NOTE: While I’m not an interior designer, I bring over 40 years of expertise in efficiency, honed through a diverse and demanding career. As a former B747 pilot, I mastered the art of precision, systems management, and decision-making under pressure—skills that seamlessly transitioned into my role as a business owner.

Thirteen years ago, I founded Earth Elements Design Center with my business partner, Ben Jones. With three state-of-the-art showrooms in Bozeman, Montana, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Park City, Utah, we’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of architects, interior designers, general contractors, and homeowners. Our expertise has also supported some of the most prominent development projects in these regions.

This unique blend of experiences has provided me with a front-row seat to the challenges and inefficiencies within the design and construction industries. Leveraging my systems-based approach, I have identified countless opportunities to streamline processes, foster collaboration, and achieve superior outcomes for all stakeholders involved.

Here are my thoughts.

Designing a home or any construction project can be challenging, and as a designer, it's essential to have a clear strategy for tackling the project. Having a solid plan is crucial. In this guide, I want to share my perspective on the design process and the approach we have used to create the Design.efficiently platform.

I like to break this process down into 5 simple steps

Step 1: The plan

Step 2: The Schedule or shopping list

Step 3: The Selections or items

Step 4: Presentation & Approval

Step 5: The schedule, complete with specifications

When I refer to a plan, I'm talking about the construction plans. These don't have to be formal or in PDF format; they can even be scribbled on the back of a napkin. Every project has a corresponding construction plan. For instance, a large, complex residential construction project will have a detailed set of plans that includes floor plans, elevations, schedules, and specifics. However, even a small furniture update in one room still requires a plan, even if it's not typically documented in a PDF. Before we proceed, we need to grasp what that plan entails for the living room that requires new furniture. Understanding the room's dimensions is essential so we can create a space plan for the furniture, which will help us develop our schedule structure or shopping list..

Understanding our project scope by utilizing our plan means that the first step in the process is to determine the design specifications we need to provide. For instance, in a residential new construction project of approximately 5,000 square feet on a single floor, you as designers are responsible for creating a comprehensive design schedule for all interior finishes and furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E). In this scenario, you will receive a construction set from the architect, and your initial task will be to review this set of plans and compile a shopping list or schedule of all the areas or locations that require selections. In the next step, we will discuss how to create this schedule or shopping list.

Using the construction set or our memory of the living room that you need to renovate you then begin to build out your schedule or shopping list. Just like shopping in the supermarket for food if you don't have a list, then you end up wandering around and selecting things that you potentially don't need. Now we don't want to discourage the creative process and we always want you to have the ability to add items as required however, starting with a base structure or schedule will provide a much more organized process.

Let's proceed with our new construction project. Using the construction plans, you are focusing on identifying locations, that require an item. For instance, a floor area we like to think of as a floor location, or a shower head location would require a shower head item, a hand shower location would require a hand shower item and shower drain location would require a shower drain item. Paint on a wall is a wall location with a paint item. A timber baseboard is a baseboard location with a timber baseboard item.

Locations are organized by room, and if necessary, a room can be divided into spaces, which can further be split into areas. For instance, a primary bedroom serves as a room, while the associated space is referred to as the primary bedroom space. Each room has a primary space named after it. Taking the example of a primary bathroom, it may include a water closet with its own space and locations, all enclosed by walls and having specific elevations. Additionally, there could be a shower space with its own distinct space and elevations. In this case, the primary bathroom would consist of three spaces: the primary bathroom space, the water closet space, and the shower space. If desired, we can categorize areas further. For example, we could group items on the vanity, such as the cabinet, slab vanity top, sink, and faucet, into an area that resides within the primary bathroom space, which is itself part of the primary bathroom room.

In order to build out a comprehensive schedule we need to build a comprehensive list of all locations that require an item to be selected for each location, when we identify a location we link that location to a division. Divisions include but are not limited to plumbing, lighting, appliances, cabinetry, furniture and finishes. Finishes can be sub categorized into paint, flooring, tile, concrete slab, and so on. While we recognize that each location will need a finish, we don't need to determine the specific type of finish at this stage of planning. For instance, we might choose carpet, wood flooring, or tile for that particular location.

Now we have our comprehensive schedule or shopping list, now this doesn't mean that at any stage we can't add a few items as we start the creative design process but 90% of the locations are already defined by the construction plan set.

The next step or the fun step is the selections process.

