The Project Planning Packet is an interactive tool that will help you define your needs and prepare both yourselves and your architect for our first exploratory meeting.
Download your Project Planning Packet
Your project starts out with two competing factors: Wish List and Budget. Sometimes not everything on your Wish List can happen within your budget. But an architect will help you get as much value as possible. And, they can suggest alternative solutions you may not think of.
At Haven, we always put you and your needs first.
Good architectural design will increase the value of your home, making it a great return on your investment (ROI) should you decide to sell. And the fees are only a small percentage of the overall building costs. Those fees are often offset through efficient design, detailed documentation, and reduced materials costs.
Your architect has an ongoing relationship with your contractor, allowing your design to be more efficient and cost-effective, and can often get better pricing on building materials than you might find on your own.
At Haven, our architectural design, precise drawings, process management, and construction experience help make the process run smoothly, preventing costly overruns and last-minute changes.
Your architect is well versed in the types of materials and practices that will lower environmental impact.
The designers at Haven take into consideration the building’s orientation on the property to best utilize natural sunlight and shading. In addition, site topography, wind, vegetation, and other factors are evaluated when designing your home.
One aspect not often considered is the ongoing costs of a home after it is built. Heating, lighting, and other energy demands can be managed with a well-designed home.
As your journey from idea to finished building progresses, your architect can smooth out the bumps in the road. The challenges can be many, but you don’t need to worry; an experienced architect will handle them all for you.
A good architect is experienced in
• Feasibility analysis
• Permit coordination
• Construction documents
• Construction observation
And, Haven architects have actual construction experience, which translates into more precise design and good communication with your contractor. We have even built several of our own homes.
Your architect can often surprise you with ideas you might not have thought of. Ways to design your home around your lifestyle, considering such things as traffic flow through the building, entertaining friends, family interaction, and unique ways of creating space.
Every architect is different. It’s important you find one who puts his or her ego aside and listens to your hopes and dreams for your new home.
At Haven, we offer a stress-free environment and friendly staff. We build a relationship of trust by putting your needs above our own. From our very first meeting, you’ll find we do more listening than talking.
I don’t even know where this desk concept started. The idea existed before I started here more then a year ago. Like many designs the execution resembled a game of telephone where the result only loosely resembled the original idea. I think Sean started the concept, then it went to Amy, then they dropped it on me to organize the build.
The design called for rustic reclaimed beams which formed the front facade. Luckily Sean knows a source who has supplied reclaimed wood for other projects (such as our beautiful stair treads). Csaba @ Northwest Reclaimed (instagram). Sean and I went out to to woodlot and it was a total dream. So much incredible wood with character to look through. We could have spent hours but we have families to return to so we had to feign some level of urgency. We selected some beams from an old barn which had hand hewn marks and old mortise and tenons. Csaba was kind enough to prep and rip and trim them for us. Without his tools and expertise it would have been very time consuming and challenging. There’s no substitute for a bandsaw mill when you need one.
I took them and sanded and stained and worked them to get them to a completed state. They needed somewhere to off-gas and chill while we worked on the rest of the project. I left them in my barn on my old tractor. They seemed so at home there.
Oh, I can’t believe it’s been a whole year and I haven’t blogged since the last staff retreat! My first year I wrote often and then this year came and I was…I guess good at my job doing billable work that paid us money?? Lots of apologies about that. Good news is we have a new office member and as usual, she’s making the usual naive noises about wanting to blog frequently. You may not get the same frenetic energy but if it only comes once a year is it really worth the wait?
Anyway, this year’s staff retreat.
I bill this day as the greatest day of the year because every other day we are mild-mannered office kids just doing our jobs in our usual kick-butt manner but on retreat day we step it up a notch and really party hardy.
We all met at Sean’s house for a sleepy hello and right away headed over to coffee. Swung through the drive-thru ’cause we were in such a hot rush and spent an inefficient amount of time explaining our coffee requests to the microphone. This time two haven members had their own mugs. Someday everyone will, I think Sean’s still coasting on his solar panel, water catchment, electric car cred and thinks he doesn’t have to do anything more for the planet since he’s so far ahead.
We were heading to mini-golf this time in lovely Abbotsford, Canada. Nobody had done anything too illegal this year so the border crossing was easy and we cruised right up to Abbotsford’s premier entertainment destination. When we arrived the place was empty with all the attendants busy on their phones. We got a sweet deal that gave us a dozie tickets for some amount of money, and since there are 5 of us and we golfed twice I guess that means we used 10 out of 12 tickets? WAIT SEAN WE LEFT WITHOUT SPENDING ALL THE FUN TICKETS?!
We descended into the castle basement where I guess all the fun happens and it was another world down there. First 18 holes were generic jungle themed. The curators were a little inaccurate with their time periods because there were definitely dinosaurs and human structures in the same space which isn’t realistic, come on. I have a 4yr old son and he’s pretty into dinosaurs and I think we all know that that dinos lived in the triassic, jurassic and cretaceous periods and humans didn’t come till later in the quaternary period. duh. I expect more historical accuracy from my fantasy castle play place.
Oh yeah we were playing mini golf but it was somewhat unclear to me if this was the kind of mini golf that is similar to croquet where bumping other ppl’s balls is preferred or if this was a super serious game where bumping is only done by very bad people so I gave it a shot and I was right! Finished with the first 18holes and I think the rankings were Sean, Amy, and then the rest of us, I may have been last. Having fun isn’t the way to a great score. Also Amy was second? Right? I was as surprised as you.
Standard digital levels have an accuracy of 0.1 degrees. But according to Johnson Level, bubble levels (also called “spirit” or “vial” levels) actually have a better accuracy of .029.
That means careful use of a bubble level will result in a more accurate result than the fancy new digital level! And they are way cheaper.
So…
Don’t throw away that bubble level. It’s more precise than you thought. You can get a fancy digital one if you like but it’s not more precise unless you pay for a high-end model ($100+).
Few users have a legitimate need for the accuracy obtained by higher-end levels.