Design-Build Process
Updated September 2026
Fifteen questions, what a good answer sounds like, and the short brief to bring to the first meeting. Written for homeowners in Johnson County who want fewer surprises once the walls are open.
11 min read
Written by Mike Schwartz, Built by Design | Published May 4, 2026
A first meeting with a remodeler is less about the portfolio and more about process: how scope gets written, how the price is built, who designs, who's on site, what happens when a wall hides a surprise, and who answers the phone on a Tuesday. The polished answer to any of those is easy. The useful answer names a document, a person, or a project from last month.
This guide has two halves. The first is the short brief to bring, so the meeting is about your house and not about generalities. The second is the fifteen questions to ask any remodeler in Overland Park, Leawood, Lenexa, Olathe, Shawnee, or Parkville, each with what a good answer sounds like and what a vague one hides. The last section is how Built by Design answers them, so you can hold us to the same standard.
For the contract side of the same conversation, read fixed-bid remodeling contracts explained. For the two delivery models, read design-build vs general contractor.
You don't need a design or a tile picked out. You need enough direction that the conversation can be about tradeoffs instead of possibilities. A one-page brief does it. Bring it printed or in an email, and mark anything you haven't settled; an unsettled item is useful information too.
| Decide | What to bring |
|---|---|
| The problem | The rooms and the daily frustrations you want to change, in plain words |
| Priorities | Three must-haves, and the features you could defer |
| The house | Street address, city, year built, any drawings, and known issues: leaks, prior remodels, old wiring |
| Investment | A working budget range, or the questions you need an estimate to answer |
| Timing | Any fixed event, travel, or season that matters |
| Occupancy | Who will be home, which rooms must keep working, pets, and access |
| Decisions | Who approves the design, the selections, and any change |
The budget conversation is alignment, not a bid. A remodeler who knows the range can tell you in the first meeting whether the wish list and the number belong to the same project. One who doesn’t will design something you can’t build.
The price is only as real as the scope it's attached to. These five questions find out what the number actually buys.
A good answer: a written scope that lists the rooms, the work in each, the selections by product, and the exclusions, with allowances marked as allowances. A vague answer: a one-page proposal with a total and "per plans." An allowance is a placeholder for a choice not yet made; the more allowances, the less the price means.
A good answer explains which, and for a fixed price, what's fixed (the specified scope) and what isn't (concealed conditions, owner changes). A vague answer says "fixed" and doesn't mention either exception.
A good answer: selections are made with a designer before the price is final, so the number reflects the actual tile and cabinets. A vague answer: allowances for everything, chosen later, with overages billed as they come.
A good answer: a contingency in the budget, a written change process, and an example of a concealed condition on a recent job and how it was priced. A vague answer: "we'll handle it."
Permit fees, dumpsters, protection, engineering, design revisions, appliances, and temporary living are the common gaps. A good answer lists them either way; a vague answer leaves you to find them on an invoice.
See also: Fixed-bid remodeling contracts: allowances, change orders, and the gaps
Ask who produces the drawings, whether that person is in the room when the price is set, and how a design that costs more than the budget gets reconciled: who redesigns, and who pays for the redesign. With a separate designer and a general contractor, that reconciliation is your job. With a design-build firm, it's theirs, and the question becomes whether design and construction actually talk to each other before the price is written. Ask how deviations from the drawings get approved and recorded once the job starts; a change to a drawing that nobody wrote down is how a wall ends up in the wrong place.
Don't ask for an end date; ask how the schedule is built. A good answer walks the phases and the gates: design and selections, permit review, ordering long-lead items before demolition, rough-ins and their inspections, drywall, finishes, then glass and counters after template. It names what usually moves dates (late selections, inspection scheduling, concealed conditions, deliveries) and what the firm does about each. It can show you a recorded schedule from a finished project. A vague answer is a number of weeks with nothing behind it.
See also: Why remodels take longer than planned, and what prevents it
Ask who pulls the permit. The answer should be the contractor, as the licensed party, and the inspections should be on the schedule you see. In Johnson County that license is a county one: the Johnson County Contractor Licensing Program licenses contractors for work in participating cities, and the city checks it at permit time. Ask for the license and verify it with the county before signing. Kansas has no statewide contractor license, and neither does Missouri; Parkville reviews projects through its own development permits process. A remodeler who suggests skipping the permit for "just a basement finish" is telling you how they'll handle the inspections too.
See also: Johnson County remodeling permits: what needs one and where to apply
Every remodeler uses trade partners; the question is whether they're the same ones job after job and who checks their work before it's covered. A good answer names the trades (the electrician, the plumber, the tile setter, the cabinet maker) and says how long the firm has worked with each, who sequences them, and who inspects the rough-in before drywall besides the city. It tells you who is on site daily and who you'll see between meetings. A vague answer is "we have great subs."
