Affordable design-build firm?

I highly recommend Levitch Associates www.levitch.com. They're a family business operating in Berkeley for about 50 years. I saw several of their projects and when the time came for a remodel, they were the first ones I contacted. They were great to work with, very amenable to budget, changes, and generally walking us through our first time at this. Maurice Levitch is a great guy, very easy to with and a wonderful designer.

Design and build is great if you can afford it, but you may save money going the architect/contractor route, depending. We had been through 2 major remodels before we started our most recent (lifted house, new foundation, built out new level and more), so we knew much of what we were getting into. My husband was able to essentially act as the GC, managing subs and the building dept. We used a great architect and structural engineer and found our own contractors (foundation, framer, plumber, electrician and handyman). This is a major time suck - it's like a 2nd full time job, BUT if you know what you are doing and are able to manage it you will save big $. Anytime you hire a GC or design/build co. to manage it all for you, it will cost you. The furnishings are the LEAST of your expenses, honestly, so you need to be practical about how much you will need to spend. A project of your description (lifting house and assuming that means building up or down plus moving structural walls and electric/plumbing plus updating old, architect, engineering and city permits and fees) will likely start around $200-300k, and that's doing it yourself - add more to hire a GC or design/build co. to manage it for you. Feel free to message me offline if you'd like more details.

We used a design-build contractor to do our 2nd story addition back in 2005 and while I feel like they did a great job for what they were tasked with, my deepest regret is not having used an architect.  Fast forward 12 years and we did a kitchen remodel with an architect and are SO happy we did - the space is so much better used than our upstairs.  The "savings" of not using an architect the first time has also been lost in subsequent remodeling (mainly of closets) to use the space more efficiently, but even worse is that certain things about the design are not changeable so we're stuck with them.  Not the contractor's fault - he worked very closely with us and followed our lead, but neither of us had the experience or spacial sense of an architect, which I just really think is different.  Most contractors won't have a problem using Ikea or Home Depot materials, so no down side in that respect for using an architect.  Good luck!

I would recommend an architect plus a contractor, not a design/build firm. I worked with a big contracting firm for a bathroom re-do that had a designer on board. I picked the contractor first based on neighbors' work and I knew I wanted to go with them. Their designer created a plan that wasn't anywhere close to what I wanted. He got stuck on a look that I didn't want, despite a number of detailed conversations. So I ended up working directly with the owner of the contractor firm, using my own research (photos of what I wanted). I loved the outcome. On a later project with the same contractor, I paid an architect to draw up the plans first. I picked an architect who had experience with the style of my house, and who had also worked with my contractor. It turned out really well. I think that if you find a really good contractor, it doesn't mean their designer will be great. So if you are spending lots of $$$ you are better off doing the design and build separately.

Erik Chan in Orinda does a ton of new construction and remodels. I know one house he did he used IKEA kitchen cabinets and they look fabulous.

erikchan2 [at] gmail.com