Speaker 2: One thing I see people do a lot is buy material before they have a plan. And the reason why that can create chaos is because you don't know the full square footage of how much material you need. So you might not buy enough material. And then let's say you bought it too early and now you can't find that material again. That's a classic... example of why don't rush and just buy the favorite tile you find because you don't really know how much you're going to need.

Speaker 1: Conversely, some people, what if you bought too, way too much of it and now you can't return it?

Speaker 2: Welcome to Return on Design, the podcast where beauty meets strategy and interiors become assets that perform. I'm your host, Rachel Niederhofer, designer, investor, and builder of high impact spaces that deliver real results. Alongside my husband, I run both a design firm and a real estate investment company where I live at the intersection of creativity and ROI every day. Each week, I'll be unpacking what most people overlook. how strategic design decisions can grow your investment, elevate your lifestyle, and unlock the full potential of your property. You'll get real tools, proven strategies, and unfiltered conversations with industry experts who are doing it right. So if you're ready to invest with purpose and leverage design as a powerful tool, this podcast is for you. The wrong order can turn good renovations into expensive chaos. Welcome back to Return on Design. I am Rachel, your host, and today we are going to be diving in to this very real reality of order of operations when it comes to executing a design and how there's actually a sequence that you can be following to make sure you minimize your expenses, your chaos, and you effectively implement everything that you want.

Speaker 1: Yeah, the order in which you perform your renovation can not only protect your budget, it protects your timelines, and most importantly, it protects your sanity. So let's dive into it. that's why do so many people start in the wrong spot or how do people actually start in the wrong place when they're looking at their renovation project?

Speaker 2: The primary thing is we're, we're especially women, we get very fueled by inspiration. So, you know, we look at Pinterest and social media and we're all inspired to create these spaces. And that's sometimes where people want to kick off, not understanding there's a whole framework to laying the foundation and really going through the process of developing a strong plan before you really get to. that final pretty part that they're drawn to when they're looking at the inspiration.

Speaker 1: And I think that it doesn't help to when you start with a new contractor and you're trying to get into it, but they ask for selections quickly. Like, what are your plumbing fixtures? What are, what is this? You know, what's this color? And it makes people feel pressured instead of kind of walking through this.

Speaker 2: Well, sometimes starting with finishes can feel fun to people too. know, they, to your point, maybe they just hired a contractor and now they're like, ⁓ I'm to go down to the showroom and I want to look at beautiful lighting and I want to, you know, touch and feel all the plumbing fixtures and look at appliances. And there's a time for that. But yeah, doing it in the wrong order can often lead people feeling very overwhelmed with that decision fatigue we talk about so much.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that cost of that wrong order is pretty impactful, not just monetarily, in, like I said, your sanity, it gets overwhelming.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And you're right. Interior designers take clients through a more thoughtful selection presentation versus if you're working with just like a contractor, even sometimes a builder, their directive is not going to be presentation oriented. It's going to be selection driven. So you might hear something like, OK, I need you to go pick out all your plumbing fixtures. Let me know what you want. And at first the clients like, okay, until they go down there and they realize, ⁓ my gosh, there's not just chrome, there's nickel and there's five different finishes that all look the same. Yeah. And so decision fatigue becomes very real and all that excitement now turns into frustration. And that's exactly how you can bottleneck a situation.

Speaker 1: is it? Okay, so let's kind of go through and what is this renovation sequence or a roadmap blueprint, if you would.

Speaker 2: It's okay to look at these inspiration photos and get excited and start dreaming and have vision. mean, we should really kick off our creativity in a way that fuels us to cast that vision. But after you get there, before you really do anything, you really have to diagnose. There's a diagnosis process and that is really step one. And what I mean by that is, whether you're doing a new build or renovation, it really doesn't matter. You need to be thinking about what you're actually wanting, diagnosing it. So, you know, do I want four bedrooms or three bedrooms? And why do I want an office? Do I want, you know, a dining room? Like really hone in how many bathrooms? And during this whole diagnosis of evaluating your wants, it's helping you identify on a deeper level, like how is this space functioning or how do I want it to space the space to function? That's really helpful in a renovation. So, you know, really diagnosing, like, why do I want to make these changes or why do I want five bedrooms over three bedrooms or, you know, that why is the diagnosing process that you really have to start with. Cause it forces your brain to, you know, dissect it deeper. to help you actually get to the root, to that foundational.

