Remodeling Talk... “Design to a Number”

Remodeling for Your Budget

Home remodeling projects often exceed customer budgets, and it’s usually a matter of these all-too-common issues in our industry:

Outsourcing Architects and Designers:

Typically remodelers, architects, and designers collaborate on a project as separate businesses. When an architect is employed separately by the homeowner, he doesn’t have access to the remodeler’s expertise in costing. He simply provides a blueprint with the features the buyer wants. Similarly, separately employed designers also create plans without the remodeler’s cost expertise.

At Bella Vista Company, we “Design to a Number”, as we call it. We have our own architects and designers, and we work together as a team from the outset. Before we create the architectural and design plans, we work together to balance your budget with your wishes. The centralization of “Designing to a Number” – that our cost expertise is a prominent factor in every discussion – ensures your project won’t go over budget. Our collaboration also prevents the inefficiencies of competing visions. When an architect sees something differently in his mind’s eye than a remodeler, costly mistakes arise. The design isn’t cohesive. Time is wasted. The way to avoid this is to avoid outsourcing. Hire a team that works well together.

Non-Transparency of Costs:

In a well-intentioned, but misguided attempt to always be polite, some remodelers don’t talk about costs when they should. Many remodelers give round number estimates without itemization. Or they don’t provide up-front pricing, buying time to first discuss their profit behind the scenes before they tell you about their costs. What results is an inflated estimate and no ability for you to make lineitem cost decisions.

During the design process, if you ask about adding a feature, we’ll gladly tell you the incremental cost, rather than politely saying “no problem”. Costs matter, because a remodel is an investment, and at Bella Vista Company, we believe it should be an informed one.

Chihuly by the numbers

The Chihuly exhibit opens at the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday, May 5. These numbers, demonstrating both the pressure and potential impact on the gardens, first appeared on lakehighlands.advocatemag.com in April.

23

Areas of the gardens that will house Dale Chihuly’s famed glass sculptures

4

People needed to assemble the largest of the sculptures

59

Evenings from May through October that the gardens will open after hours for Chihuly Nights

334

Light fixtures requested by Chihuly’s lighting specialist to illuminate pathways to the art pieces

100

Percent increase in attendance when the Chihuly exhibit visited Nashville’s Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in 2010

40,000+

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Volunteers needed over the course of the exhibit’s run in Dallas

FOR UPDATES ON THE CHIHULY EXHIBIT, isit lakewood.advocatemag.com.

FOR EVENT DETAILS turn to page 20.

TO BECOME A CHIHULY VOLUNTEER, contact Sue McCombs at 214.515.6561 or smccombs@dallasarboretum.org.

Launch community | events | food

where are they now?

John Shorter, Lake Highlands High School Class of ’08

In Lake Highlands’ have-or-have-not landscape, John Shorter and his family were “definitely the have-nots,” says his father, John Simien. That never stopped Simien and his wife Retta from feeding scores of >> drop-ins from around their apartment complex. “We don’t have a lot,” Retta says, “but we have food and we love to cook.”

That warmth, generosity and reliability might have played a large role in the success Shorter had during his years at Lake Highlands High School, where he was on the starting lineup his sophomore, junior and senior years, was named a top 100 area prospect by the Dallas Morning News, was named to the Super List on texasfootball.com, earned first team all-district as safety and was an all-district 9-5A selection as a junior, all while performing well academically.

Inside Lake Highlands’ dense apartment communities lies the area’s most concentrated crime, drug and violence problems, police have said. But his home was always a safe place for young people, Shorter says.

Some of Shorter’s friends took a different path — drugs, gangs. “It was an easy way out for some kids in our neighborhood,” he says. Physically, the guy is tough, but he gets a little teary eyed when he talks about his parents. “They supported me no matter what. My dad introduced me to football, gave me the discipline I needed … Mom was mom to all of my friends no matter what.”

When John graduates from the University of North Texas this month, he will be the first in his family to earn a college degree. His brother Desmond and sister Dominique also are following in his footsteps. Shorter’s post-high school years were bumpy at times. In college he went from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big one. “There were some ups and downs,” he says, and he had to work hard for playing time. “I had to keep striving, keep pushing,” he says.

The family has post-college hopes, too. Shorter’s life has revolved around football since age 6 — he played at Wallace Elementary and Lake Highlands Junior High and with Wildcats Select. So he will do his best to get drafted into a professional league. In fact, John Sr. consistently says “when he makes the league” rather than “if.” Whatever happens, the family agrees, he will have that college degree, and that means a world of opportunity.

—Christina Hughes Babb

Girl Scouts, the premiere leadership organization for girls and the largest pipeline for female leadership in the world, is celebrating 100 years of Girl Scouting in 2012!

Meet us at the State Fair of Texas in 2012 for an amazing Girl Scout Centennial Exhibition at the Hall of State!

For more information visit: www.gsnetx.org