In this episode of Home: The Second Story, we talk with Scott and Cindy from Charleston, South Carolina, about their recent home addition and renovation experience. The project began just before the pandemic in January 2020 and wrapped up in August of that year. Originally a modest 1,000 square foot, three-bedroom, one-bath home, the renovation doubled the space to over 2,000 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths.
Cindy moved into Scott’s long-time home, and with both working remotely, space constraints became the catalyst for the project. They worked with Sheri (who is also Scott’s sister) and engaged in a collaborative design process that unfolded quickly. Despite challenges like navigating a difficult permitting process and finding a reliable contractor during a construction boom, they managed to stay on track with only one change order—additional insulation.
One of the key takeaways was the importance of trusted networks. Their builder was a recommendation through friends, which helped streamline the process. However, they still had to actively manage the project, including prompting the builder’s project manager to stay on top of timelines. Delays in cabinet orders and miscommunication about move-in dates led to five temporary relocations during construction.
The couple highlighted that they might have torn down and rebuilt entirely if they had known the complexities involved in renovating a prefab 1970s home. Still, the outcome has left them with a home they truly love. They emphasized having clear communication, aligning on preferences before making decisions, and maintaining a team mindset. Their coordinated approach made decision-making smoother and helped navigate bumps along the way.
Despite the difficulties, they’re thrilled with the transformation. From an eye-catching facade to a kitchen designed for entertaining, the renovation gave them a home that feels tailor-made for their lifestyle. They credit a strong design, clear drawings, and Sheri’s firm but fair project oversight for helping bring their vision to life.
Voiceover (00:02):
Everyone says how horrible it'll be to renovate or build your house. We're here to say, it doesn't have to be that way.
Join three seasoned architects as they interview homeowners who recently completed a large project, and ask them one simple question: what do you know now that you wish you knew before you started?
Welcome to Home: The Second Story Podcast.
Marilyn Moedinger (00:26):
Hi, and welcome to Home: The Second Story. We are three residential architects sharing real conversations with homeowners who've taken on custom home or renovation projects. If you haven't already, check out our first episode to hear more about us and why we're doing this.
I'm Marilyn Moedinger from Runcible Studios based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts, joined by my co-hosts-
Taylor Davis (00:50):
I'm Taylor Davis of TPD Architect in Birmingham, Alabama.
Sheri Scott (00:55):
And I'm Sheri Scott of Springhouse Architects in Cincinnati, Ohio. And today we're joined by Scott and Cindy in Charleston, South Carolina.
Scott (01:06):
One of the beautiful towns.
Sheri Scott (01:08):
It is a beautiful town. So, full disclosure, I was the architect for home renovation that they did, and Scott is my brother.
Taylor Davis (01:18):
So, I get to dive into these first five questions, and you can say anything you want about Sheri, like there's no-
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (01:24):
Just let me know that.
Scott (01:26):
She's the best sister I've ever had.
Taylor Davis (01:29):
You're going to get brownie points for that one. So, we like to ask five questions off the top just to sort of orient our listeners as to what the kind of project we're talking about and where we're doing it. And so, where is your project located?
Scott (01:43):
It's in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, just outside of Charleston.
Taylor Davis (01:47):
Was the project a new build or an addition or a renovation?
Scott (01:51):
It was an addition.
Taylor Davis (01:52):
Okay. When did you start and when did you move in?
Cindy (01:56):
January of 2020, so right before COVID hit, and we didn't move back in until the end of August of 2020. We lived in five different places during that time (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (02:07):
Oh, my lord (laughs).
Cindy (02:09):
Very difficult to find places temporary here, so yes.
Taylor Davis (02:13):
Oh my, that's a kind of a record. That's a lot of moving. So, what is kind of the size and scope of the renovation?
Scott (02:22):
Started out with a thousand square foot. It was originally a three-bedroom, one bath on a crawl space. And once we got the designs all done, we basically doubled the size, turned it into a three bedroom, two bath with a little over 2000 square feet.
Taylor Davis (02:42):
Alright. So, there are lots of different ways that you can work with an architect. And sometimes people just buy plans, sometimes they work with full services and their architects stay on with them during construction. How did y'all work with Sheri during the process?
Scott (02:56):
We contacted her and as we said, she's my sister. So, we had a pretty much direct line to her.
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (03:05):
All day, every day (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (03:06):
At all times.
Scott (03:08):
The design process pretty much came down to … Sheri came down for a weekend and took a bunch of measurements and drew up a couple of plans and asked us what we liked, and we said, “That one.”