Speaker 1: And once you've kind of dissected that and you've kind of gone through this diagnosis, now you're looking at what? You you kind of mentioned it, you know, defining lifestyle or how do you want a space to function, especially if it's a remodel. you know, I guess that's kind of what is your outcome? What are you looking for? Defining your goals.

Speaker 2: So diagnosing a space with accuracy is going to help you actually establish real goals. So let me walk our listeners through like an actual example of what this looks like. Let's say that you are redesigning your living room. So we wanna diagnose like, okay, well, what do you really wanna do in here? And where do you feel like what you want is not being currently met? So if you want to just spend more time with your family in this room. Okay, we've identified a want, but now we need to go back and say, why are we not already spending time with our family? Like what is keeping you from doing that now? So we're kind of bridging the gap between what you want and what your reality is right now. And as you close the gap through a series of formulated questions where you're really asking and evaluating in a critical thinking way, it will ultimately lead you to a goal. So instead of just looking at that pretty Pinterest picture that you want it to look like, now we have a real conceptual understanding of why you really want it, what you're actually going to be doing in there. And that's that livability aspect that helps define the function. So of course, the beauty is still there, but that's not really what's moving the needle. We have to know how you're going to live in it, how you're going to function in it. and then we can actually create a real goal. So that would be step two, defining the

Speaker 1: Okay, so then after that, we've kind of just defined what our issue is, what lifestyle, we want to, what we kind of, our outcome, what the goal is. And okay, so now we're gonna step through and we're gonna go into what.

Speaker 2: So step three is going to be making decisions that actually support that function related to the goal. So that can be layout, flow and form. So if we've diagnosed in this living room example, I want to be spending more time with my family. And right now, you know, maybe your furniture or furniture placement isn't supporting that, let's OK, great. So now we have a goal. We understand what the issue is and where we want it to be. So now with that goal being the target, now we're going to start evaluating flow, form and function. And in the living room example, we're going to use furniture to accomplish those things. But if you were doing something from a new construction standpoint or renovating where it has to do with walls or more permanent structures, you know, you're still going through the same process of the flow, the form and the function. And all of those are still working cohesively to point you to that goal that we've already established. So everything's pointing us back to the goal. Every decision, every filter, we're still thinking, okay, if I put this wall here or I put this piece of furniture in this way, is it actually supporting the goal that we're trying to achieve through flow, form and function?

Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. And once we've kind of figured out our walls, openings, kind of some of the furniture, then, you know, you've got all the supporting infrastructure around some of those.

Speaker 2: Yeah, which is really your next step is we need to make sure that the infrastructure is going to support it. That can be electrical, plumbing, you know, just depending on what aspect of your project you're working on. Let's pivot into an example of a kitchen, because I think this is a really good visual for people to understand. Let's say we are designing a kitchen. Doesn't matter every design, a new design. We're designing a kitchen. We've established the goals and the goals around the kitchen. you know, are going to support how you want to live in there. So then now you're going to do the flow, form and function, but that's going to be in the aspect of cabinet design. So you're designing the cabinets with all of these flow, form, function and consideration to meet that goal. Well, now, before we actually execute on any of that, we have our design and now we want to look at the infrastructure. Great. So we know this design is going to support our goal. But now we need the infrastructure to support that design. So do we have the right electrical plan? What about the plumbing? And so that's what we mean by infrastructure and systems.

Speaker 1: Yeah, cause you you don't wanna put your cabinets up and then all of a sudden, oh wait, I under cabinet lighting. Or I Oh, now I've gotta either, I've gotta tear it down and redo that.

Speaker 2: or one of the gas stove in.

Speaker 1: I didn't have the plumber run for that.

Speaker 2: We only did for electrical. So that's that system and infrastructure that's necessary. But you really need your design first, because if you're just implementing electrical and all that infrastructure and you don't actually have a design, you're still going to kind of be in the same situation where you could have to redo it. So it's my recommendation in this sequence is that you have to design first, then you build the infrastructure to support the design.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you're always going to kind of run into that one little thing, maybe that I didn't, I may not have thought about that one little detail in here and we can usually tweak that on the fly and kind of work through that in the moment. But when you get into major changes and having to go back and redo the the added cost of reworking what you've already done, installing, uninstalling, reinstalling, that's called ads. tremendously. it adds on the cost is not just the financials as we've talked about before, but it is the stress. It's the timelines that it stretches into and just shifting things back because now you may be shifting the next crew, you know, and ⁓ they've got to connect. Well, now we're just continually pushing back and it creeps and it snowball effect. Yeah. OK, so we've looked at some of the. infrastructure and stuff now we can kind of start getting more I think right into some of the pretties that

Speaker 2: Yeah, so like after you've defined, you know, you have the goal, you've diagnosed your problem, you've established a goal, you have made the actual layout decisions around, you know, the floor plan and the space layout in general, walls, all of those things. Now you've implemented your infrastructure plans. Now, next step would be step five. We can start stepping into that finish fund where We can start actually making tile selections, solidifying those selections, countertop selections, more of those surface applications, even more specific design details that are going to support that original framework that you've already built.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Tying in your mill works and things like that. Just give it those little extra touches.

