Hey guys! I’ve been so busy this past week that I didn’t have time to post anything, so I’ll just post a long one now.
On Monday, we mostly drove around all day. Rhonda showed me all of the current and older projects that she designed, even taking me on a tour of a couple of houses that she’s currently flipping. It was all beautiful and really cool.
On Tuesday, we spent most of the day meeting with some current clients and potential clients to approve what Rhonda drew up as a possible renovation. The rest of the time we spent in her office as she showed me what she’s working on and how the computer program Revit works. (She tried to teach a little bit but I didn’t understand because it’s really complicated)
On Wednesday, she had me design a kid’s playroom that she’s having built in her own house. As soon as I finished, we met with some contractors and she handed my design to them. Then, we met with a client who bought a house that is on the historical registry. Rhonda designed the kitchen but the entire house was being remodeled.
Today, we stayed in her office most of the day because she needed to work. I fooled around on Revit and AutoCAD, read part of a book on the do’s and don’t’s of Architecture, then she sent me to the fliphouse to measure the dimensions of the deck and stairs to the backyard. She had to put the measurements on a permit and we’re meeting with an inspector so that the deck passes inspection.
This is so nifty!!! I hope you’re having a lotta lotta fun 🙂
🙂
Hi Annemarie it sounds like you’re enjoying your project and learning a lot. Per the request of Dr. Hurwitz here are a few questions I have.
Does ReDesign exclusively focus on renovating homes as the name suggests? If so what types of homes? Is the company only involved in the design aspect of the project or do they also buy and sell properties?
What does designing a children’s playroom entail and in what parts were you involved?
What are Revit and AutoCad what are they used for? What specifically were the challenges you had with Revit?
Hi Marshall. ReDesign is a residential firm, so they mostly deal with redesigning homes that have already been built. They get the occasional ask to design a house from scratch, but that happens maybe once a year. However, Rhonda (who I’m shadowing) flips houses separately with a contractor named Jeff. She does it for fun and rarely gets much money out of it and it’s not really associated with her firm. Rhonda works from home, and she does all of the designs herself. She deals with all types of homes.
As for the playroom, I really wasn’t involved in a whole lot. She wanted two walls to be built in one of the rooms of her house and use it as a mini playroom, so she had me measure out the room, to see how big she could make it, then draw the dimensions and design one of the walls to have windows and to look like a mini house.
Revit and AutoCad are two computer programs that architects use to design houses. You can make floor plans and do everything that a designer needs. I had challenges with it because I’ve never taken a class on how to learn Revit, and she wanted me to kind of figure out how to use it and play around with it, so I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know all of the terms, so I didn’t know what kind of table to put in or anything. In the fall, I’m going to sign up for classes in Revit so that I can be more comfortable with it.
I hope that answered all of your questions, but let me know if it didn’t.
That’s so cool that your design was turned in! What do you think are the most important Do’s and Don’ts of architecture?
It was more of a mindset thing, like, Don’t go into Architecture thinking you’ll be a billionaire. Or, Do go into the business side of Architecture if you don’t like drawing.
Ahhhh interesting. Which side of architecture are you interested in?
At this point, I’m definitely leaning towards the drawing and designing part of it. What Rhonda does is so cool and from what little I’ve been able to do, it’s been so fun and I wish I knew more about how to do it.