Cindy (03:22):
She did sketches within, I don't know, that same day, like got down here Friday, and then by that next day, we had several options to choose from. And luckily, Scott and I are pretty much on the same page, so we really didn't have to disagree on a lot of things with this project and starting with the plans, that was one of them.
Sheri Scott (03:42):
Okay. To jump in here now, can you guys tell us a little bit about what your life looked like before you started the project and was there a catalyst or something that happened in your life that made you say, “Okay, now is the time to finally do this?”
Cindy (04:01):
Yeah. So, I was living in a condo. Scott had owned this home for 20 years, I think when-
Scott (04:08):
Yeah, 15.
Cindy (04:09):
Yeah, at that time. And so, when we decided that … in 2018, it was fall of 2018, that I was going to move in with him, we both were working from home. And so, there just wasn't the space, and that office was very small and tight, we just knew that we needed more space to be able for us both to be working from home, be comfortable in there.
So, that's when we started that kicking off the idea of wanting to expand. I think we really didn't make that decision until probably fall of 2019. And then from there, everything moved pretty quickly once the decision was made.
Sheri Scott (04:47):
So, moving into the design process, you touched on that a little bit, but do you remember how long the design process took, start to finish? Like when we first met to when you got to actually break ground?
Scott (05:03):
Oh, let's see, probably four months, four to five months, I think. One of the hardest things was finding a builder that was available, because there's just so much construction going on around here, even in 2020 — it’s 2025 now, but it was hard to find a contractor that would start in a timely manner.
Taylor Davis (05:27):
I think that's still a problem everywhere.
Cindy (05:30):
Yeah. Permitting was very difficult around here. I don't know how it is in other places, but there's a lot of hoops they have you jump through to get the correct permits and everything. But again, that's up to our contractor and he handled that, but it took a little while to do that and get that completed.
Sheri Scott (05:50):
It was interesting for us to work together because of course, I'm in Ohio and licensed in Ohio, and so what I did was a complete set of design drawings, and then a structural engineer took over the project from there to get it to a permit set. Scott, how did you end up finding your builder?
Scott (06:17):
I had a friend that his brother is a contractor up around Myrtle Beach, and so we were talking to him about how expensive it was going to be and what the contractors around here were doing.
So, my friend Trip got ahold of his brother, and he had a friend down here in Charleston that he does a lot of business with, and he put us in contact with him. So, it streamlined that part of it very easily. So, we trusted my friend's brother and he recommended him. And so, it was really fairly easy to find that.
Marilyn Moedinger (06:53):
That's a pretty crucial element to the story right there, is having someone, that network of trusted people that this person leads this person, leads to this person, whether — obviously, Sheri in your trusted network (chuckles), but then also the builder. Like it can be very difficult for people to, out of the clear blue find a builder. So, that's actually a really crucial part of the story, is having that connection.
Scott (07:17):
The main thing I was looking for is someone that I could trust, someone that wasn't going to say, “Hey, we need more money this week so we could buy more stuff to do your house.” And then, I wanted somebody that had a history and enough backing to be able to do our renovation, instead of trying to piecemeal it.
Cindy (07:44):
We did have one other quote prior to that, and it was through a friend as well. Luckily, we do have some good connections down here. Their quote was much, much higher than the second quote, and we had a budget in mind, so we just couldn't go with that first quote.
Taylor Davis (07:59):
When you were going through the construction process, did you find that there were any change orders or anything that changed the quote?
Scott (08:09):
No, I think during the whole construction period, we had one change order. I know that sounds kind of odd and it ended up being insulation. And that was the only thing. Like Cindy said, we were pretty much heel to toe just going through it. And we picked out our stuff fairly quickly. We didn't have any really big arguments, kind of like, “Do you like this?” “Yeah, I like that too. Okay.” And that was kind of it. It worked out really well.
Cindy (08:40):
There were a couple of issues, it wasn't a change order and Sheri might be able to even talk to that more. But we did have some building issues with the kitchen part of it where we added on to our kitchen.
So, we added on a whole addition and it was a raised ceiling, and they made it too low. Remember the beam was too low, Sheri, initially?
Sheri Scott (09:00):
Yes.
Cindy (09:01):
That was a concern and then a little bit of discussion around that. Luckily, Sheri, because we didn't know. And I mean, luckily, Sheri was able to step in and just kind of have that heart-to-heart conversation with our builder and say like, “That was not how this was designed. This needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed at your cost.” Because it wasn't something that we should be covering that cost on.
