My wife and I contracted with Budingen (Jimmy) to design the plans for our new home. Since we weren’t able to meet in person due to COVID, Jimmy quickly pivoted to Zoom meetings to introduce himself and walk us through the process; everything was done remotely and Jimmy was able to share his screen along the way so we could see the build unfold before our eyes. After a very detailed survey and a meeting with us to discuss what we had in mind, Jimmy was very quickly able to put together a rough idea of what he thought we might like. He was right on from the beginning.
Every step of the way, Jimmy was quick to answer any question we had (of which there were many as this is our first home build), discuss the pros and cons of specific details and materials we had in mind, and make suggestions on how to turn our ideas into a reality.
Finally, as good of an architect Jimmy is (and he is a very good architect) I think he’s a better person; it was obvious that he was really very concerned with my wife and I’s satisfaction with the end product and never was anything but polite and professional.
When my wife and I were thinking about whether or not to hire an architect to design our home, we were concerned that it would be more expensive than we could afford, since we are building a relatively modest home (about 3,000 square feet). We looked at plan after plan on the internet and finally decided we at least needed to meet with an architect to see if it was in our budget and if there was really enough benefit that it was worth it to spend the additional money for a custom home design. In the end, the design of our home will likely be around 1% of our home build, and for the difference in price between an off-the-shelf plan from the internet vs. what we received by working with Jimmy and Budingen, I can’t believe we didn’t call him sooner. Cannot recommend Budingen highly enough!