In Episode 11 of The Awakened Homeowner, host Bill Reid exposes the

critical mistakes homeowners make that sabotage their own construction

projects. Drawing from years of experience in residential design and

construction, Reid identifies four major "designer obstacles" that

homeowners unknowingly create: financial handcuffing, creative handcuffing, the

permit push trap, and inadequate time commitment.

Key Highlights: • Financial handcuffing occurs when homeowners choose the cheapest

design option, leading to inadequate plans that result in costly change orders

during construction • Creative handcuffing happens when homeowners over-direct

their design professionals, limiting innovative solutions and professional

expertise • The permit push trap involves rushing to submit minimal plans for

permits while deferring critical decisions that cause delays and cost overruns

• Time commitment challenges arise when homeowners don't allocate sufficient

time to the design process, leading to poor decision-making and missed

expectations

Key Topics Covered:

• Financial handcuffing: How cheap design costs more in the long run
• Creative handcuffing: Why over-directing stifles professional creativity
• The permit push trap: Understanding the difference between C-level and A-level plans
• Time commitment challenges: Why engagement equals better outcomes
• Power qualifying strategies: Essential questions to ask design professionals

Essential Questions for Design Professionals:

• What level of detail will be included in my plans and specifications?
• Can you explain what's not included in your base fee?
• How do you handle situations where more details are needed during construction?
• Will you be using 3D renderings in your presentations?
• Can you show me examples of the level of detail I should expect?

🏠 Are you unknowingly sabotaging your

own home construction project? In this eye-opening episode, Bill Reid reveals

the four critical mistakes homeowners make when working with design

professionals.

What You'll Learn:

✅ Why cheap design actually costs MORE in construction

✅ How over-directing your architect limits creative solutions

✅ The permit push trap that leads to expensive change orders

✅ Essential questions to ask before hiring any design professional

✅ Why 3D visualization is non-negotiable in modern home design

Key Topics & Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction - Designer Obstacles You're Creating 03:00 Financial

Handcuffing - The True Cost of Cheap Design 12:00 Creative Handcuffing - Let

Professionals Be Creative 16:00 The Permit Push Trap - C-Level vs A-Level Plans

26:00 Time Commitment Challenge - Engagement Equals Results 35:00 3D

Visualization - Essential Decision-Making Tools 40:00 Power Qualifying

Questions for Design Professionals

📋 ESSENTIAL CHECKLISTS FOR YOUR

PROJECT:

Questions to Avoid Financial Handcuffing:

✅ What level of detail will be included in your plans and specifications?

✅ Can you explain what's NOT included in your base fee?

✅ How do you handle situations where more details are needed during

construction?

✅ What happens if we need to make changes or additions to the plans?

✅ Can you show me examples of the level of detail I should expect for this

fee?

Questions to Avoid Creative Handcuffing:

✅ How do you prefer to receive client input and inspiration?

✅ What's your process for translating my vision into design solutions?

✅ How do you balance client ideas with your professional expertise?

✅ Can you walk me through how our initial meetings will be structured?

Questions About The Permit Push:

✅ Once the plans are ready to be submitted to my county, will decisions

still need to be made? If so, can you explain some examples?

✅ Is there a system in place to capture all the deferred decisions so we

can tackle them during the permit processing?

✅ Will the plans be complete enough when interviewing contractors and

obtaining estimates later in the design process?

Questions for Productive Design Experience:

✅ Is the information I provided early on enough to point you in the right

direction?

✅ How will you help me/us make decisions?

✅ Will you be using three-dimensional renderings in your presentations?

✅ Will the renderings include both exterior and interior views?

✅ Will 3D views include materials shown in my inspirations and ideas as

well as any suggestions you may have?

✅ How will the interior design materials be presented to me?

Power Qualifying Questions for Designer Candidates:

 ✅ Can you tell me what the most

critical aspects of design are?

✅ Would it be possible to show me designs you're particularly proud of and

the details that went into making them happen?