Sheri Scott (09:25):
Right. And they were trying to convince you to basically live with it before that.
Cindy (09:31):
Yeah. And Scott's head was almost hitting where that beam was.
[Chuckles]
Taylor Davis (09:37):
That seems like not a great thing.
Cindy (09:40):
That was probably one of our biggest issues with them. And then maybe towards the end too, we had some air conditioning concerns, but those were really like the two biggest, I think, problems that we had during that time. Everything else went pretty smoothly.
Sheri Scott (09:56):
Then knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
Scott (10:00):
Buy new.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (10:03):
Just avoid the whole process.
Cindy (10:05):
No, what I would say for me personally, I would say that we would tear down and build from … keep our property obviously. Maybe do a full new build. There aren't houses here. We did look before we decided to renovate and add on. I was looking at places just to see where we could buy and have to do some additions to it.
You can't find a place down here in Mount Pleasant. I mean, if you're paying even 500,000, which is … you wouldn't even find that. But if you were, you were still going to have to do 300, $400,000 of renovation on it.
So, that just didn't make sense because we're in a beautiful neighborhood and it just didn't make sense to go out and look for a house in a different area. But I would personally say that I would just have torn down and built up. But we didn't know that at the time. I don't know if you agree with that or not.
Scott (10:55):
I actually looked into it once we started thinking about doing this of just absolutely razing this house and putting in … I was looking at some of the prefabs to bring it in on a truck and just pour the foundation and then screw it together and stick it up. But we decided to go with the renovation instead.
Sheri Scott (11:18):
We decided, we all decided for him that we were not doing that (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (11:27):
I'd like to hear more from you guys about why tearing it down. Was it that much more difficult to do the addition? Do you feel like you didn't get everything you could have gotten if you would've started from scratch? Like tell me more about that.
Scott (11:40):
The original house was a 1972, I believe, and it was a prefab. You can actually crawl under the house in the crawl space still and see where they took the wheels off of this house. It was two trailers brought in, put up on a foundation, and then bricked in, that was the original house.
Cindy (12:04):
No, I mean, we love the outcome of it and the results of it, I just think maybe it just would've been an easier process than adding on.
I think we talked about that Sheri. Like renovations, and even our contractor down here, our builder, he said that he can't find architects to do just renovations and add-ons, it's very difficult. He had even asked a couple times if Sheri could do some work down here because he had people reaching out to him for that. And he said it's just so much easier to find architects for new builds.
Marilyn Moedinger (12:38):
It's a lot easier and it's a lot cheaper for the architect as well. Our work is much more difficult in a renovation because there's surprises and things like that. So, it makes sense why the architects don't want to do that either (laughs).
Sheri Scott (12:54):
How did your construction project go? You touched on a couple of things. Is there anything particular that you were like caught off guard by?
Scott (13:05):
One day-
Cindy (13:06):
Apart from hitting your head on the beam.
Marilyn Moedinger (13:08):
Yeah, bumping your head on your house.
[Laughter]
Scott (13:10):
One thing strikes me, that just stands out with the whole thing, the foundation, the slab was poured, everything's ready to go, they're ready to start framing, I show up on Monday and the contractor's not here.
And so, I called him up and said, “What's the deal? Where's the framers at?” And he told me dead straight to my face that his crew had a “framing emergency,” and they wouldn't be able to make it today. And I looked at him and said, “What exactly constitutes a framing emergency?”
And that was just one of the things, getting them to show up when they say they're going to show up. They did 90% of the time. But you're looking for progress and it's like why aren't you here today? Why didn't you do this today?
Cindy (13:57):
I think two things stand out for me. First off, the contractor that we hired, the gentleman is our age and has owned this company for a while, but his stepson also works for him. And it was his first project management job with the company.
So, we were like his first. And I almost felt like Scott had to manage him as the project manager throughout the process. Just things like, “Have we ordered the cabinets yet? Do you think it's time that we should order these?” And he's like, “Oh yeah, that might be a good idea.”
[Chuckles]
Like those little things happened throughout the process and that was a little frustrating there. And the other one was just … and I know this happens all the time, but when you're new to doing it, you trust what they're telling you.
And they initially said, “We can have you back in at least living in your house. Because we weren't redoing … there was the bedroom and the living room, we weren't redoing that part. And they said, “You can be back in three months. We'll have you at least inside your home in three months.”
So, that's where the whole like having to move quite a few times happened because we trusted that instead of just getting a place for that full seven or eight months, we didn't know that. So, those are the things that I would say is if somebody tells you three months or four months, you might want to add a month or two on (laughs).
