Frequently Asked Questions

A great design team and an independent review serve different purposes. Your team is immersed in developing your home with you. We intentionally remain outside that collaboration because our objectivity is the greatest service to you. We assess your floor plan solely on its own merits, ignorant of the rationale or rationalization behind it. We may flag things that have niggled at you but that you have come to accept, and present thoughtful solutions. We may affirm that what you have already works beautifully.

Given all you are investing—and how profoundly your floor plan will shape daily life—another experienced perspective before you build is a prudent choice. It may mean the difference between frustration and ease, and you deserve to know either way—so you can move forward with peace of mind.

There are three reasons.

1. We originated HomEcology™ and developed a clear path toward a Harmonious Home™.

Harmony may sound intangible, but we have developed a practical design discipline for creating a home that embodies it. Harmony is a dynamic dance in which yin and yang support and transform one another. It continually adjusts; it is responsive, as our homes must be to truly support us.

We developed a path of Homecoming through a systems-thinking lens: from First Principles and your values to the life you aspire to live and the structure that can best nurture it.

A Harmonious Home™ orchestrates place, space, and purpose to support the people who live there, the ways they care for one another, and their evolution toward their highest potential as life unfolds. It embodies the path of least resistance—liberating us from daily frictions like stubbed toes, bumping into each other in the kitchen, or tripping over knapsacks—and from the frustration of a beautiful view with no window to frame it. It cultivates ease, brings forth beauty wherever it can, and offers places of refuge. It harmonizes the myriad elements of a home and its ecosystem into a cohesive whole. In doing so, it reveals caring as the true source of our shelter, for it is our intention that transforms a mere house into a harmonious home.

2. We come to this work from custom renovation design.

For 30 years, families have come to us with houses still in good condition but with floor plans that failed them. Before gutting and remodelling those houses into harmonious homes, we had to understand intimately what had gone wrong—how the original design obstructed their lives and how to put their homes back together so daily life and relationships could become easier.

We have seen the cost firsthand: families uprooted for months, the stress of demolishing a home that still has life in it, and drywall dust that begins to feel like “divorce dust” as it settles over everything long after the cleaners have gone.

Then there is the financial cost, the emotional strain, and the waste of pulling apart a house that might have served its family well had its design been resolved before it was built.

That experience is why we moved to the trailhead: to help illuminate your path home so you can build with peace of mind.

3. We care deeply about getting this right.

We bring our A game, along with great respect for the architects, designers, and builders who have already worked closely with you. We understand the intricacies of that relationship. Our purpose is never to pick apart good work. It is to offer an objective, expert, and respectful analysis for you to use as you will.

Knowing you have seen the whole picture can bring peace of mind before one of life’s largest financial and emotional investments—one that will shape your daily life for years to come.

Sometimes we uncover a bold and wonderful new direction worthy of consideration—a possibility that is literally invaluable because you can’t put a price on something you didn’t know was there. And how do you put a price on the frustration you are stuck living with—or the financial and emotional toll of a renovation that could have been avoided?

Interestingly, Perfected Floor Plan™ was the original name of this service. I still miss that title. I changed it to Resolved Floor Plan™ for clarity, but the aspiration behind it remains: to help your plan become the fullest expression of itself in its particular context. No home is empirically perfect. What matters is resolving the design as thoughtfully as we can so it supports the people, place, and life it is meant to serve. That is the goal we bring to every analysis. We also want you to know the options we uncover so you can choose consciously. That, too, is a kind of perfection: a choice that is right in its context.

Their perspectives may be valuable, especially from people who know you well.

Resolved Floor Plan™ offers a different kind of look: a dedicated review of the whole home, guided by what you share in your Homecoming Questionnaire™ and by our criteria for a Harmonious Home™. We examine how the spaces work together and support the life you want to live, drawing on 30 years of seeing what happens when floor plans fail families—and what it takes to put them right.

You may find that the people you trust have seen it clearly. We may also notice something no one has yet had reason to look for. Everyone and his dog has an opinion about what makes a great home because everyone wants one. But a whole bunch of opinions can leave you less clear than before if no one is holding the whole—and your vision—in view.

We wouldn’t ask a friend who is passionate about dentistry but works as a librarian to fill a cavity, thinking, “Well, we all have teeth.”

You deserve a considered, professional analysis of your floor plan before you invest your heart, time, money, prosperity, and future in building it. The peace of mind alone may make a dedicated review worthwhile. The practical solutions we uncover often offset our fee through construction savings.

You may already love your plan and want to know whether anything important has been missed. Or something may feel unresolved, even if you cannot say why. We look for what works as carefully as we look for concerns and opportunities; the review does not assume that change is needed.

If your plan already demonstrates architectural integrity and meets our S.P.A.C.E.™ criteria for a resolved plan, we refund 75% of your Resolved Floor Plan™ fee while sharing any additional insights we uncover. Sometimes the most valuable second opinion is knowing you got it just right.

Your Homecoming Questionnaire™ helps us understand what matters most to you—your values, priorities, and aspirations—without first hearing the explanations behind the existing design.

We then assess the plan on its own merits. That separation protects the fresh perspective and objectivity you came to us for: your home must work in daily life, where there are no footnotes to explain why a space was designed a certain way. We need to shed light on anything that is of concern, it may be a detail you want to keep anyway but it's important that you do so consciously, typically these choices remain easy to live with.

If your plan already demonstrates architectural integrity and meets our S.P.A.C.E.™ criteria for a resolved plan, we refund 75% of your Resolved Floor Plan™ fee while sharing any additional insights we uncover. Sometimes the most valuable second opinion is knowing you got it just right.

You are free to set it aside. Our role is to explain what we see and why it may matter, so you can make an informed choice. Even choosing not to pursue an opportunity can bring contentment when you know all of your options.

You can consider the annotated floor plan, recorded video walkthrough, and findings spreadsheet in your own time, then share the insights you find useful with your design team should you wish. There is no need to disclose where the insights came from unless you would like to.

If the review reveals an opportunity that calls for an entirely new design direction, you may explore it with your current team or consider Harmonious Custom Home Concept™ by application. The choice of what to pursue remains yours.

We examine how your home works as an interconnected whole: how its spaces, relationships, light, views, circulation, and purpose support the life you want to live. We affirm what works, identify concerns, and develop thoughtful solutions or new directions worthy of consideration.

It is a way to see more clearly what the plan makes possible, beyond the merits of any one room.

Once you have a plan to evaluate and before its most consequential decisions are built. That is when a concern can still be resolved or an overlooked opportunity explored without the cost and disruption of changing a finished home