✅ What were some of your biggest challenges with this project?

✅ Based on your proposal, is this what I should expect?

✅ Do you see any particularly tough challenges on our project?

✅ Would it be possible to speak with the contractor and client of the

project you just showed me?

Anti-Creative-Handcuffing Strategy for Homeowners:

✅ Share your dreams and visions, not specific solutions

✅ Provide inspirations and lifestyle insights

✅ Let your designer be creative—don't dictate every detail

✅ Avoid "blurting out" all your accumulated ideas at once

✅ Focus on what the designer cannot see: your family's needs and lifestyle

The Handcuffing Prevention Formula:

✅ Invest in comprehensive design services upfront

✅ Demand complete plans before construction begins

✅ Engage actively throughout the design process

✅ Visualize your project with 3D presentations

✅ Communicate clearly and consistently

Connect with The Awakened Homeowner: 🎥 Subscribe for weekly home

construction insights 📧 Email:

wwreid@theawakenedhomeowner.com 📱 Instagram: @theawakenedhomeowner 📘 Facebook: /theawakenedhomeowner

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#HomeConstruction #CustomHomes #ArchitecturalDesign #HomeRemodeling

#ConstructionTips #HomeDesign #BuildingYourDreamHome #ConstructionMistakes

#ArchitecturalPlans #HomeImprovement

Mentioned in this episode:

The Awakened Homeowner Book

The Awakened Homeowner Book

So let's envision we're at the bottom of the trail, about to hike up one of these mountains here, and there's going to be obstacles that come up. Could be falling trees, it could be a ravine you got to traverse, could be wild animals. So the idea here is to launch a drone at the bottom of the trail and investigate the trail before you even leave. [00:01:00]

And this is the best way to position you to avert any of those potential disasters. So let's go into the studio and talk about these potential obstacles that if you can get to know those, you're in a much better place. See you in the studio.

All right, I am back in the studio. Now we're going to be talking about how you can undermine your project all on your own with nobody's help. And it's a lurking problem that people run into unknowingly. So what we've already covered in the world of design is we've talked about understanding design professionals.

They're going to be the ones that take all of your inspiration ideas that you've piled up sometimes literally, and translate that into working drawings and design work so that you can actually visualize your project and make decisions. And we're going to talk about that today because this is one of the biggest ones that you may be undermining yourself and you don't even know it.

So let's talk about the first one that comes to mind, and that's how you structure your financial arrangement with your designer. I call it handcuffing your designer. There's a few ways that you can do it, and one of them is the financial arrangement, the agreement that you make with your designer.

Later they get nickeled and dimed and chiseled away during the ordering of materials all the way through during construction, and they end up paying more for design fees through construction and they don't even know it. So it's actually less expensive to build your project if you invest more money in the design process. I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but the more thorough your plans are, the better the specifications are, the better off you're going to [00:04:00] be. We're going to be talking about how this can cut your own throat and you don't even know it.

There's many stories out there and I personally have experienced them where a contractor is building off inadequate plans. So one of the things that happens before you're even building your project is you're sending your plans out to contractors to estimate your project, to provide you a proposal, to provide you a contract to build your project if the plans are inadequate, and that means that they have not thoroughly been thought through, there's not enough construction details that the materials have not been specified.

And like I said in the past episode, you wake up Monday morning and there's five change orders in your inbox because now you want all the interior doors to be seven foot or eight foot tall, rather than the standard six foot eight. There's just thousands of these details that you're going to ultimately depend on your architect and your designer to vet out into the plans. But here's the message I know you keep hearing is that you don't necessarily know what you don't know. So you are just excited that you've actually spent $5,000 on plans when they probably should have cost $25,000 or $45,000.

So there's a couple things that we're going to do with each of these categories. We're going to talk about the questions that you can be asking your design professionals as you're interviewing them, so that you become more informed and also so that the architect understands that you are actually an informed client and I got to tell you, they're actually going to appreciate that. Some people think they're going to get nervous because they think, I know a lot, and that's not the case.

