What A Design-Build Firm Does For Your Home

A design-build firm designs your home and builds it under one contract, with one team responsible for both. You hire one company, and the people who draw your house are the people who build it. That’s how we work at Den & Burrow, and it changes more than who you call.

How The Traditional Route Works

The traditional route is called design-bid-build. You hire a designer or architect, pay for a finished set of drawings, then send them out to builders for bids. Each step belongs to a different company, and each one hands the project to the next.

The weak spot is timing. Prices arrive after the design is finished, which is the most expensive moment to learn the house costs more than you planned. We meet families who paid for plans and a permit, then got a builder’s price they couldn’t afford. At that point the choices are a redesign, another round of fees, or walking away.

What Changes With Design-Build

With design-build, cost is part of the design from the first sketch. The same team that draws the plan prices it, so the budget gets checked while the house is still easy to change.

Questions get answered inside one team, too. When a detail on the drawings meets a real condition on site, the person who drew it works with the person building it. The permit work stays with us as well: we put the documents together, answer the city’s plan review comments, and make the revisions a reviewer asks for.

You sign one contract and keep one point of contact for the whole project, from the first sketch to the keys.

When Design-Build Fits Best

Design-build fits projects where the design and the budget have to be worked out together, which describes most custom homes. It’s how we handle custom homes on your lot, backyard homes, additions, and historic restorations.

For most of those, Nebraska leaves the choice of designer to you. The state lets a single-family home under 10,000 square feet be designed without a licensed architect, which is what makes a design-build team practical for most homes here. Our guide on whether you need an architect in Nebraska has the details.

If you already have a finished set of plans you love, a builder who works from plans may be the simpler fit. Our guide to custom home builders and general contractors explains the difference.

What To Ask A Design-Build Firm

Ask who does the design, and whether that person is on staff or hired out. Ask how the price is tracked while the drawings develop, and when you’ll see a real number. Ask who handles the permit and the city’s review comments. Ask for the firm’s contractor license number. And ask how changes are priced once construction starts.

How We Work

Most people start with our Estimate Builder, which turns a budget into the size of home it supports, land not included. From there, a design consultation looks at your lot, your must-haves, and your budget together.

Then we design, permit, and build the house as one team, in Lincoln and Seward, under Nebraska contractor license #71724-25, with the budget in view from the first sketch.

See how we work as a design-build firm in Lincoln.