Speaker 2: those design touches. And now when you get to this point and step six would be, you know, an extension of that with painting and lighting and those like in finished fixtures. But now when you get to step five and six, it's a much more enjoyable experience. You have a whole lot more confidence and you actually have a much more defined scope of work. So your cost measurement is going to be more solidified. So you're not kind of wondering, you know, am I going to go over budget here? because you've already established all those foundational pieces and it's just going to minimize chaos and keep things flowing in a very strategic way.

Speaker 1: With that too, like as you're making those more fun selections like that, I think you also have something to reference back into and you're able to start really putting the full picture of what your space is going to look like together. Because you've kind of already, you've already got this layout in your head and on paper and design and maybe even some of this in the works of execution. But now you're picking out the things that are going to tie in and really give it that finished look to bring your space. your decisions on even on those pieces like your counters and your tiles and your lighting, they all start to really cohesively come together. And you're thinking about, that light's going to do better for me here and give more light to this space, making it more enjoyable as we, as we're in the kitchen cooking, can see we're going to do, there, we're at the island talking and hanging out. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And I want to go back to the living room design example just for our listeners because you know when you get into these finish selections and you're talking about construction it can be a little more obvious of like okay yeah well I'm not putting tile in my floor you know well if you're not and you're doing the living room example this would be the time where you know you could start solidifying the rug the rug size the colors of the rug the finished pillows and textiles for the room and then onto those final detail accessories, like what's gonna go on the shelf or what's gonna go on your coffee table as an idea, kind of what those finished steps are. Because even your foundational structure and ⁓ design is in a living room or redesign example, where we're really just focused on using furniture placement to create that form and function and meet the goals. That furniture becomes like the primary dominating force that moves the needle up to the design decisions. So just give our listeners some context there if they're not doing like a big renovation project.

Speaker 1: This blueprint, these steps work for multiple aspects of whatever you're building or designing or going through with your renovation project. It's not just the construction aspect, the process is the same.

Speaker 2: because the process is really designed to take you through a sequence of, know, an order of operation, if you will, through your thinking around establishing your actual goal. So it doesn't really matter, yeah, how complex of the project that it is. You're still going through the same framework.

Speaker 1: But it keeps that end goal in mind and keeps you pointed towards that. Yes. With clarity. Yeah. And clarity is key in the project. Okay, so let's go through and we've seen it many times, examples of getting it in the wrong order. And what would you, you got an example for that that comes to mind.

Speaker 2: Let me give you a few. So one thing I see people do a lot is buy material before they have a plan. And the reason why that can create chaos is because you don't know the full square footage of how much material you need. So you might not buy enough material. And then let's say you bought it too early and now you can't find that material again. That's a classic example of why don't rush and just buy the favorite tile you find because you don't really know how much you're going to need.

Speaker 1: conversely something, what if you bought too, way too much of it and now you can't return it. It was a special order to run.

Speaker 2: So impulse buying, executing before you're really ready. But here's another great example I want to share people with from a more construction standpoint. We have a client, we were helping do a renovation on a design and renovation around a kitchen and we did a new pantry. Nice big walk-in pantry, beautiful. Well, we never allocated any design effort to a new pantry door. We were repurposing a door. and the client wanted to kind of last minute throw in a specialty door, which is fine. We could do that. However,

Speaker 1: What they didn't realize was all of the extra steps that were involved with it in that with this particular door that they were wanting, we now had to change out the door frame and all the molding and recut and the...

Speaker 2: Yeah, we were like already on step six or five or six and this decision would have been made more like on step three or three. that's why it matters to your point. Go ahead.