Taylor Davis (15:18):
Yeah, that's good advice.
Cindy (15:20):
And you all probably know that better than us, but those were two of the big things I think that were hard to work with.
Sheri Scott (15:26):
Well, even as architects who have been through it so many times, we're still hopeful every time (laughs).
Taylor Davis (15:32):
Oh, I know, hope springs eternal.
Sheri Scott (15:34):
They said four months, yeah, maybe they could do that.
Scott (15:38):
If everything falls right, it doesn't rain, and-
Cindy (15:41):
We did luck out, I will say, because it was during COVID and if you remember, as soon as COVID hit, like everybody started doing home renovations and projects. Costs of everything went up so quickly. We were lucky that all of our stuff was really ordered prior to that, so it didn't raise our costs or add to our budget really at all on that. So, we were fortunate in that way.
Marilyn Moedinger (16:04):
Makes a huge difference. I had several clients who were underway right when COVID hit and same thing, they got in under the wire, but then later clients just got slammed. It was so hard to explain why something was suddenly 30% more than it was three months ago. It was hard to … so I'm glad you guys got in under the wire (laughs).
Taylor Davis (16:24):
I actually was in Charleston probably not long before y'all moved back into your house. We had gone there, I have family there, and I had some clients who were asking the same thing. And I took pictures of all the boats coming into the port and the stacks of cargo ships. And I would text her and be like, “I bet your refrigerator's on this one (laughs).”
Marilyn Moedinger (16:47):
We're going to roll our boat out there and go get it for you.
Taylor Davis (16:50):
This is why this is taking so long, is that you see these 20 ships in front of it well, that's … because the port was crazy for a long time.
Cindy (16:59):
Yes, very much so. And I would say that the cabinets probably were the only thing that did get delayed. By the time they listened to Scott and ordered them, then it did take a little bit more time. But that was really the only thing I feel like was delayed as far as materials go.
Scott (17:16):
Yeah, I think they gave us a lead time of I think four to six weeks on the windows and the cabinets. And I'm doing the math in my head and saying, “Well, it's COVID and everybody's saying it's twice as much time and you say you're going to need the cabinets in six weeks. Why don't we go ahead and order them. We can store them here, it's dried in and everything, and so the cabinets showed up two days before we needed them, and we were ready to put them in.
Cindy (17:47):
Scott's much more mellow than me when it comes to things. And I even told the project manager, I said, “You're lucky you're dealing with him and not me because I'm not so nice (laughs).” He knows how to stay a little calmer than me on that type of stuff.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:00):
Well, sometimes it's good to tag team, sometimes you do need the more mellow approach and sometimes you need the full on serious.
Scott (18:09):
That's when we called the hitman, my sister, Sheri. It's like, oh no-
[Laughter].
Scott (18:13):
This is the way you're going to do it.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:16):
Yep, to regulate a little bit
Sheri Scott (18:18):
As the architect, we did work with them through construction even though we were remote. So, I think I identified in the beginning like four milestones of when we would come down and check things and make sure that things are on the right path.
And I think that worked really well. Usually, when we do a project in town, they're like every two weeks, but this worked really well. Scott and Cindy knew when we were coming, the builders knew when we were coming, so it wasn't a lot of like, “This doesn't look right.” “Oh yeah, yeah, we're going to fix that.”
They knew they had to have everything buttoned up for me to come and check it. So, it actually turned out to be a pretty well-organized good project for us.
Scott (19:10):
And you got to come to Charleston.
Sheri Scott (19:11):
And I got to come see my brother.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:15):
Well, I'm curious, I mean, you had mentioned earlier that you got two quotes, and one was much higher than the other, so you went with the lower one.
In light of some of these difficulties or you having to kind of hold their hand through making some of these orders and kind of the beam that you bumped your head on and that kind of stuff — in light of all that, are you still glad you went with a lower number? Did you get that value difference, I guess, if that make sense?
Cindy (19:42):
Yeah. I think so, because it's hard to know how that company would've been … they could have been the same or more issues, we don't know. And the person that worked for them, he is a friend. So now, you think like maybe we don't want to have like a close friend being part of the build because if they are, you just don’t want-
Sheri Scott (19:59):
I think that would be hard.
Cindy (20:01):
That problem at the end of the project.
Scott (20:04):
And when we started doing this, when we sat down with the contractor, when we sat down with the people that were giving us the bids, we didn't really sit down with them and explained to them what we wanted. With this contractor, we did. And then he gave us the quote and we weren't going for top-of-the-line cabinets, we weren't going for hurricane proof windows. We were doing basically middle of the road stuff.