So you can ask questions like, what level of detail will be included in my plans and specifications? They're going to try to answer that question. They could try to show you details. We're not trying to teach you how to be an architect, but have them explain the level of detail that they provided. You're going to instinctively know if they are interested in providing more details. They're going to figure out if you want more details like, like for example, let's say you're trying to build a modern farmhouse design and you have pictures of your interior doors that have a lot of detail to them that include, maybe a crown molding cap along the top of the headpiece.

But if it doesn't get in the plans, it's not getting in the price. And the worst case scenarios, all the doors get put in, the molding gets put on, and you show up all over the weekend to look at your project and it's nothing like you want it. So understanding the details.

For example, an architect might say what I like to do is I like to do the base amount, the minimum amount of detail so that we can get a permit. And then we'll talk about it later. We're going to talk about that in a minute, in a different line item here.

One of the next questions can be how do you handle situations where more details are needed during construction? So this happens all the time on every project, probably where a contractor's trying to build or assemble something and there's not enough information on the plans and how it's to be done. Now, technically the builder would've uncovered that during the estimating a proposal and contract process, but honestly, a lot of these contractors don't look at that level of detail until the time really comes that it's necessary.

And then another question is, what happens if we need to make changes or additions to the plans? So we just want to understand that process. Is that something that you're going to be paying for? Things like that. Another one is, can you show me examples of the level of detail I should expect for this fee?

Have them guide you through another project that's similar to yours, and have them explain their process. Have them show you the details. You're not necessarily going to understand all the details, but conceptually you're going to understand if they even provide those details and have them explain it to you.

Can you walk me through how our initial meetings will be structured? So these are all trying to establish a set of expectations for you when you are engaging with the architect. Now, all these questions are going to be in the show notes for you to be able to download.

Yet there's some monster lurking behind you that's going to get it out of you one way or another. And the result of that is usually missed expectations and higher construction costs and even higher architectural fees later as changes were made in details.

Now, creative handcuffing is another thing that you can do to a design professional. A lot of people spend many months and even years coming up with their inspirations and their ideas, and when the time really comes to engage with an architect, they pummel them with all their inspiration ideas and then come at the design professionals as, this is exactly what I want and just give me that.

Now for people that are really experienced, homeowners that are really experienced, they've done multiple projects in the past, this could work where you actually direct the design because you're very adamant in what you want, but you're better off to spend your time on how you want to live in your home, the rooms and spaces that you think you want.

There's going to be plenty of times during the design process if you're hiring a qualified designer that you're going to go, I never thought of that. That's amazing. We have to have that. This is going to happen with quality designers. Now, if you're one of the cheapies and you just hired the $5,000 guy, then you're probably going to direct have to direct all the design with your limited knowledge base on what the possibilities are.

Let them be creative. Don't dictate every detail. And that's what we have for the handcuffing, the financial and the creative handcuffing. Let's move into the next one. The next one I've already mentioned a few times in previous episodes, and this is called the permit push. I think I may have coined that phrase, but I'm not sure.

This is a really big problem because the city building departments require the minimum level. They don't care about any of the interior design. They don't care about any of the interior elevations. They just care about the architectural design, the structural design, and the site plan. The things that the planning department needs and the building department needs, and I'm going to get into that in a whole other episode of what those two building departments need.

The problem with that is there's way too many cracks that everything can fall through, and I guarantee you things will fall through that. So you're going to want to understand that the city only requires a C-level plans, and what you are going to want is an A level set of plans and specifications so that you can obtain accurate costs and proposals from contractors.

In other words, they're not going to, they're going to do the bare amount of architectural details that the builder needs to build the project. The problem with that is a lot of improvising goes into play with that, and you start hearing things. I don't need a detail. It's the way I've always done it.

