We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jack Baldwin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jack , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Bridging the gap between custom home design and construction is a challenge we have faced in our business from day one.

Traditionally, the design and build teams are disparate and segmented. Architectural design, interiors, landscape, and even engineering are essential professional services required to design and build a custom home. Yet, these professionals often move with different silos resulting in varied time frames and agendas.

Including a general contractor (builder) late in the custom home construction process is also problematic for homeowners who want to design a particular home within their style and budget.

Often, the design team, client, and builder are on very different pages, moving at different paces, and compensated in various ways.

At Reynard Custom Homes, we set out to consolidate a team of design and construction professionals into a custom home project from day one of the undertaking.

There are three key reasons we do this (and our reasons why)…
1. Design as a Team
2. Create and Stick to a Budget
3. Mitigate Costly Delays

Design As a Team
Our design team comprises a Lead Architectural Designer, Interior Designer, Landscape Designer, Structural Engineer, Pre-Construction Consultant, and the client. Including our client as part of the design team is unique to our process. Consequently, we have an opportunity to work closely with each client to ensure we capture their ideas pertaining to each aspect of their custom home. We also include architecture, landscape, and interiors as part of our design approach, so we can reach across design practices and take a cohesive design approach. Our design team also includes a licensed general contractor who can give us real-time cost analysis on designs as they unfold. This approach dramatically reduces the number of revisions and change orders.

Create and Stick to a Budget
To stay within budget from Day One, it takes a team of professionals working with their expertise to understand needs, wants, and allowances. One of the first things we want to know from our clients is a target construction budget and building requirements. At Reynard Custom Homes, we begin designing by understanding these variables and providing input on what is possible within their parameters. We do not want to design homes outside our clients’ budget, so we specify as much as possible during the design phases to keep costs where they need to be.

Mitigate Costly Delays
As with any project, we want each completed as quickly as possible. We also know the quickest way is the right way. At the same time, few things in life go as planned, and deadlines shift due to economic and personal factors that are, like the weather, outside of our control. To mitigate delays as effectively as possible, we use our team to identify each deliverable required to build a home. We assign each deliverable to the right player on the team and hold the team member accountable for deadlines, due dates, and status updates. Ownership of tasks, a delegation of duties, and open and frequent communication are all measurable ways to keep slowdowns from occurring as a design/build process unfolds. For example, by including a licensed general contractor on our design project and pairing them with the architectural and interior design team, construction questions can be asked and answered early and often rather than wasting time on construction sites going back and forth with engineers.

If you would like to speak with us about how to begin the custom home design process you can do one of two things.

1. Download the Custom Home Design Checklist to track all the things required to get your home designed and built.
2. Schedule a free custom home design consultation and start your project.

Jack , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Reynard Custom Homes designs custom home solutions that include architecture, landscape and interiors. We provide our clients everything they need to get their dream home built within their needs, style and budget. http://reynarddesign.com

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met my two partners (James Knight and Kalyn Kight) while working at an architectural design firm in Atlanta, GA. We read the book “Good To Great” by Jim Collins together and decided we would create our own “great” business providing homeowners with custom home design solutions.

Each of us have different skill sets, talents, viewpoints and interests but what helps us work well together is a mutual trust, true friendship, and shared passion for helping people get the home of their dreams.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

This is an interesting question to me because we had zero capital. We started without any dedicated funds and spent our personal money incorporating and setting up a website. After winning our first job off of a soft referral, we reinvested our first deposit into lead generation.

As we would slowly win jobs, we continued to build our website, online presence, and develop our skills around design, understanding of our industry, local building requirements, and invest in relationships with professionals with whom we could develop our business practice.

Our real capital was the “sweat equity” (Sales skills, bookkeeping, and architectural design) that we would market with and win small design jobs. Growth has started to happen for us as we have placed additional professionals into roles where they create marketable value to our clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://reynarddesign.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/reynardcustomhomes
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reynardarchitect
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/70951562/admin/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DesignsReynard/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@reynarddesign