So, the other quotes we had were kind of explicit builders, I guess you could say. They were used to building these high-end beachfront places and doing the top-of-the-line dishwashers and stuff like that. I was like we really don't need that stuff. As long as it cleans the dishes, we're good.
Marilyn Moedinger (20:58):
Well, that goes back to conversations we've had with some of our other guests around allowances and planning for the amount of money that you might spend on appliances or tile or counters or cabinets or these kinds of things. And that the owner has a lot of power there to affect their bottom line and that the architect's role is to help set those allowances so that they're reasonable, so it's enough for you to go shopping with (laughs).
You don't have to get everything at the bargain basement. But you also aren't … it's calibrated and being able to share that information early is really important.
Cindy (21:37):
I forgot what we were choosing. I think it was the carpeting and not the flooring — that we called Sheri. We actually texted you from the store because we weren't sure about a couple of things. And so, we were like sharing with Sheri to say like what do you think? And she gave us some good suggestions.
But when we went into those different stores and had to pick everything, like Scott said, it either was like, “I like this.” And if it was a clear no on his side, then we moved on or vice versa. And even the people that we were working with at all those different stores, they were like, “You guys are pretty easy.” (Laughs).
But I guess a good thing that we just kind of jived on what we wanted and the look and everything. And there might be a couple things that I would change, maybe like the carpeting that we have in the bedrooms, but nothing major.
Taylor Davis (22:25):
One of the things I love about y'all telling your story is that there's clearly a team, y'all present like a team. You're coming into this as, “This is what we want. We know one of us might have veto power in certain scenarios, but we're coming into this as a team.”
And it sounds like it helped not only with like the decision-making process during the design, but also during construction of whose job was whose, who is going to play the bad guy on the job site and have the hard conversations and who was going to be making selections. And I think then coming together to make decisions about how much you're actually going to spend.
I think that's one of the things we talk about with our clients a lot, particularly is how are you as like a couple or as an individual, how are you going to approach all of the kinds of decisions and communications that have to happen over the course of this project?
And you all had the added complication of having to move every like six weeks it sounds like (laughs). So, like it sounds like that kind of teamwork was really critical and those communication.
Do you have any tips for homeowners as they're moving through this process about how y'all communicated that might be beneficial?
Scott (23:40):
Be very patient.
Cindy (23:44):
Be patient. I think having the discussions before you walk into any of those stores, kind of knowing that idea, do we want granite? Do we want marble? What do you want? What are you looking for?
So, when you walk in, you can say to them, “Show us this.” And we always would say, we don't need top of the line, but we also don't want something cheap. Give us middle of the road. So, they were able to really narrow that down as soon as we would speak to them and bring us the samples of what we were looking at.
Scott (24:12):
Yeah, when we went and looked at stuff, countertops, cabinets, flooring, we had talked and we had kind of an idea of what we were looking for, what we wanted. So, it was a lot easier going in.
Like when we got the cabinets, we went in and basically said, “We don't want white cabinets. Everybody has overdone the white cabinets in the kitchen.” So, I told her, “I don't want white cabinets.” And she looked at me and she said, “Okay.”
[Laughter]
So, we worked out through some of those things you might have differences in before we even went to look at cabinets, before we even went to look at flooring.
Marilyn Moedinger (24:50):
You're also highlighting two things, number one, what you don't want, which is equally important as to what you do. And then also, one person in the couple might have like some absolute must-haves or some absolute no-gos or whatever. And it's good to know what those are.
If white cabinets are an absolute no for one person, then the other person's like, “Well, okay, that's fine.” But knowing what those are really important, and not everyone has those conversations. Or might even know what to talk about till you're at the store and you're like, “I didn't even think about this. What do you mean? I have to choose the grout color or whatever.” Like more of the details or things like that.
Cindy (25:29):
Speaking of grout color, I probably would change that in the shower. I would say don’t go with white grout if you don't have to.
Taylor Davis (25:35):
(Laughs) Always a good point.
Marilyn Moedinger (25:37):
Good advice. Do you have a story that goes with that or is that just a general-
Cindy (25:42):
It's just dirty. It's just hard to keep clean, so that's the only thing. I just would've gone even with a … because we have gray tile and stuff in there, and I would've gone maybe with a little bit darker color. And I guess maybe I would've trusted the person at the store to maybe even say that, but they didn't (laughs). That’s okay.