Just because you've always done it that way, Mr. Contractor doesn't necessarily mean that's the right way, especially nowadays where the building codes are changing. So minimal details equals change orders equals improper installations, equals missed expectations. Just to name a few. So that is the permit push.

You finally picked up the phone. You finally engaged with an architect. Now you are chomping at the bit. You want to get the project started. The architect says, okay, you're really excited. You want to get started? Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to just do the bare minimum right now to get into the city.

So here's some questions to ask your designers. Once the plans are ready to be submitted to my county, will decisions still need to be made? If so, can you explain some examples? So now that you know what a little bit more that you didn't know, listen for the answer. And then another reply might be, could we just spend a little bit more time and address all of those decisions and details ahead of time so that I don't have to worry about those? Once the project construction starts, open up that dialogue.

Okay, so then let's move into the next question. Is there a system in place to capture all the deferred decisions so we can tackle them during the permit processing? So now you've decided maybe you will defer some decisions, and honestly, it's almost impossible to make every single decision before construction starts. The idea here is to minimize the amount of deferred decisions so that they're not big ones and there's not a lot of them.

So find out if there's a process. And the reason I mention this process is because all of these deferred decisions just fizzle away until the time comes. Your tile setter walks up to the job site and says, okay, I'm ready to go. Where's all the tile? Let's take a look at all the material. Where's the grout colors?

It happens all the time, and I keep using this tile example because it, for some reason, it's one of the ones that's just the, one of the biggest nuisances of a project. So if a builder and a subcontractor or an architect and designer don't tackle that early enough, you could be real in real trouble. If you're building a custom home with four bathrooms and kitchens and entries, and you could have, tens and tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand dollars worth of tile in a nice high-end custom home, if this isn't addressed properly, you are completely screwing yourself over.

I wish my architect told me that I needed one. There's just all kinds of things that you didn't know until it's too late now. A good builder, a good contractor will provide you a project schedule before you even go to contract so you can understand some of these expectations. But don't count on it.

If they don't have that, you're going to get into deep trouble because all those costs are going to surface later. Meanwhile, you've picked Johnny the local builder here that happens to be the least expensive. What better? He's from the area, he's the least expensive. Guess what? He just priced out what's on the plans.

He didn't ask any questions, so now you're going to pay that price later. So understanding how complete the plans are going to be, meaning telling your architect, I want the plans to be complete. I want all the details there. I want all the specifications there so that I can get an accurate price. I don't want to get surprises later.

Here's what happens. It takes longer. It just takes longer. You're not going to get in there on the holiday event anyway because you've leapfrogged over some of the most important elements to actually execute the construction rather than designed during construction, if that makes sense. So be careful when pushing for the best deal in design. Don't be afraid to invest in design.

We're going to move on to the next one, the time commitment challenge. All the years I've been doing this, I've thought about this and I've gone back and looked at some past projects. The projects that came out the best. And I mean the best by yes, how great they ended up looking. But really what I mean by coming out the best is the client was the happiest at the end.

The more time you allocate to the project in the design phase. The less you have to do in the construction phase and the more thorough the plans and specifications become, and as you engage with your designer and questions are asked, and answers are provided in a timely manner that you've provided, you've done your own little research and you're providing details and web links, and they're having good meetings and exchanges with your design team.

If they know that you're there with them alongside, they're going to ask you more questions. If they don't think you're there and you don't have enough time to allocate they're not going to ask you as many questions. And what happens with that? Decisions get made without you. Decisions get deferred and you don't even know what's happening.

And it happens to be out of the area where you're living. Now, you may want to think about what's called an owner agent, and we'll have another episode on that. But an owner agent is an extension of you. They are your advocate. They're usually past architects or builders or both, and they can represent you, but that's not as often a situation.

That's usually in more of the upscale projects where you're building second homes. But let's be aware, let's, the reality check is this. A remodel or new home project is like a second job for you. And if you treat it as a part-time weekend job, you're going to, the results are going to end up like that.

