Step 1
Free Site Visit and Preliminary Budget
The first time we meet, it costs you nothing. I'll come to the site, whether it's a property you own, a home you're planning to renovate, or a commercial space you've acquired, and spend about an hour walking through what you have in mind.
From that conversation, I'll put together a rough preliminary budget and give you a realistic picture of what the project is going to look like financially before any money changes hands.
This isn't a sales pitch. It's a reality check, for both of us. If the budget we arrive at is in the range you're expecting, we move forward. If it's not, you have that information before you've committed to anything.
Step 2
Pre-Construction: Where the Real Work Starts
If the preliminary budget works for you, we move into a pre-construction phase. This is where we actually plan the project, and it's the phase that separates builds that go well from builds that don't.
Pre-construction is a paid engagement (the fee is a small percentage of the overall project budget) and it covers a comprehensive planning process. We go through the full scope together: layout decisions, product selections, material choices, trade coordination, permit strategy. Every decision that can be made before construction starts, we make it here.
The goal is to get to 95% of all critical decisions finalized before we break ground or open a wall. You're always going to have some unknowns; that's the nature of construction, especially in renovations where you're working inside an existing structure. But when 95% is locked in, the unknowns are manageable. When they're not locked in, the unknowns become the project.
Step 3
Design, Selections, and Interior Planning
For new custom homes, I'll help facilitate the design process and coordinate with home designers and engineers as required. I also strongly encourage working with an interior designer: not necessarily for the full package, but specifically for spatial planning and selections.
Here's why: home designers and interior designers look at the same drawings differently. A home designer is thinking about structure, code, and building systems. An interior designer is thinking about how you actually live in the space: flow, light, proportion. I've had enough clients reach the end of a project and say "I wish we'd done this differently" because a design decision that looked fine on paper didn't work the way they expected in practice. Getting an interior designer involved early, even in a limited capacity for spatial review and selections guidance, prevents that.
The selections process itself (tile, flooring, fixtures, cabinets, countertops) can be genuinely overwhelming. The volume of choices, the range of price points, the downstream decisions that hinge on an earlier one. Working with someone who knows how to present options within a budget framework and help you actually decide makes the process faster and the result more coherent.
Step 4
Fixed Budget or Time and Materials
Fixed Cost
Some clients want a fixed cost: a firm number they can plan around. Once selections are made and the full scope is defined, we can commit to it.
Time & Materials
Others prefer to proceed on a time and materials basis, where you pay for actual cost plus a management fee. We can do either.
The deposit you put in during pre-construction rolls over as your construction deposit if you proceed. If, at the end of the pre-construction phase, the finalized budget isn't in the range you want to invest, you can stop there. I'll hand over all the planning documentation and materials we've developed, and I'll retain the pre-construction deposit to account for the time invested. You're not starting over from nothing: you have a fully developed plan to take wherever you choose.
Step 5
Permits: What to Expect and Who Handles Them
On more than half of our projects, we handle permit facilitation as part of the scope. We coordinate between the designer, any required engineers (structural, geotechnical), and the building department, and we submit for permit on the client's behalf.
Permit timelines vary significantly depending on location and project type. The more straightforward the project, the faster it moves. Plan for it, because it's a fixed part of the timeline regardless of how ready you are to build. And the best time to start a new home build is early spring: starting in the spring means framing happens through the summer, when you want minimal moisture in the structure, and the building envelope goes up in the best possible conditions.
Step 6
The Build Phase: Who's On Your Job
We believe every project benefits from specialized expertise. I'll guide you through the initial planning, design, and budgeting process. Once construction is underway, your dedicated Project Manager will take the lead: coordinating schedules, managing trades, ensuring quality, and keeping you informed every step of the way. Together, we work as one team to deliver a seamless experience from concept to completion.
Approximately 80% of construction work on a new home is handled by our sub-trade network: the group of tradespeople we've worked with since starting North Built Construction in 2020. When we bring in a new sub-trade, the vetting process is deliberate. We look at their work history with other builders, their quality standards, and whether they're the kind of trade whose work holds up over time. The core group has been with us from the beginning.
The work we keep in-house is the work where continuity matters most: building envelope components, waterproofing, and the intricate items where you don't want five different trades sharing responsibility for one system. If there's a problem with a building envelope, it shouldn't be a mystery who's responsible. We take ownership of that work directly.
Step 7
Timeline Expectations: Honest Averages
For a focused renovation, a kitchen and bathroom or a targeted interior refresh, three to four months is realistic from start to finish once work begins. A larger full-interior renovation will run longer depending on complexity and scope.
For a new home in the 3,000 to 4,000 square foot range, including the pre-construction and design phase, permit approval, and construction, eight to ten months is a realistic average depending on location. Build faster in the Fraser Valley. Budget more time in Vancouver.
The things that push timelines out: permit timing around holidays (city staff vacations in summer and December genuinely slow reviews), selections that change mid-project, and unforeseen conditions in renovations, like rot, structural issues, and older wiring that weren't visible until the walls were open. We plan for contingencies on all three. The first two can be managed. The third we account for in every renovation budget and catch early when we can.