I mean, it's fine, but it's just that those are those little things that you realize afterwards and you're like … like even our carpeting, it's okay, but it's a little light. Like you just see the dirt a lot more or something and maybe that I would've gone just a slight shade darker.
And those are all things that can be changed if we wanted to take the time to do it. But it's just Scott and I, we don't have any pets, we don't have any children, and we're happy with how it looks.
Taylor Davis (26:31):
So, what's something that you love every time you walk into your project?
Cindy (26:38):
Our kitchen for me.
Scott (26:41):
I still get, not choked up, but every time I pull into the driveway and see the way that the front of the house was redone, it's like I can't believe I live here. I can't believe I live in this house.
And then we go into the bedroom and the master bedroom, master bath, and it's like how the hell did I get this kind of thing. I hate to use the term a dream come true, but this is a perfect house for us. It works real well.
Cindy (27:21):
He’s going to make me cry because-
[Laughs]
Taylor Davis (27:23):
He's making all of us cry.
Cindy (27:25):
We did our outside as well and we added a pool in the next year or whatever, and we just sit out there and we are just like we love our house. Like we love our outside. I love the kitchen because I do like to cook, and we do entertain a lot.
Sheri Scott (27:39):
Yeah, you guys do.
Cindy (27:40):
So, having this big counter island that we have, double stoves, we put a gas range in, and then he is right about the outside because we added the addition to the side, so the house obviously is longer. But it was a beige color brick with a very small stoop and no roof over it or anything. And now we have gray brick and a beautiful marine blue colored door with shutters.
My sister, when she even comes down, she even says like, “You have the best curb appeal on that street.”
Scott (28:17):
People slow down in front of our house all the time and look. If they're walking, they'll stop and they'll look and keep moving. And it's really impressive.
Taylor Davis (28:27):
Sheri, that's two, like, drive by kind of accident sort of things we've got on the podcast so far. We've got lots of slowdowns, we had a mailbox taken down.
[Laughter].
Marilyn Moedinger (28:39):
I don't think there's a higher compliment that an architect could ever get than the one that you just gave now.
Sheri Scott (28:46):
I appreciate it, and I like coming to visit too.
Okay, well, thanks Scott and Cindy. This has been really good. Not only all the nice things you said about me (laughs), but things that you shared with our audience. Because renovation and addition projects are not easy, especially ones that are so encompassing that you have to move out for. And then during COVID, and a contractor that we had to keep on.
So, you had some things in front of you, and despite all of that, you still love it. Despite all of the hassle-
Scott (29:28):
And each other.
Cindy (29:29):
Yeah (laughs).
Marilyn Moedinger (29:31):
Even more important.
Taylor Davis (29:33):
Even more important. Exactly.
[Laughter]
Cindy (29:35):
There are some questions about that during the time.
Scott (29:38):
What is it they say? The way to find out if a relationship was going to last is hang wallpaper together.
[Laughter]
Taylor Davis (29:44):
Yeah, that’s fairly accurate.
Scott (29:45):
Go ahead, do a six month renovation with five moves.
Marilyn Moedinger (29:49):
That was so great you guys. I guess I had forgotten Sheri, that that was your brother, like I forgot-
Sheri Scott (29:57):
Right, yeah.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (29:59):
So, I love the story and I think one thing that struck me, and I didn't say it when they were on, but just that you guys being brother and sister and being architect and client, I mean, that's additional testament to what you do as a professional, but also that's a big deal, you can't (laughs) mess around with that.
Sheri Scott (30:23):
He made a point, or Cindy I think made the point to say we weren't sure we wanted to hire a builder that we were close friends with, because sometimes you have to have those hard conversations.
And yeah, I think that just professionally, we were confident in what we did, and we had good partners down there to help with the long-distance thing. And Scott is very easygoing, so that helps a lot. And maybe Cindy was scared to yell at me, I don't know (laughs).
Taylor Davis (30:55):
And she doesn't strike me as being scared to yell at anybody (laughs).
Sheri Scott (30:58):
No, no, probably not.
Marilyn Moedinger (31:00):
You mentioned the construction and you were down there four times or whatever, but did you have someone who was going more often than that to put eyes on anything like the structural engineer you worked with?
Sheri Scott (31:11):
We didn't because Scott and Cindy were there so much, and I was in such close contact with them. Now, we did have … the existing house was not in the best condition and during the project, through all of the movement and changes, we did have a sagging floor.
And so, I partnered basically with that structural engineer who went out and did an investigation and we published some new drawings that would correct all of that. So, that's what I mean by we had a good network down there, even though we weren't right there in the neighborhood.
