Our ask a designer posts.

Ask a Designer, Custom Residential, Interior Design

Cheap Design Tricks for Your Home Improvement Project

People ask us a lot how they can save money on their home improvement project, and there are plenty of great tricks that suit smaller budgets. (Spoiler Alert: You still need good design.) Here are ten cheap design tricks that will help you get that extra ”oomph” out of your budget.

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Ask a Designer, Commercial, Custom Residential, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture

Ask an Architect: Highlights from The B&V Blog

Our blog has always been a way for us to pull back the curtain on what we do as architects and designers: to advocate for our clients and help anyone learn a bit more about how we do things. This is a collection of highlights from the past few years, all in one place!

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Ask a Designer

Are Architects “Experts”?

Are architects experts? No. But we are fantastic creative problem solvers and we eagerly learn from our mistakes. You might say, we are experts and recognizing the mistakes we’ve made in the past, and making a point of doing better. Here are five lessons we’ve learned to be an expert at avoiding.

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Ask a Designer, Custom Residential

What’s Harder: Designing a New House or Remodeling an Existing Home?

Remodeling vs building new: is one harder than the other? It’s very difficult to compare the two, as it’s not apples to apples. While they do share some of the same approaches, they are different challenges that require careful thought. Here are a few of the things to keep in mind when remodeling your home.

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Ask a Designer, Civic & Community, Commercial, Custom Residential, Multifamily Residential

Hourly vs. Fixed-Fee Billing: What is the Difference?

How do you decide between hourly vs. fixed-fee billing? People really don’t like to talk about money, but you need to talk about it enough to make the right choice about how you would like your project billed. Here is how these two billing methods work, and why you might prefer one over the other.

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Ask a Designer, Commercial

How Long Does a Commercial Project Take?

One of the most frequent questions we get from business owners is, “How long will my project take?” Of course, this varies a lot based on the scope and parameters of your particular project, but here are the basics of the time it takes to move through each of the phases of a commercial project.

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Our Story

Board & Vellum is vibrant design firm built on the idea that an informed and engaged team leads to better design and happy clients. We wouldn’t be where we are today without passion and hard work, and those same two things keep us going strong today.

Our Process

Bringing your project from “idea” to fruition is a little different at Board & Vellum. We give personal care to each of our projects, and you’ll be in the loop every step the way. The bonus: we are an integrated firm, so each project has access to plenty of great knowledge — and that leads to better design.

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