And everybody's happy. The designer's happy. The contractor's are happy. It's because when a contractor is building a project and they feel that they are being efficient and productive. They feel great about it. And guess what? They like you more. And the next time they're, they, the next challenge they have, they start thinking about this project as their own home because they got to know you really well and they're going to honestly, they're going to do a better job quality wise if you are more engaged.

Because they're churning along. They're just cranking it out because you're there. You're back and forth. You're back and forth. So let's talk about some suggestions for you to actually achieve this when you're working with your architects or designers. First of all, establish a preferred communication method.

And the reason I mention this is we all know that everybody's texting. And they're emailing and we're still using voice to voice, and then there's also website platforms that a lot of contractors and architects use now to manage projects, which are some really great tools. I use a tool called Job Tread, and I communicate with my clients.

I know the reality is you may end up using both, that's a little sketchy to go through. So I would recommend you try to pick one communication method and stick with it so that you can document it and keep it at your side. Try to set pre-scheduled, dedicated weekly meetings or twice weekly meetings so that everybody knows that on every Thursday at 10:00 AM we're doing the Smith remodel meetings.

One profile is, do you want your design team to just come to you with two or three options for anything, for a particular product, for a particular design idea, anything related to design, or are you the type of homeowner that wants to understand every single option out there for windows, let's say for example, there's just, thousands and hundreds of window options, and I'm exaggerating, but are you the type of homeowner that wants to research it all on your own, figure it all out and you want your architects to provide you, 20 different examples, have a dialogue or a conversation with them about the design decision philosophy that you have or requirements that you have [00:33:00] so that everybody gets on the same page. So that's a big one that I've learned that if everybody gets in the same page, you're going to be in a good, in a much better situation.

Think about it, you've got a meeting every Thursday, and today we'll be talking about windows and doors. And then the next day we're going to be talking about roofing materials. And if you know what's coming next and if you don't get that proposed to you from your ask say, what would we be covering next week? Start doing your own little research if you want. We're going to be talking about the stone that you want around the front of your home.

We have a few ideas we'd like to share with you. We'll be ready to share with you that Thursday. And if you have a sense or an idea of what you think you'd do a little bit of research on your own. Shoot them a couple emails if that's the method you're using for communication. Tell them, I really like this.

Remember the design professionals have built in skills or trained skills and talents to take all of your inspiration and ideas and some of these people build the project in their head. Contractors are notorious for this or famous for this, however you want to look at it. Very good builders, craftsmen can see the plans and build in their head very good.

The biggest one in my mind is 3D visualization. So if an architect can provide you and an interior designer too, if they can provide you 3D renderings on their computer software that include obviously the design of the home or the design of the space, and include the materials that you like.

Or at least the general material itself. If you want a white cabinetry and black countertops and subway tile and this and that, they can actually, and nowadays it's not that hard, is incorporate that into the plans and presentation to you that make your decision making process a lot better.

Here we go. They develop the plan and the design in software. If they don't use software, that's probably your big red flag. That's the $5,000 guy or the $2,000 guy. That is doing your plans. One of your biggest questions are, how are you going to help me visualize and make decisions? That's probably the biggest one. Is, how can an architect or designer help you make decisions you don't care?

Whatever it takes, tier designers are going to provide mood boards and vision boards and material samples and drawings and renderings. Architects are going to do the same thing with drawings and renderings and even realistic renderings these days. So this is the biggest thing that I've noticed once you start to see a client say.

Yes, I love it. And the only reason the client's going to be able to say that is if they can visualize it. So we're going to ask these questions. Is the information I provided early on enough to point you in the right direction? How will you help me make decisions? So here we're talking about the early discovery stage.

Let's make sure that conversation is open. And then next, how will you help me make decisions? That's a big one. That's a big open-ended question. And listen for the answer. Hopefully you're seeing, you're hearing. We love to use 3D renderings to help you make decisions. If you don't hear it, ask it.

