The People Around a House Shape Your Design

Imagine a designer named Philippa Crane who is hired to redo an old lodge that the Pendletons bought on a lake. It is their second home, three hours from the city. An architect, Graham Ostler, has drawn a new wing, and a builder, Dan Kowalczyk, is building it. Marisol Vega, the house manager, has run the property since the Pendletons bought it. Their grown daughter, Kate, will bring her two children every August.

Philippa has two installations that spring, so she works through Mrs. Pendleton, who hired her. She sends her drawings to Mrs. Pendleton and lets her pass them on. In May, at a site meeting, Dan sees the drawing for the window seat in the great room for the first time. “You can’t do that,” he says. “There’s a steel post in that wall.”

Philippa says that she has seen window seats built around posts before. Dan says it cannot be done in this wall. Mrs. Pendleton looks from one to the other. Then she asks Graham to redraw the wall, which takes three weeks.

In August, Kate’s children run up from the lake and through the back hall, onto the pale wool runner Philippa chose. Marisol has it cleaned three times before Labor Day. Each time, she mentions the runner to Mrs. Pendleton.

The house is beautiful when it is finished. Even so, Mrs. Pendleton tells a friend that she spent the spring settling arguments between her designer and her builder. When Graham’s next client asks him for a designer, he gives another name.

Suppose instead that Philippa asks Mrs. Pendleton in the first week who else works on the house. She writes down each person, what they decide, and what they will need from her. Graham decides the walls, the windows, and the ceilings. Dan decides when each trade comes, and he prices every change. Marisol takes every delivery and keeps the house running all year. Kate has the say on the bunk room, because Mrs. Pendleton says it is hers.

Philippa sends her drawings to Graham and Dan two weeks before she shows them to Mrs. Pendleton. Dan calls about the window seat. “You can’t do that,” he says. “There’s a steel post in that wall.” Philippa asks where the post runs. “Then the seat can go around it, with the post hidden in the cabinet at the end,” she says. “I can talk to the joiner for you.” Dan prices the seat that week.

Philippa also asks Marisol what would make the house easy to run. Marisol says the children come up from the lake soaking wet, through the back hall. So the back hall gets a stone floor and a long bench for towels. Philippa calls Kate about the bunk room, and Kate asks for four beds and a shelf for the children’s books.

Mrs. Pendleton sees one plan that Graham and Dan have already checked and priced, and she approves it in one meeting. When Graham’s next client asks him for a designer, he gives Philippa’s name.

Philippa’s design was just as good both times. In the first version, the others heard about it from Mrs. Pendleton, so each problem came back to her to settle. In the second, Philippa learned who decided what, and she solved each problem with the person it belonged to. Mrs. Pendleton saw the answers, not the arguments.

So on a house with an architect, a builder, and staff, find out who decides what before you design. Then work with each person directly. Here is why the people around a house shape your design, and what three designers found.

On a large house, a design passes through several people before the family lives in it

Here is the course’s view of a large project. The architect decides the shape of the house, which means its walls, windows, and ceilings. The builder decides how and when each part is built, and what each change costs. A house manager keeps the house running after you leave. Members of the family use their own rooms, and some of them have the say on those rooms.

Each of these people can make a design work, or stop it. The client hired all of them and wants them on one side. When they first hear about your design from the client, every problem goes back to the client to settle. So the client spends the project carrying messages between people who could have talked to each other.

The house manager is a relationship of their own, who tells the owner what they see. In a family, whose say counts can change from one room to the next.

The architect and the builder are the people a designer works beside the longest. You may see them every week for a year or more. The client also watches how you treat them.

Two Oregon designers stopped arguing with builders and started helping them

Aymee Kuhlman and Molly Kidd run Light and Dwell, a design firm in Corvallis, Oregon. In 2022, they told Business of Home’s 50 States Project how they work with builders.

Kidd described the firm’s early years. “Planning great design is one thing, but executing great design was what bogged me down for the first five years when we didn’t have somebody in this role,” she said. “You’ve already gone through the wringer convincing the client. Then you have to do it all over again with the builder, and you just get beat down.”

Kuhlman described what those talks with builders sounded like. “You’d draw it, you’d design it and then the builder would go, ‘You can’t do that concept. That’s not possible.’” The designers would point to “somebody else who did it.” The builder would answer, “No, you can’t, it’s impossible.”

Now the firm has an execution designer, who worked in construction for more than 10 years. She works with the client and the builder from framing until construction is finished. Kidd called the role “game-changing.”

A builder is not going to tell the execution designer that a detail is impossible, Kuhlman said. Instead, the execution designer answers him with help. “Let me support you and troubleshoot. Here’s how I’ve seen it done. Here’s the process, here are the materials, here’s the tradesman. I can talk to the fabricator for you about how to do that.”

“It’s about how we can help and support the builder on concepts that they haven’t seen before,” Kuhlman said.