Speaker 1: Now we're, we're, we're, we're, This snowball of like, well, we've kind of already got a lot of things in the works and done to be able to repurpose this door that we already had and have it cleaned and nice. you know, we weren't having to change things. Well, now we've got to get the carpenter back in there and he's got to undo what was there. Yeah. Get ready for the new. And then we've got to cut it and install it. So it wasn't. just, we're going to change out the door, which can be done. I mean, you can, you can put a new door in an existing door frame, but with this particular door, it required a different frame. So that would, and that key was what made this a problem.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly why staying in sequence is helpful. And if you get to a point where you do need to add a last-minute scope change, making sure you understand that ripple effect. So if we were going to do this metal door, it required the metal door frame, which was not currently there. So it wasn't a compatible option to minimize the changes that were going to be required for that infrastructure to work. So then you could say, okay, well, your other option is that we use a different door type that maybe has a glass inside or something, but where we're not having to change out the whole door frame because that's...

Speaker 1: That was again the problem in that that particular frame that it was going to need also would have required a little bit of different framing within the wall. Whereas we'd already done all the framing work around there. We'd already done the drywall. We'd done the texture. We were actually in preparation for paint.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is exactly why that order of operation matters. And that's just one example of real stuff that we do see. So just keep that in mind for our list.

Speaker 1: And again, we talked about it too, like, okay, another example would be that doing your cabinets without understanding your electrical and what you need. And it's like, ⁓ wait, I wanted the under cabinet lighting. Well, I've got all the cabinets up and to get that wire run, we can do it. It may require that we have to take all this back down though. We have to take these uppers out sometimes depending on where it is in the structure.

Speaker 2: We can do it. So, yes, takeaway is to make sure you are thoroughly evaluating to the best of your ability. And that's why that diagnosis is key before you establish a goal, because these are the questions you want to really thoughtfully go through. And oftentimes, as you refine the goal, it's going to be related to budget. in the door example that we gave, real life example, part of the repurposing of the old door was budget allocation. So we're strategically going through the design and then what's the most effective way to implement your budget. And that helps you as you go through the sequence to be able to allocate your funds. you know, most people are gonna say, I want to redo my kitchen. Okay, great. What's your budget? $50,000. Okay, great. So we're gonna set that here for a second. We know that our budget's $50,000. But until we have a design, we can't tell you if $50,000 is really going to do it. And until we have a goal, we can't really establish a design. And until we've diagnosed the situation, we can't really establish a goal. just re-emphasizing that order of operation. Once you've diagnosed, created the goal, established the design, and started moving through the selection process of actually implementing your design, you don't really know if $50,000 is going to do it. But once you establish that design, you will have a much more clear understanding of is my budget realistic and what can I actually accomplish with that money.

Speaker 1: And again, going through all the steps with your design and going through the process of, you know, picking out everything and making sure you have the infrastructures. You're you're able to, yes, nail down a better budget, but you're also able to make sure you can control that budget because again, going in the reverse order and, you know, buying the material or installing the material and then making a change. Well, now we're just adding to the costs and now there's our costs snowball and get out of hand and then you wind up with, you know, a budget that was way over what you really wanted.

Speaker 2: This is how you get into the chaos that we talked about at the opening of this entire episode. This chaos is real, but it is also very avoidable. And that's exactly why I actually created this Return on Design Blueprint. It helps people go through this exact sequence, this framework that we're educating all of you about today. And it's a real resource that can actually help you succeed, which is the whole point.

Speaker 1: Everybody wants that final product, but making sure it's an enjoyable process and in the process is also a big key to it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a proven, repeatable process that we use over and over and over again. And like I said earlier, it doesn't matter if it's one room I'm designing or an entire house I'm designing. It's still a foundation that I go through that provides real results. And this is how we can monetize our return on design because we're making a very strategic moves decisions and executions to mitigate chaos, scope increase, and budget boil over. So.

Speaker 1: So just remember that the sequence, the way you do this, the order in which you do this, there is a strategy to it. And whether you're renovating everything at once or renovating in phases, that sequence doesn't change. And you can do this and there are tools out there, like you talked about the blueprint that we have, that we have resources available to help you. And that's what we want you to know. that, know, come check it out.

Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want it, drop below like Blueprint in the comments, or you can also find it on our website at audaciousdesigns.design slash Blueprint. And yeah, get your copy. It's going to save you from wasting money.

Speaker 1: It's going to save you and just stress alone to have an order, have an operation.

Speaker 2: So check it out. It can be yours today. You can download it. It's a six part framework, just like we watched you through. And yeah, don't leave it on the table. You need to get it. So make sure you have subscribed to our channel because we continually bring you powerful tools, resources, and real education that can actually help you move the needle. So thanks for listening today. Until next time.

Speaker 1: See you later.