Will you be using three dimensional renderings in your presentations? If not, I would just, I wouldn't use them. I wouldn't go with them these days. I would just turn around and walk away. And if you're using the really inexpensive designer there you go. That's what you get. And if they say we can do some of that, what does that mean?

So ask those questions. Will the 3D views include the materials shown in my inspirations and ideas, as well as any suggestions you may have? Good one. So they can do black and white renderings. They can just throw any materials in there. But it would be really helpful if they had some kind of way to visually represent what you like.

These are the questions that you are going to want to ask to make sure that they're a good fit for you. We'll go through them and remember, this will all be in the show notes. So you can just go to the, in the YouTube channel, you go to the bottom, or in the podcast episode, you should be able to see these.

So here we go. We're going to go through these pretty fast. Can you tell me what the most critical aspects of design are? Listen and learn. Listen for the word details. Listen for the word 3D visualizations. Listen for the right consultants that need to be brought in. Just listen and learn and keep mental notes of that so you can ask questions later.

But you know what? Let's go a little bit deeper. Can I see the plans? Can I see the details? Can you then tell me what were some of your biggest challenges with this project? There's always challenges. Right and ask them, in more detail tell me why that was a challenge and what could have been done differently.

I know this sounds like a lot, but these are the kind of things that you want to know going in to make sure that you know what to expect with your designers as opposed to assuming you're just writing checks and everything's going to be great. Based on your proposal, is this what I should expect?

And they might say things like I don't know. This 40 foot tall ceiling you want could be really tough and could cost a lot. Start opening up that dialogue now so that decisions can be made or directions can be given. Would it be possible to speak with the contractor and client of the project you just showed me?

To the guy who built it and the client that had to live through it. Now you can put that all you know together and really understand what your experience may or may not be. We're going to start to close out here pretty soon, but there's a couple other things I want to mention. Power qualifying exercise benefits all of this stuff is demonstrating to the design candidates that you're interested in a design experience.

You're setting the table there, right? So now you get a sense. They get a sense of who you are as a client and what expectations you have of them, and they can deliver. It's just a matter of them understanding, getting those built in client references that may not be off their official list. This is a good one, and you can do that with more than one of their projects if you want.

So here's the key takeaway today, and like your action plan, or just at least things to be thinking about as you're pondering, doing your project financial handcuffing. Don't constrain your designer with inadequate fees. You'll pay more later whether you pay your designer later or your contractor later because they didn't know what to price out to begin with, or both try to overcome that temptation to get the cheapest designer creative handcuffing.

That's what you're paying them for. So make sure you do that. The permit push. Be careful that's lurking around. And that's another way of saying inadequate plans. And that's another way of opening up the risk for inadequate decisions, inadequate specifications, inadequate budgeting, change orders, all this kind of stuff.

So the permit push is another way of saying crappy design. So in another way of creating a lot more work for everybody later on in the process, you, your architect, your contractor, the participation gap. Make sure you're ready to commit adequate time or offset that with somebody else to help You could be your architect.

How about that? So in invest in comprehensive design services upfront, demand complete plans before construction begins. Engage actively throughout the design process. Visualize your project with 3D presentations. Communicate clearly and consistently. The handcuffing prevention formula. These are the things that you can do.

You'll only be cutting your own throat. So that's my episode today. That was designer obstacles, but really it's obstacles that you can create that we can avoid by just informing you. I would really welcome you to subscribe to the podcast and the YouTube channel. I'm posting the podcast on both channels and I'd like you to subscribe.

My idea is to provide the people that love to read, they can read the book. I'm posting blog posts for this. People that like to listen can do it with a podcast, people like to watch, can do it on the YouTube channel. And these are my ways to get all of this information out there. Because that's my mission, is to empower you to take charge of your project. And that is what I have for you today.

In closing thought, the best designers want informed, engaged clients by understanding these obstacles. You're setting yourself up for a successful planning partnership and a project you'll love. That's what we want, right? We're building our dream home. That's what I have for you today. This is Bill Reid and the Awakened Homeowner mission.