The old answer pointed to somebody else who did it, which gave the builder an argument to win. The new answer gave him the process, the materials, the tradesperson, and help with the fabricator. With those, a builder has what he needs to build a detail he has not seen before.

Most designers do not have an execution designer on staff. What carries over is her answer, which any designer can give a builder on the phone.

An Austin designer’s architects and builder later brought her clients of their own

Holly-Beth Potter is a designer in Austin. In 2019, she and her husband hired the architecture firm Side Angle Side. They wanted to add a second, smaller dwelling to the lot and rework their 1935 house in East Austin. In 2025, she told Business of Home what came of it.

“Over time, those same architects introduced me to former employers, brought me into projects of theirs, and eventually invited me to join their team to collaborate directly with the incredible clients they attract,” she said. “The builder we hired for our renovation project also referred me to a new client I had no prior connection to.”

Her conclusion was about the people on a project. In her words, the most meaningful projects “grow out of authentic relationships.” In those, the architect, the builder, the designer, and the client each “works together with openness and trust.”

Potter met the architects as their client, not as a designer on someone else’s house. Even so, the architects and the builder watched her through a long renovation, and then they sent her work. On any large house, the architect and the builder are door-openers to the next one. They see how you work for a year or more, including on the days the client is not on site.

Why asking the client to settle a disagreement with the builder goes wrong

Imagine a designer named Beatrix Wolde who is renovating the Harcourts’ townhouse with an architect and a builder, Rob Tierney. Beatrix wants three pendant lights centered over the kitchen island. Rob says that a beam runs there, so the lights have to sit off center.

Beatrix has an installation that day, so she raises it at the next client meeting. “Rob says the lights can’t be centered,” she says. “I think they can. Could you tell him that’s what you’d like?” Mrs. Harcourt says that she would like them centered. Rob boxes in the beam and adds $3,000 to the bill.

From then on, Rob sends his questions to Mrs. Harcourt, not to Beatrix. When a neighbor asks about Beatrix, Mrs. Harcourt says that the house is lovely, but she carried messages all year.

Beatrix may have been right about the lights. Her mistake was taking the disagreement to the client to win it. Once Mrs. Harcourt settled one argument, Rob brought her the next ones too.

The version that works settles it with Rob first. Beatrix calls him before the meeting and asks what is in the way. He says the beam, and that a small box around it would let the lights sit in the center. So Beatrix brings Mrs. Harcourt one choice, with its cost. “Rob and I looked at the lights together. We can center them with a small box around the beam, for $3,000, or leave them where the beam allows. I’d center them, because the island is the first thing you see from the hall.” Mrs. Harcourt chooses the center, and Rob keeps sending his questions to Beatrix.

Helping the builder is not giving up your design

Many designers have heard a builder call one of their details impossible. “I’m sure so many designers can relate to that,” Kuhlman said. Offering that builder help can feel like giving way on the design.

Light and Dwell’s execution designer does not give up the design. She shows the builder how it has been done, with what materials, and by which tradesperson. The firm also chooses and settles everything before framing, Kidd said, “so that we don’t ever need to change the design.”

Philippa’s window seat stayed in the great room too. Only the cabinet at its end changed, to hide the post. So helping the builder is how the design gets built.

How to work with the people around a large house

1. In the first week, ask the client who else works on the house. For each person, write what they decide, what they need from you, and by when. Keep the list on the page you keep on the client. For example, a designer on a beach house might write that the builder needs the lighting plan by March.
2. Ask each person on your list when they need your drawings, and in what form. With a house manager, ask what would make your work easy for them. For example, a designer can ask an architect, “When do you need my drawings for the built-ins, and would you like them as CAD files?”
3. Send your drawings to the architect and the builder before the client sees them, with time to check and price them. That order is the course’s suggestion. Its reason is that the client then sees one plan that the people building it have already checked. For example, a designer might send her kitchen drawings to the builder two weeks before the presentation.
4. When the builder says a detail cannot be built, ask what is in the way. Then answer the way Light and Dwell’s execution designer does, with how you have seen it done, the materials, and the tradesperson. Offer to call the fabricator yourself. For example, a designer can say, “What’s in the way? I’ve seen this done with a steel plate behind the plaster. I can call the metalworker for you this week.”
5. When you and the architect or the builder disagree, settle it between you before the client meeting. Bring the client one plan you can both build, or two choices with their costs. Then say which you would choose, and why. For example, a designer can say, “The builder and I looked at the stairs together. Oak treads cost $4,000 more than painted ones. I’d choose oak, because the stairs are the first thing guests see.”
6. Ask the client which family members will use the house. For each one, ask which rooms are theirs and who has the say on each room. Then ask that person what they need from those rooms. For example, a designer doing a guest wing might hear that the client’s son has the say on his own room. She can ask him, “What do you need in here on the days you work from the house?”

Next: You will see how a finished home refers you, from the dinner party to the school pickup.