Briana J Watson
I teach people renovating a home to get the design right the first time, so they can stay put.
Most people who are about to renovate don't know where to begin, and most of what they're handed starts with a mood board. That's backwards. Almost everything in a renovation is cheap to change right up until one specific day, and after that it isn't. Nobody tells you which day.
The first thing to know isn't what you want. It's what's already decided, and what's coming up.
Wherever you actually are.
Two free pages, a few minutes each, no score at the end of either. One is about the project. One is about the house. Then the consultation, if you want somebody to work through yours with you.
Free. About the project.
What's already closed?
Where your renovation actually is, on the line every renovation moves along. Seven questions, most of them yes or no. You leave with your stage, what's still nearly free, and the one thing that's about to get expensive.
Free. About the house.
Five questions about your house.
None about you. What the house is doing on an ordinary day, and what that means once a wall is open. You leave with page one of a plan, written the way you'd hand it to a contractor.
The consultation.
Somebody looks at your house with you.
Three sessions. An hour on where the project is and what the house is being asked to do. Then a written page, within the week, that you hand to whoever is doing the work: what's nearly free now, what can wait, and what to say to the contractor. Then twenty minutes after they've priced it, whenever that is.
The renovation. Nothing to buy.
The Paulina Stop
A 1900s Chicago two-flat I don't intend to leave, planned around the worst version of the week rather than the best. Every decision in the order it was made, the estimates before the bids, and what things actually cost, including the ones that went badly. It's the working out, in public.
The guide, and the letter.
Nothing You Need Has to Be Ugly is how I decide what comes into a house and where I actually find it. It works on a chair, a tap or a doorway just as well as on something in a cart. Free, no address required, and it stays free.
The letter is where the next thing lands first. One decision from the two-flat with the number attached, and what it would have cost later. I send it when I have something worth saying. No drip funnels. No schedule.
None of this has to be done in order and none of it expires. Start wherever you actually are today, not where you meant to be.
I'm a Certified Environmental Access Consultant. That's the training for evaluating a space around how a person actually moves through it. It isn't a licence, and it doesn't make me an architect, a contractor, or a registered interior designer. Nothing here is stamped, structural, or about egress. Those are licensed questions and they go to the people licensed to answer them.