Marilyn Moedinger (31:50):
Well, once again, it's all about team, it's like a theme we keep coming back to. It's all about the team.
Taylor Davis (31:57):
And I think those site visits, the whole beam being too low — those site visits are really, I think from our perspective and renovations and additions, like that's mission critical.
Like we need to be available to see what's happening because we can guess about stuff all day long that's covered up, but the minute somebody starts doing demo, the whole story could change. And we could find out things that we didn't know.
So, I think that ongoing relationship with you being available and sort of setting those milestones so that the contractor knew you're ahead of this way. And for us, we do it every week on the projects here locally, but a lot of that is like okay, instead of like having 25 phone calls or emails over the course of the week, if they know we're going to be there on Thursday mornings at eight, they've got an agenda of the things that they need to …
It's a much more efficient problem-solving process unless there's like a pipe squirting water all over the place that we didn't know about. Like in general, most of that stuff can be held if they know that a meeting is coming up within a couple of days. And so, I think having those milestones and setting those things is probably really critical, especially during COVID, because there weren't a lot of … I mean, I was doing site visits at night with a flashlight and nobody on the job site because we were worried about it.
So, I think having those milestones was probably really critical to keeping the project moving forward.
Sheri Scott (33:29):
Yeah, and I did want to mention the deal with that lower beam, it's like the door didn't even fit in the wall.
[Laughter]
And this contractor was literally trying to convince my brother who knows nothing about construction, trying to convince him that this is okay, and this is really the way it's supposed be and it's going to be fine. And just trying to brush it off as you don't know, I know, don't bother me kind of thing.
And so, then when I stepped in and I just basically said, “Let's open up the drawings and look at it.” Where sometimes homeowners don't have that confidence, or they don't understand the drawings that we need to publish for a permit to have that person to just say … and honestly, I do not throw builders under the bus really ever because I think they have an incredibly hard job. But this instance was egregious, I would say.
Marilyn Moedinger (34:36):
That stuff drives me completely bonkers. And what's amazing to me is when the builder tries to do that on projects that we are on, imagine the stuff that someone who's unscrupulous, like not the good builders or whatever, are pulling and getting away with on projects where there's not an architect.
Our job is first and foremost to our client and to the state, and people forget that we're a licensed professional. It doesn't matter what our feelings are about certain things. We are licensed by the state to protect health, safety, welfare, and that means that we can't leave a beam where someone's going to bump their head (chuckles).
It doesn't matter what anyone feels about it, or whatever, or even how it looks or anything. That's our first mission and as sanctioned and enforced by the state, not just “vibes.” So, I think that to me … and by the way, the three of us along with other good architects are not afraid of those conversations. I will walk on the site, and I will have that conversation.
And by the way, we don't have to knock heads or get serious or yell. You can just be very clear that this is what's going to happen and what's not going to happen. And by the way, let's figure out a solution if something happened, and we need to get to the bottom of it, let's put our heads together and come up with a solution.
Taylor Davis (36:01):
Well, and that's one of the reasons why … I think you've also highlighted something that I think is important, and a conversation we have a lot with clients as we're starting on a process, which is why do you need all these drawings? Like why do you need to do a construction set? Like we've got the essential design, we've got some pretty renderings, isn't that enough?
And the truth is, is that we will never be able to draw every single condition that happens in a project ever, like that would cost way too much money and would take years. However, we are good at, and we've been doing it for a long time, figuring out where the things that need attention are, and how we need to illustrate how those problems need to be solved.
And so, that takes time. Like that takes thought process. It's not like a light bulb. Contrary to popular belief, we don't have those programs that you see on unnamed television networks that like push a button and all of these little 3D things magically appear, and then they can build from it. It's not really how it works.
We actually have to still go through, despite all of our great software, and think about how all of these different pieces come together, and how it's going to be done in a way that is lovely and works for the client. And also, like is structurally sound, oh, and by the way, doesn't cost you a gajillion dollars either.
So, working through those things in a drawing set allowed you, Sheri, to come in and be like, “Let's look at the drawings and see what the drawings say” because that's kind of the neutral arbiter in this whole thing. It’s like, “Here's the drawings, here's what the drawings say, they're part of your contract.” That's why you'll sometimes hear them refer to as contract drawings.
“So, this is what the drawings say, and if you're not following those, then we need to have a conversation about why and who's going to solve it and how it's going to get solved.” Having those drawings is the piece of the puzzle that can sometimes be hard for clients to really understand, but that they really are a part of our contract and it's something that we spend a lot of energy and time making sure gets right.
