How a project runs

From the first drawing to the day you get the keys back.

One team, one contract, and a schedule you see before you sign anything.

A condo kitchen seen from the living room with slim black arched pendant lights — Kirkland/*Full condo renovation*/2025

A design-build studio only justifies its price if there is genuinely one person responsible for all of it. Here is where that responsibility sits, stage by stage.

The six stages

01
The studio visit

Twenty minutes at 920 Dexter Ave N with your floor plan, or photographs if you do not have one. We tell you which band of cost you are in, whether a permit is likely, and roughly how long it will take. It costs nothing and most people leave knowing whether to go on.
02
Drawings and selections

Plans and elevations, then every selection down to the handle, made against full-size samples in the studio rather than against a screen. This is the stage that decides whether the build goes smoothly, and it is the one worth not hurrying.
03
The contract and the schedule

One contract for the drawings, the cabinetmaking and the build. With it: a scope you can read, what each allowance assumes, and a schedule with the permit review and the long-lead orders on it as their own bars.
04
Permits and orders

We pull the permit in our name and the fee is in the quote. Appliances, stone and tile are ordered now, because they are the items that stop a job, and cabinetry starts in the shop.
05
On site

Strip out, first fix, inspection, board and plaster, then cabinetry from our own shop, stone templated after the boxes are in, tile, second fix. One person running it, and you know who they are.
06
Handover and after

Snagging list written down and worked through, not promised. Then a written warranty on the workmanship, separate from the manufacturers' warranties on what is in the room.

From first drawing to handover

A condo kitchen with matte deep green cabinets, marble counters and slim arched pendant lights — Green below, white above, and marble that turns the corner

A fluted green island with a thick marble waterfall top — Fluted fronts milled in our shop, marble returned to the floor

The kirkland kitchen seen from the living room, with slim black arched pendant lights over a green peninsula — The arcs, which were the owners' idea and the right one

The peninsula and arched pendants seen from the far end of the room — The island seen from the living room, which is where it is seen from

The green kitchen seen from the living room, with integrated ovens and a tall fridge — The tall run holds the fridge and both ovens

The long run of green base units under a window, with a marble counter — The sink under the window, the hob on the long wall

White wall cabinets over green base units beside the oven tower — Everything for cooking within two steps

Marble carried up behind the hob, between green cabinetry and the ovens — No handles on the doors, only on the drawers

The corner of the kitchen where the green units meet the marble — Marble up the wall behind the hob, so there is no joint to clean

The full length of the kitchen with green base units, white uppers and integrated appliances — White above, green below, so the ceiling stays where it is

An entry lined in deep green panelled cabinetmaking with a full-height mirror — The entry: coats, shoes and a mirror, all of it built in

The entry cabinetmaking in fluted green with a full-height mirror — The same green carried into the entry, so it reads as one flat

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The cabinet shop is the reason the middle of this list holds together.

Our drawings become cabinets on Dexter rather than a purchase order to somebody else's factory. That means the elevation you approved is the object that arrives, a change late in the drawing stage is a conversation rather than a re-order, and when something needs adjusting on site the people who made it are twenty minutes away.

Fluted cabinetmaking in deep green with brass detail — *Milled in our shop to the approved drawing*

Green painted cabinetry with brass cup pulls and open shelving above — *Matched to a period house, University District*

What we ask of you

Make the early decisions early

Appliances change the cabinet openings, so they come first. Tile and stone stop the job if they are late. Everything else can move, and the list of what cannot is short and on your schedule.

Come to the studio at least once

Full-size samples and the actual cabinet doors. Twenty minutes in that room prevents more regret than any number of renderings.

Expect one surprise behind the wall

In an older house there is usually one: wiring, pipe, subfloor or asbestos. That is what the contingency is for, and we would rather you had it and did not need it.

Tell us the budget, honestly

Not so we can spend it. So we can tell you in the first conversation whether what you want is in it, which is the single most useful thing anybody can say to you at that stage.

It starts with a floor plan on a table.

920 Dexter Ave N, Monday to Friday, ten to four. Bring the plan if you have one and photographs if you do not, plus a rough idea of whether you want to move anything. That is enough for a real answer.

Book a studio visit See the work

From the first drawing to the day you get the keys back.

The studio visit

Drawings and selections

The contract and the schedule

Permits and orders

On site

Handover and after