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The consultation
Blocking behind a shower wall is a few pieces of timber before the drywall goes up. After the tile is on, it is a demolition.
There are three or four decisions like that in any piece of work on a house. Almost free at the right moment, and not undoable cheaply afterwards. Nobody is going to tell you which ones they are. Not because anyone is keeping it from you. The people who know are designers, the people who need to know are homeowners, and those two are almost never in the same room at the point where it would still be free.
If your body already changed. Nobody drawing up your kitchen is picturing the day your hands will not close. They are looking at you now, upright at the counter, pointing at cabinets. And on a good day, so are you. The thing worth building for is not that version of you. It is the range.
If it is your house and you are staying. Almost everything written for you at this point assumes the goal is a house that cannot hurt you. What you want is a house that stays yours and goes on working when your hands or your knees or your week are not what they were. Those are different projects. One of them ends with a house full of equipment. The other ends with the switch where your hand already goes.
If you are doing this for someone you love. The house is theirs. Anything decided without them in the room produces a house they will resent and work around, and you will have paid for it. Come to the sessions together if you can.
What you walk away with. A written page you hand to your contractor. What to do now because it is nearly free now. What waits five years. What to stop paying for. Which questions to take back to the people you are already paying, in the order they need answering. It is one page on purpose, because it is the only document a contractor will read, and it stays true after you have forgotten what was said on a video call.
What it costs to decide without it. A wall opened twice. A door ordered at thirty inches because nobody said thirty-six. A bathroom that works on the day it was designed and on no other day. None of these show up as a line on the quote. They show up two years later as a room you have stopped using.
How it runs. Three sessions, spaced across your project rather than used up in a week. Session one is an hour and it is the intake. No homework and no form; I ask, because you do not yet know what is going to matter and I do. Send a floor plan if you have one and photographs of the rooms. Session two is forty minutes, once I have worked through what you sent, and it is the recommendations. The written page follows within a week. Session three is twenty minutes and it is yours whenever you want it, usually after a contractor has quoted you and said something that did not sit right. No expiry, one reminder at three months, and I will not chase you. An unused session is part of the price, not a refund.
If an architect has already drawn something, tell me when you book. Session two becomes that drawing, marked up against what your days ask of the house. Same price.
Live or recorded, same price and the same work. Do all three as calls, or send the worksheet and photographs and get back a recorded walkthrough plus the written page. You can rewatch it. Nobody has to be presentable at two in the afternoon. Pick whichever one you would rather do.
If you are not renovating at all, this still works, and often better. A renovation forces a hundred decisions at once on somebody else's timeline. Without one you work out what needs to change and in what order, then do it over two years as money and energy allow.
Why me. I am a Certified Environmental Access Consultant, which means I was trained in how a person's function meets a building, and I am renovating a 1900s Chicago two-flat around a body that does not cooperate, publishing it as it happens, estimates first and then what things cost. It is more convincing than anything I could put after my name.
There are two slots a day, three days a week, and that is deliberate. A calendar that assumes I will be reliably well is one I would end up breaking on somebody else's renovation timeline. If a session needs moving from either side, it moves.
Where the line is. I am not an architect, a contractor, or a registered interior designer. Illinois restricts that last title and I do not hold it. I do not produce construction documents and nothing I give you is stamped. If a decision touches structure, egress or life safety, I will tell you it is a licensed question and send you to the person licensed to answer it. What you get from me is questions, and the order to ask them in.
If it is not worth it. If you get to the end of session two and the written page and I have not told you anything you could not have worked out on your own, say so within a week of the page arriving and I will refund you. I would rather give the money back than be recommended to nobody.
What happens after you pay. An email straight away with the booking link and how the three sessions work. You book session one yourself, Tuesday through Thursday mornings. The link for session two arrives the day after session one. The link for session three is in the written page, and it keeps working for as long as you need it.
Blocking behind a shower wall is a few pieces of timber before the drywall goes up. After the tile is on, it is a demolition.
There are three or four decisions like that in any piece of work on a house. Almost free at the right moment, and not undoable cheaply afterwards. Nobody is going to tell you which ones they are. Not because anyone is keeping it from you. The people who know are designers, the people who need to know are homeowners, and those two are almost never in the same room at the point where it would still be free.
If your body already changed. Nobody drawing up your kitchen is picturing the day your hands will not close. They are looking at you now, upright at the counter, pointing at cabinets. And on a good day, so are you. The thing worth building for is not that version of you. It is the range.
If it is your house and you are staying. Almost everything written for you at this point assumes the goal is a house that cannot hurt you. What you want is a house that stays yours and goes on working when your hands or your knees or your week are not what they were. Those are different projects. One of them ends with a house full of equipment. The other ends with the switch where your hand already goes.
If you are doing this for someone you love. The house is theirs. Anything decided without them in the room produces a house they will resent and work around, and you will have paid for it. Come to the sessions together if you can.
What you walk away with. A written page you hand to your contractor. What to do now because it is nearly free now. What waits five years. What to stop paying for. Which questions to take back to the people you are already paying, in the order they need answering. It is one page on purpose, because it is the only document a contractor will read, and it stays true after you have forgotten what was said on a video call.
What it costs to decide without it. A wall opened twice. A door ordered at thirty inches because nobody said thirty-six. A bathroom that works on the day it was designed and on no other day. None of these show up as a line on the quote. They show up two years later as a room you have stopped using.
How it runs. Three sessions, spaced across your project rather than used up in a week. Session one is an hour and it is the intake. No homework and no form; I ask, because you do not yet know what is going to matter and I do. Send a floor plan if you have one and photographs of the rooms. Session two is forty minutes, once I have worked through what you sent, and it is the recommendations. The written page follows within a week. Session three is twenty minutes and it is yours whenever you want it, usually after a contractor has quoted you and said something that did not sit right. No expiry, one reminder at three months, and I will not chase you. An unused session is part of the price, not a refund.
If an architect has already drawn something, tell me when you book. Session two becomes that drawing, marked up against what your days ask of the house. Same price.
Live or recorded, same price and the same work. Do all three as calls, or send the worksheet and photographs and get back a recorded walkthrough plus the written page. You can rewatch it. Nobody has to be presentable at two in the afternoon. Pick whichever one you would rather do.
If you are not renovating at all, this still works, and often better. A renovation forces a hundred decisions at once on somebody else's timeline. Without one you work out what needs to change and in what order, then do it over two years as money and energy allow.
Why me. I am a Certified Environmental Access Consultant, which means I was trained in how a person's function meets a building, and I am renovating a 1900s Chicago two-flat around a body that does not cooperate, publishing it as it happens, estimates first and then what things cost. It is more convincing than anything I could put after my name.
There are two slots a day, three days a week, and that is deliberate. A calendar that assumes I will be reliably well is one I would end up breaking on somebody else's renovation timeline. If a session needs moving from either side, it moves.
Where the line is. I am not an architect, a contractor, or a registered interior designer. Illinois restricts that last title and I do not hold it. I do not produce construction documents and nothing I give you is stamped. If a decision touches structure, egress or life safety, I will tell you it is a licensed question and send you to the person licensed to answer it. What you get from me is questions, and the order to ask them in.
If it is not worth it. If you get to the end of session two and the written page and I have not told you anything you could not have worked out on your own, say so within a week of the page arriving and I will refund you. I would rather give the money back than be recommended to nobody.
What happens after you pay. An email straight away with the booking link and how the three sessions work. You book session one yourself, Tuesday through Thursday mornings. The link for session two arrives the day after session one. The link for session three is in the written page, and it keeps working for as long as you need it.