Sheri Scott (38:13):
I will also say, Taylor, that we are not infallible. We do miss things, we do make mistakes. And the more we're on site, the more we can find those things, especially on a renovation project where there are unknowns.
We can identify the things that are coming up and we can think, “Oh yeah, I wasn't sure how we were going to connect here. Now, that it's uncovered, let's talk about it.” And just finding those things preemptively just makes all the difference in a project.
Taylor Davis (38:44):
And a lot of times, we'll even note in our drawings, “We've got this gray blob over here because we don't know what's happening here.”
So, I'm going to put a giant circle around it and note in the drawings, “As soon as you uncover this, call me and the structural engineer and we're going to figure out how this is going to work (chuckles).” Because there's no other way to do renovations except that way.
I'll also say that in the infallibility part, we're not infallible, but even the drawings, even when we miss it, having the drawing set there allows us to have a reference point to work from and say, “Okay, where did this ship get steered the wrong direction? And how do we steer it back the right way?” We want to work with the contractors to figure that out.
Marilyn Moedinger (39:24):
I want to underline the fact that our drawings are legally called contract documents. Because if you're trying to make a contract, you're agreeing with somebody to do something.
Somebody at some point said, “You know what, it's really hard to write a building in words in a contract, so we're going to make drawings.” So, we don't have to say place the door six inches from the … can you imagine writing it all out?
So, somebody at some point realized like let's just make a drawing and that's going to be … that's literally what we've agreed to. So, we are writing the contract between the owner and the contractor, and I think most people do not understand that.
And what I say to anyone who will listen to me is, if you are about to spend the most money on anything you have ever spent on the single biggest investment that you have in your life, why would you not write the best contract you could. And why would you not find someone qualified to write that contract? That's what an architect does.
Taylor Davis (40:27):
I'm like writing all this down because I'm going to use this in my next-
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (40:29):
That's what my speech is-
Taylor Davis (40:31):
Marilyn says, this is Marilyn's speech.
Marilyn Moedinger (40:33):
Well, I don't know if that'll help sell this story, but I guess to me, if we can change the conversation away from the architect is a necessary evil, or the architect causes things to be more expensive, or the architect doesn't know construction or whatever these silly stories are that get told back into, we're writing the contract for you on your biggest investment.
So, then that helps people reframe their thinking. And then I also want to say about renovations. because that's the bulk of our work in the Boston area. So, renovations on a hundred, 200-year-old homes that have been picked away at by every single person in their whatever, just DIYed altogether, I mean, they're an absolute disaster by the time we get to them.
And the conversations around renovation, and obviously, we don't have time — this is like a rabbit hole that leads to 27 rabbit holes that I will not jump down everybody, it's okay, I am not going to. But I'll just say this, that having people, a team, what your architect, your contractor who specialize in renovation, it's a whole other can of worms.
It is so much more difficult and costly per square foot usually than a new build. And there are reasons why you renovate, there are reasons why … it was so interesting to me that they said that they would have torn down and started fresh.
Sheri Scott (41:56):
Yeah. I hadn't heard that from them. That was interesting.
Marilyn Moedinger (41:57):
Oh, that was new (laughs).
Sheri Scott (41:59):
I think they see it, that the area they live in is kind of exploding, but it's full already. So, I think they see a lot of teardowns around them, and that's probably come to their mind.
Marilyn Moedinger (42:11):
The way they ended though is such a wonderful note that I want to bring back. Like I can't believe I live here, just sitting outside and looking at your house and just there can't be anything better than that.
And if there's a few takeaways we want our listeners to have, I feel like I'm safe for speaking for all of us, and that's one of them. People, if you do it right, you will not regret it. In fact, opposite, you'll come home every day.
Taylor Davis (42:37):
And be so grateful that that's what you chose to do.
Marilyn Moedinger (42:41):
Yes. If I could shout it from the rooftops and have everyone-
Taylor Davis (42:44):
That's our highest and best calling is to provide that to all of our clients. It's to have them be excited about the end result. We don't want anybody walking away thinking, “Lord, I spent too much money and it took so much time, and this was the worst experience ever.” We want people to really be thrilled about the end result.
Marilyn Moedinger (43:02):
Yep. Thanks for joining us on Home: The Second Story. If you'd like to come on the show and share your story, email us at admin@htsspodcast.com. We'd love to have you on as a guest. For more inspiring homeowner stories and tips, we'll see you next time.
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Voiceover (43:21):
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