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If you’re deciding to upgrade your home—or build a new one entirely—you’ll want to enlist the services of a boulder architect you can trust. Fortunately, there are a wide variety of skilled artisans available, ready to help you design your dream home. We’ll walk you through how you can discover the best craftsman to bring your vision to life.
What to Look for in a Boulder Architect
Starting from scratch and building a business relationship with someone is daunting, especially on a project as big as your dream home. There are lots of qualified architects in Boulder, but not all of them will meet your personal needs for the job. First and foremost, you need to put conscious effort into quantifying your project goals and preferred architectural style.
Project Goals
Before researching different architectural firms, it’s worth asking yourself a simple question: “What do I hope to accomplish?” Establishing your vision and budget are the two crucial components of developing an actionable and realistic project goal.
Whether you’re refurbishing a home, modifying a living room, or starting from scratch, ensuring you and your architect have the same vision for the final project is beneficial.
Be prepared to define your mission and describe the outcome that you want, including factors such as style, legal restrictions, and budget. If you can’t create a complete game plan for your home project, that’s perfectly acceptable.
When you find a trusted architect, they can help you fill in the gaps in your knowledge with their expertise. Of course, it’s still essential to consider your future home and what you can afford to put towards it.
As a general rule, set 80% of the amount you can feasibly spend on your project as your maximum. That way, you allow 20% for additional furnishings or unexpected expenses if you have a problem.
Style
Whether you’re a décor enthusiast with the exact style for your project already picked out or someone who hasn’t thought about fashion, it’s essential to nail down what you want before you start searching. Different architectural firms offer different styles.
In Boulder, Colorado, you can expect to find firms specializing in the following styles:
- Contemporary: A style characterized by broad, open spaces distinguished with glass and steel. Contemporary is all about incorporating technology into your living environment naturally.
- Post-industrial: A style featuring lots of brick and steel, exposed air ducts, and smooth concrete floors.
- Spanish: An extremely colorful style with tiled floors and white stucco, often featuring a red roof.
- Craftsman: The craftsman style is exceptionally close, with a detail-oriented focus on the front porch. Niched, compact living spaces and hitched roofs are standard features.
- Western: A Colorado special, this frontier-esque style generally features dark wood finishes and a wood-centric build.
- Mid-century modern: Open and spacious, modern living is all about multipurpose rooms that blend seamlessly with outdoor spaces.
- Victorian: Dramatic and bold, Victorian styles feature highly sectionalized rooms with minute attention to detail.
The sheer number of choices is staggering. However, if you know which style you want your architect to pursue in your build, then not only are you one step closer to finding the right firm for the job, but you can blend your creative vision with the architect’s creative expression to make something wonderful.
Dig Deep with Your Research
Once you’ve made some internal notes on what you want your finished project to look like, it’s time to start seeing what different architectural firms in Boulder have to offer. Start doing online research or look into companies you’ve heard of by word of mouth.
The company website can give you excellent insights into the field of expertise, style, expression, values, and price.
Flip through their online portfolio to see what their past projects look like. See what they can create, and check out their reviews on third-party websites to see what their customers have to say about the firm.
Ask Tough Questions
Once you’ve narrowed down the pool of candidates for your passion project, you’ll want to start assessing on a more personal level who you can connect with long-term for your project.
Remember, modifying or building a home is no small feat; a significant amount of time and expense goes into the work. As such, you’ll want to choose an architect you can trust and with whom you can foster good communication.
The following questions can help you narrow down which architects are in line with your vision:
- What is your design process?
- What projects have you worked on in the past?
- What is your architectural style?
- What experience do you have in X style?
- Why are you the right architect to bring my vision to life?
Don’t be afraid to probe a little; architects know that designing a home is an expression of creativity and won’t be offended by a barrage of questions.
You might not choose the best-rated firm, and that’s ok. There are many qualified professionals in Boulder, but you have the final say when it comes to your project.
Make the Choice
After carefully weighing your prospective architects, it’s time to decide which one best fits your goals. You can consider factors such as how well they align with your design philosophy and how their prices compare with other firms.
Take some time to consider what you need, and if you have to, do some research to learn more about architecture as a whole. Making a beautiful Boulder home will be a lengthy passion project, but when you close a deal, you should know that you’ve chosen the right craftsman.
The Bottom Line
Before you even start researching Boulder architectural firms, there’s a lot to consider, which can feel quite daunting. Establishing your goals and determining your budget will take time, and sourcing the best firm to do the job may take even longer.
In the end, the hard work of finding a trustworthy, creative, and passionate architect will pay off as your beautiful Boulder home starts to take shape.
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