Pet Peeves Revealed

It’s good to get things off your chest. Everyone does it, so Residential Design & Build invited builders and designers to share their pet peeves. Many of these comments were posted in the RD&B group on LinkedIn.com, while others were submitted via e-mail.

Share your gripes via e-mail to editor@rdbmagazine.com or by joining our group at linkedin.com (search for RD&B).

Here now are a few of the comments we received. Enjoy.

As a custom builder we have to be personal shrinks, personal friends, sex therapists, etc. Also, [a pet peeve is] clients who can find fault in every little thing.

John Witt
Witt Construction
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

When customers ask how much per square foot we charge for a custom home. Also, being asked to bid on a home based on incomplete plans and specifications.

Roland P. Valois
R. P. Valois & Company
Dartmouth, Mass.

My biggest pet peeve is the uneducated client who thinks the only thing that matters is cost. Also, the professionals in the industry who don’t work to educate these clients.

Bud Dietrich, AIA, ALA, NCARB
Harold Forrest Dietrich Architects
Deerfield, Ill.

Number one pet peeve is the owners getting too involved with the subcontractors and not the designer or the general contractor. Also, too many home magazines with too many pictures of rooms, fixture, patios, etc.
Carroll Armentor

Indecisiveness which produces frustrations and loss of interest on our part. Changing approved decisions which means delivery time and bottom-line profits suffer. Also, wanting to see everything — it’s time-consuming, usually confusing and often leads to my previous pet peeves above.

Lee Najman
Lee Najman Designs
Port Washington, N.Y.

I have several pet peeves: 1) The client who can’t “see” anything unless it’s done and then says “I don’t like it.” 2) The famous, “While you are here can you …” 3) Subs who don’t call when they aren’t going to show up.
4) Subs who don’t return calls. 5) Dirty jobsites. Hate ’em! 6) The client who went to Europe or Hawaii then doesn’t have enough money to do the job the way it was spec’d.
Darrin Thornton

I’ve always been a little discouraged about the ratio of homes designed and built by speculative builders vs. the homes designed by architects. It appears in many markets that for every 10 homes built maybe one was designed by an architect. Spec home builders have really stepped up their performance in recent years, producing beautiful homes, which causes me to wonder how relevant architects will continue to be in the residential construction market. It seems that clients don’t know the difference and don’t care, as long as they get what they want in a home.

Brent Legendre
Scott Wilson Architect
Brentwood, Tenn.

Buyers and builders are not willing to spend money on planning and do not understand why the project took too long or went over budget. Along with this you can add the lack of spatial visualization by the buyer, and in many cases the builder as well. Another one is when the buyer comments that “they had no idea it was going to look like that.” To further magnify this lack of visualization is the buyer who comes to you with a scrap book of “things” they want on their house, and cannot understand why they cannot have a feature because the floor plan does not allow for it.

Donald Maupin
Maupin Design
Waukesha, Wis.