Homeowner guide
Two ways to buy a remodel, and what each one costs you.
The choice is not about quality. It is about who is responsible when the drawings and the price do not agree, and that is decided before anyone draws anything.
The short answer
One contract, or two.
In the traditional route — the industry calls it design-bid-build — you hire a designer or architect first, pay them to produce drawings, then take those drawings to contractors and collect bids. You hold two separate agreements with two separate firms, and you sit between them.
In design-build, one firm is responsible for both the drawings and the construction under a single agreement. The design and the price are developed together rather than sequentially.
Everything else that gets said about these two models follows from that one structural difference. It is worth understanding it directly, because the consequence shows up at the worst possible moment.
Where the difference bites
The gap between the drawing and the price.
Both models design a project and both models build it. They differ in what happens when those two things disagree — and they usually disagree.
Designer and contractor separately
The drawings are finished before anyone prices them. If the design turns out to cost more than you intended to spend, you discover it after you have already paid for the design. Your options at that point are to spend more, to pay the designer again to revise, or to ask the contractor to find savings in someone else’s drawings.
When something in the field does not match the drawings, the question of whose problem it is has two possible answers and two firms with an interest in the other one being right. You are the person who resolves that.
Design-build
Pricing runs alongside the drawing rather than after it, so a design that does not fit the budget is caught while it is still a drawing. The correction is a revision, not a renegotiation.
When the field does not match the drawings, there is one firm with the answer and no second party to assign it to. That is the actual product being sold: not better design and not cheaper construction, but the removal of a seam you would otherwise be standing in.
Read this part twice
When hiring separately is the better call.
Design-build is not the right answer for every project, and a firm that tells you otherwise is selling rather than advising. The traditional route is genuinely better in several situations:
You want competitive bids on identical scope.
Fully specified drawings let several contractors price exactly the same work, which is the cleanest price comparison available. Design-build gives you one price developed with one firm. If competitive tension on the construction number matters more to you than a single point of responsibility, hire separately.
You already have an architect you trust.
An existing relationship with a designer who knows your house and your taste is worth real money. Do not discard it to buy a delivery model.
The design itself is the hard part.
Structurally ambitious work, historically sensitive properties, or a project where the architecture is the point may warrant a designer whose only job is design, engaged independently of whoever builds it.
You want the designer to represent you against the builder.
In the traditional model the designer can act as your advocate during construction, reviewing the builder's work on your behalf. That check does not exist in the same form when one firm holds both roles. Some owners want it, and that is a legitimate reason to choose the traditional route.
Either way
What to verify before you sign anything.
These apply to whichever model you choose, and to every firm you talk to including this one.
Look up the licence yourself
Wisconsin credentials the people who can pull a permit on a home: a one- or two-family dwelling permit generally requires a Dwelling Contractor certification, held by a business that either employs or is backed by someone with a Dwelling Contractor Qualifier credential. Both come from the Department of Safety and Professional Services. Ask which credentials a firm holds and in whose name, and do not accept a number printed on a website as verification — confirm it with DSPS. This applies to every firm you talk to, including this one.
Ask what the price actually covers
A number is not a scope. Ask what is excluded, what is carried as an allowance, and what happens to the price when an allowance is exceeded.
Ask how changes get priced
Every project has changes. The question is whether they are priced before the work happens and approved in writing, or presented afterward.
Ask who pulls the permit
Permits are pulled by a party with authority to do so, and that party carries responsibility for the permitted work. Know who it will be before construction starts.
Ask what happens when the house surprises everyone
Older houses hide things. What matters is not whether surprises occur but how they are documented, priced and approved when they do.
Get the payment schedule in writing
Payments should follow work that has actually happened. A schedule tied to milestones you can see is a schedule you can verify.
How Monarch works
One agreement, one point of responsibility.
Monarch is a design-build company: design and construction are held under one agreement rather than two. Monarch coordinates the full project scope, with specialty work performed by appropriately licensed trades where required. That is a description of the operating model, not an argument that it suits your project — the section above on when to hire separately is there because sometimes it does not.
If you want to see what that looks like in practice before talking to anyone, the process page walks through the stages in order, and design and preconstruction covers the part that happens before construction. Design consultations are free.
Before you rely on this
This guide describes two project delivery models in general terms. It is not legal advice, and it does not describe any particular firm’s licence status or contractual terms — including Monarch’s. Ask any contractor you are considering which Wisconsin DSPS credentials they hold and in whose name, confirm it with the department rather than taking a number off a website, and read the actual agreement you are being asked to sign.
Sources
Check these yourself. Statutes and municipal codes change, and the version your jurisdiction has adopted is the one that governs your property.
- Dwelling Contractor credentials — verify any contractor before you signWisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services
- Industry association — what design-build delivery meansDesign-Build Institute of America
Still deciding?
A first conversation costs nothing and does not commit you to a delivery model. If the traditional route fits your project better, that is a useful thing to find out early.