then feel free to add the full amount of time.

Another thing to think about is, how long should I add to put the info into the finish schedule? 5-10 min? How long to add the tag in the Cad drawing? 5 -10 min? So maybe you estimate an hour for each slab = 30 min to select, 15 min for travel, 10 min for finish schedule and 5 min for Cad tags?

Just some things to think about. It’s hard to sit down and come up with all these numbers and often times you’ll see the total at the end and your jaw will drop. That’s why I’ll look at my hours and the square footage and compare them to see if my numbers are way off. Sometimes they are and if I feel like they are the kind of client that I can move quickly with, I’ll lower the hours estimate. Sometimes I’ll look at the hour total and be like, “Yup, it’s definitely going to take me this long.” Some people want over the top designs, they want exotic, unique pieces that is going to require a lot of running around to source items. Maybe you can tell they are going to be clients that have a hard time committing to a selection, all these additional factors should play a roll in how you charge.

Also, make sure you also have a line item for Drawings to account for the time you invest in CAD hours to create the elevations. You may chose to charge less per hour on these if you have someone on the team or have subbed this part of the project out. In your hour spreadsheet you can add a column with the hourly charge for that task. If it’s design related (picking tile, countertops, etc.) put your rate. If someone on your team or you sub out the work to input items into the finish schedule and for cad drawings, maybe you charge that at a lower rate. *we can discuss in class too

I wish there was an easier answer! MAKE SURE YOU TRACK YOUR HOURS! Then at the end of the project you can compare the hours you estimated to your actual hours and see how close you were. Maybe you’ll be over in hours, which means you may need to edit your estimated hours again. Maybe you moved quicker than you expected and if you are flat fee for your designs, you made more of a profit on the job!

Hope that helps!

@jenny.williamson Also, it’s totally fine to have sub out the cad work! I learned cad 20 years ago and I don’t remember a thing! I think it’s a better use of your time to be working on the designs and hiring out cad anyway.

@gina.caulkins @sherial.starr Great question! Yes, you can absolutely outsource it. I would just make sure to have a few examples on each category to get them started. That way they have an example of what they need to include. You will want to have someone double check their work or give it a look yourself. I tried to outsource this once and it did not go well we had to re do many of the entries. Now I have a non-designer member of the team do it and it’s great. Just make sure the person is very detail oriented.

@giovanna.perot-averill Yes! We always show the client the scope of work so they see the amount of selections that we will be making. We also add it to the contract as an addendum so they can always refer to it if they need to. It protects you too, because they may say, “You said you were going to select “x,” and you didn’t.” Then you can refer to the scope of work (which they will have in their contract) and say, “I’m happy to do that for you, it wasn’t apart of our original scope of work, so we will charge our hourly fee of $__ /hr for that new selection.”

I wouldn’t attach the estimated hours per item because they will say, “I cannot believe it will take you X amount of hours to select a countertop.” You DON’T want to have to defend how you spend your time by saying something like, “I have to drive to and from the slab showroom, find the slab that works with the other selections we made, get it put on hold with your GC, let them know it’s there, have them reach out for pricing and get back to me with pricing before I can even put it in the finish schedule.” They will knit pick your time if you break it down for them. Somethings just take time and they won’t ever really understand it.

@lauren.cabral Honestly, those are my most productive meetings. It shows the homeowners that we are there for them, to meet their needs whilst staying in “budget,” even if there isn’t officially one yet. It also shows the builder/GC that you are a team player and that you want to make this a good experience for all. Even when budget is determined by the builder, I will still sit down with the builder and homeowner to express my feelings of where I think we can meet those numbers and where I feel we may need more $$ to meet the client’s expectations.
I cannot tell you how many builders will budget for an entry level tract home when they’re actually building a $2m+ custom home for their client. That’s why we’re here because at the end of the day, if you give the client the look they want and it’s $100k’s over budget, YOU look bad, not the builder. Having the conversation up front lets everyone know that there are areas where you may go over budget to meet their wishes.
IF YOU CATCH IT EARLY ENOUGH IN THE PROCESS the builder can increase the budget for the construction loan and the client won’t have to come out of pocket in cash. If you don’t, the client will have to make a choice to pay out of pocket or take the less expensive option and not get what they wanted.
**BE THE DESIGNER THAT SHOWS YOUR EXPERTISE BY ADDRESSING THESE ISSUES EARLY ON. That’s why I have you create a budget for yourself before you make selections, so you can see if you can meet the budget with the look you want.
Hopefully that makes sense!

@christine.gairdner @colleen.slack @diana.simon Yes! They are supposed to upload that week’s slides after each class. I will reach out! I saw week 2’s slides, but not week 1’s. It’s after 5pm on the east coast, so it likely won’t be until Monday. I’ll try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

Oh! The finish schedule! Yes, you’ll get that template when we talk about the finish schedule! 🙂