Ask who your one contact is, how often you'll get a real update, and where questions live so they don't get lost between a text and an email. Then ask how a change gets priced, approved, and documented before more work happens. The good answer is a written change order with the cost and the schedule effect, signed before the trade proceeds; the bad answer is a conversation in the hallway and an invoice later. Ask for an example: how a late appliance, a failed inspection, or a homeowner's mid-project change was handled on a recent job.
If you'll live in the house, ask how it's protected: dust walls, floor protection, which rooms stay usable, where the crew enters, and what the day looks like. Ask how the punch list is built and closed, what the warranty covers and for how long, how the firm is insured and who's named on the certificate, and how lien releases from the trades line up with your payments. None of these are exotic; a firm that does them will answer in a sentence each.
Polish without specifics is the warning. A good team translates process into recent examples: how a late tile order was handled, how a failed rough-in inspection was communicated, how a concealed drain changed the scope and the price. If an answer stays abstract, ask the follow-up: "Tell me how that worked last month on a project like ours." If it still can't land on a document and a person, it isn't a process; it's a sales answer.
| You hear | Ask |
|---|---|
| “We handle everything.” | Who, by name, and what do I get in writing? |
| “About twelve weeks.” | What are the gates, and what moved your last three projects? |
| “Fixed price.” | What isn’t fixed: concealed conditions, allowances, changes? |
| “Great subs.” | Which ones, for how long, and who checks their work before drywall? |
| “We’ll take care of the permit.” | Under whose license, and are inspections on the schedule? |
Built by Design is a family-owned design-build remodeler in Overland Park, established in 2004. Kristen Schwartz leads interior design and selections; Mike Schwartz runs construction, project management, and operations. So the answers are: the scope is written with the selections in it, priced as one number; design and construction are the same two people, so the price and the drawings are reconciled before you see either; the schedule is built from the gates and shown with inspection dates on it; BBD pulls the permit as the licensed contractor; the trade partners are the ones named on every case study on this site, and Mike checks the rough-in before the city does; you have one contact; changes are written and signed before the work; and most projects are built with the family living in the house. Every case study on this site records the scope and, on most, the construction weeks, which is the example we'd point to when you ask question 10. Send the address and the brief through the contact form and we'll respond within 24 hours about fit and whether an in-home visit is the next step.
Built by Design meets homeowners at the home, writes one scope before finishes are chosen, and builds with the same trade partners named in the case studies above.
FAQAnswers, by design
The questions homeowners ask before hiring a remodeler, answered from how remodeling contracts, permits, and schedules actually work in Johnson County. Your project team confirms what applies to your project.
Two or three, and give each the same brief so the proposals describe the same project. More than that and the comparison gets noisy; fewer and you have nothing to compare against. Compare the written scopes and the answers to these questions, not the totals alone.
Yes, as a working range. A remodeler who knows it can tell you in the first meeting whether the wish list and the number belong to the same project, and can design to it. One who doesn’t will design something you can’t build, and you’ll pay for the redesign in time if not money.
A Johnson County contractor license from the county’s Contractor Licensing Program, which participating cities check when the permit is issued. Kansas has no statewide contractor license. Ask for the license and verify it with the county before signing. In Parkville and elsewhere in Missouri, there is no statewide residential license either; ask how the city reviews the project.
A written scope with selections and exclusions, drawings, a price with its basis stated, a payment schedule, a change order form, a schedule framework, an insurance certificate, and the warranty terms. If any of those arrive after signing, ask why.
A number given before the house has been walked and the selections made is a guess with a dollar sign on it. A real estimate follows an in-home visit, a written scope, and selections. The useful first-meeting question is how the firm gets from the visit to a real number, and how long that takes.
It changes who answers them. With a design-build firm, the designer and the builder are the same team, so the questions about reconciling design with budget and about deviations from the drawings have one owner. The questions themselves don’t change; a design-build firm should answer them at least as specifically as a general contractor.
When the rooms stop behaving like separate projects and start sharing flooring, trim, structure, ductwork, or circulation. If changing one room keeps pulling in the next, plan the house as one system even if the work happens in phases, and ask the remodeler how they’d sequence it.
Keep planning with these related guides.
Budget & Costs
“Fixed price” fixes the price of the scope on paper, not of the wall nobody has opened yet. Here's what the number covers, what allowances and change orders do to it, and the clauses to read before signing.
9 min read
Design-Build Process
The difference is who owns the decisions between the first sketch and the last inspection. A side-by-side table of the two models, when each one fits, what design-build doesn’t fix, and how Built by Design actually runs a project.
9 min read
Johnson County Guides
Walls, wiring, plumbing, structure, additions, decks, and egress windows need a permit almost everywhere in Johnson County. Paint, flooring, and cabinet swaps usually don’t. Here’s the line, city by city, and what happens on the schedule.
9 min read
