Contractor FAQ Table of Contents

1. I'd like to create a marketing brochure. How can you help me?

2. Do you do permit/construction drawings for model homes?

3. Do you do materials takeoffs?

4. Can you tailor your drawings to specify my particular usage of materials and finishes?

5. I don't have time for design meetings with my clients. May I refer them directly to you?

6. What do you charge for your services? Who pays the bill?

1.  I'd like to create a marketing brochure.  How can you help me?

We can supply you with hard-copy drawings of schematic floor plans and a front elevation, complete with landscaping, for you to give to your printer when you ask him to create a marketing brochure for your company.  Our marketing floor plans will show overall room sizes,  furniture, and  floor finishes - enough to spark the interest of your potential clients.   If you give us a copy of your existing model home blueprints, we can develop marketing drawings in AutoCAD from them, or we can come up with a new custom design together.  Also we can help you create additional alternate front elevations, and options such as Sunroom Option, Three-Car Garage Option, Expanded Kitchen Option, etc.  We can show all these in your new brochure.

Please keep in mind that we need to figure out how the structure will be designed (placement of bearing walls, point loads, etc.) before we just start drawing marketing plans.  We don't want to provide you with promotional drawings that, in all reality, wouldn't represent the final, buildable product that you're trying to market.  Most of the marketing drawings we have created have taken from permit/construction drawings after we have made structural decisions such as joist direction, number of treads on stairs, bearing partitions, and placement of beams.   As you know,  structural elements can drive the design, so it's best not to have to add a beam after the fact and change a homeowner's perception of what their living room (or foyer, or kitchen) will look like.

Back to top

2.  Do you do permit/construction drawings for model homes?

Yes!  As noted above we will suggest and design various "hot-button" options that you may offer to your homeowner clients.  The final permit/construction drawing set that we create for custom homes will show full floor plans and elevations with the standard options, then there will be additional pages which show the various options that the clients may select.  Your field crew will then be given the drawing sheets that apply to the particular option package that each homeowner selects.  Please call at 301-416-8499 or e-mail at tracy@finelinehomedesign.com   for more information.

Back to top

3.  Do you do materials takeoffs?

A Bill of Materials is not provided in the scope of my work.  However, if you know ahead of time that, for example,  you intend to use TJI's in your flooring system, or only engineered lumber beams, or no conventional lumber over 18'-0" in length, tell us and we will work any requirements like these into the design.  

The first phase of any project is completion of Preliminary Drawings, which show overall room sizes and wall heights, but no structural or framing information (which isn't to say that we haven't planned the structural elements  in our head already).  The second phase, Pricing Drawings, will call out the structural elements and the exterior finish materials.  These drawings are what you would use to come up with pricing on the home.

Back to top

4.  Can you tailor your drawings to specify my particular usage of materials and finishes?

Yes.  When we meet for our initial meeting, please tell us if you have any special details for areas such as :  deck rails, interior stairs, foundation walls at basement walkouts, garage slab ledges, and eave/gable trim.  We have a Project Specification Checklist we will thoroughly go over with you at the start of your project, so that our final drawings will reflect as closely as possible your custom-building preferences.

Back to top

5.  I don't have time for design meetings with my clients.  May I refer them directly to you?

Yes, that is fine.  We will be happy to meet with them personally at their home or at our office.  When we are working for the contractor, however, it is helpful for the contractor to attend at least one meeting.

Back to top

6.  What do you charge for your services?  Who pays the bill?

 The degree of complexity and the finished square footage will determine the price.  Expect to pay in the neighborhood of $1.90  per finished square foot for permit/construction drawings.    Most of our contractor clients ask that we send them our proposal directly, and deal with them rather than the homeowners themselves.  They then pass on the expense of drafting and design to their homeowner client.  Other contractor clients prefer to refer their prospective clients on to us, and our agreement is then with the homeowner.     Please call 301-416-8499  or e-mail at tracy@finelinehomedesign.com for more information.

Back to top