Now we move on to the enjoyable part: the selection process. To begin, we need to grasp the type of palette or aesthetic the client desires. While I'm not a designer, I will defer to the designers on that front. The selection process is systematic, so the first step is to review our shopping list and identify the key locations that will significantly influence the overall look and feel. As designers, you understand this well; for instance, the flooring has a substantial impact, as do the paint choices, the cabinets timber, etc. Once you have a clear understanding of your vision, you need to create some selection alternatives for each specific location. In my view, it’s best to limit these to no more than three alternatives for each location. This helps the client concentrate without feeling overwhelmed by too many choices. Not every location will need multiple options; only the primary ones will. For less critical locations, you can often present a single item that complements the overall design palette. Many locations will be interconnected, meaning a single item can fulfill the needs of multiple locations. For example, if you plan to install a wood floor in several rooms, selecting one flooring item will apply to all those locations. This is referred to as an Item ID, an Item ID connects multiple locations requiring the same item. In our flooring example, each flooring location would be linked to that single flooring location Item ID, so when you choose an item, and add it to the Item ID. it automatically applies to each of those designated locations.

Once we have a final selection of items related to locations, we need to present our schedule to the client and obtain client approval.

A shopping list doesn't usually look that great, and a list of finishes or items with names that don't make any sense makes it challenging for clients to envision their choices. Therefore, as a designer, it's essential to develop an impressive Room by Room presentation that includes images and details about the items selected. This visual representation helps clients confidently approve their selections and visualize their new home.

The typical format for a comprehensive room-by-room presentation includes a cover page and an about page that introduces your design firm, followed by a table of contents. It may also feature a page or two detailing each floor plan, along with several pages discussing finishes used throughout the project, such as flooring or paint that is consistent in many areas. Finally, there should be dedicated pages for each individual room or space, such as the living room, primary bedroom, primary bathroom, guest bedroom, guest bathroom, and so on. Each page will display images of the items and some attributes such as SKU and/or finish color. This room-by-room presentation is usually created using high-level software like Adobe InDesign, which can be challenging to navigate, or Microsoft PowerPoint, which is less powerful but easier to use. Alternatives like Canva or Google Sheets can also be considered

Creating a client room-by-room presentation is a challenging and time consuming task that involves downloading each item from the manufacturer or supplier's website, extracting the necessary information or attributes, and then applying graphic design skills to craft a presentation that reflects the quality and sophistication of your design firm. Despite the difficulty, it is essential that this document is visually striking, as it serves as a crucial tool presented to the client, showcasing your expertise.

After the client reviews each room and items, they will approve the items, and you will then proceed to your final step, which is the specifications.

The final step is to build out a detailed schedule complete with specifications. And by specifications, I mean detail about the items and or item locations. Let's look at a few examples.

For example, a location such as a primary bathroom floor, which has a selection of a tile finish requires additional information so that the contractor is able to accurately construct that floor with your design intent. This means that not only do you need to select the tile you need to select a dependent item to that tile such as the grout, you need to specify the grout thickness or spacing between the tiles and the tile layout, the tile direction and the first tile position, all of these location specifications are required for the construction of that floor location. If you do not communicate that to the contractor, then there's a possibility that the contractor will make those decisions for you and therefore you will not have clearly conveyed your design intent, and maybe surprised when you visit that project and that location, to find the installation doesn't meet your requirements and expectations.

So it's critical that each location you look at the specifications that are required for that location to be complete. In other words. The shopping list is not just that location and an item it's the specifications that go with it.

Another example, would be a shower head, the location of a shower head you need to know which elevation of the shower that shower head is installed too, whereabouts on that elevation, for instance, the center line, what height the shower head is attached to the wall and this height can be measured from the shower head mount point or the shower head itself. And so specifying these in specific detail again allows you to clearly communicate your design intent, thus reducing surprises or errors.

Remeber, these specifications decisions MUST be made, and so making them prior to construction allows for a more streamlined process and means that you are not being bombarded with requests for further information because you've already established the specifications and clearly communicated them to the construction team.

When we examine these five steps, it becomes evident that the process consists of two parts: one enjoyable and the other less so. The enjoyable aspect is the design itself, while the less enjoyable part is what we refer to as Design Administration. I have been obsessed with this Design Process and about enabling designers to dedicate more time to the enjoyable design work instead of getting bogged down by administrative tasks. Our Design Process Platform consolidates all the administrative elements from those five steps into a single, powerful, and user-friendly platform. This allows your design team to efficiently select, present, approve, manage, and create impressive client presentations that enhance your brand while providing detailed schedules to the construction team, minimizing the need for back-and-forth inquiries and clearly communicating your design intent. We would be delighted to walk you through the Design.efficiently platform and showcase what we've developed to help streamline your team's workflow, allowing you and your team more time to focus on what you truly love: design.