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Welcome to Let’s Build with Armada, the podcast where Washington homeowners learn how to remodel with clarity, strategy, and confidence—on a schedule that follows real projects, not a rigid calendar.
I’m Charlie Carter from Armada Design & Build. After years of working across the greater Seattle area, I’ve learned that successful remodeling isn’t about luck. It’s about planning, transparent conversations, and understanding how every decision—from windows to insurance to material selections—affects long-term value.
In each episode, I sit down with experts to answer the questions homeowners genuinely care about:
- Why your PNW windows cry every winter
- Financing options that actually make sense in 2026
- How to not get burned by a cheap insurance quote
- What adds value in Seattle… and what just burns cash
- How to plan a DADU without turning your backyard into a 2-year construction zone
Whether you’re preparing for a kitchen or bathroom remodel, planning a full-home upgrade, or exploring a backyard DADU for equity or rental income, this podcast gives you the clarity you need to move forward confidently.
Listen here, watch more real projects on our YouTube channel, and visit us when you’re ready to build with confidence.
And don’t forget to follow the show—so you never miss an episode that could save you time, money, and stress.
Visit the Armada Design Center in Bellevue when you’re ready to start planning your own home transformation!
📍 15600 NE 8th St. Suite O2, Bellevue, WA 98008
📞 425-587-8286
🌐 https://armadabuild.com/?utm_source=transistor
Welcome back. Hey, Charlie with Armada Design and Build here for another installment of Let's Build with Armada, our podcast here with our company all about residential remodeling, renovations, additions, new construction. And we are very lucky to have with us today our senior project manager Derek Abbott. And we're going to talk about the things that he does, his roles and responsibilities here at Armada as a project manager, and also talk about prior experiences he's had, how things work, and if you don't happen to live in the greater Seattle area and you can't work with us, give you some clues, hints, tips, and pointers of things to look for and make sure against if you're looking for somebody to do a project on your home. Mhm. So, thank you Derek for joining us today. Uh, he has been with us for about five years now. Um, tell us a little bit about your background prior to Armada, right? You have been in and around construction most of your life as I understand it, but give us the short version of the experience of Mr. Derek and how you got to the point of the full knowledge base you have today and um, you know, what makes you an expert. Okay. So, I basically started I'm going to say building with my father way back. I think I started somewhere around 1985. Okay. And I built my first house with him and it was a speculative build. So, what we did, we bought a lot. We built a house. The house goes up on the market and then you sell it. So, you know, and that whole learning process during that was eye opening for me because I'm in my 20s and you just you only know what your father gives to you at that time. So, basically that's where that kind of just Did you make any money on that one? Uh yeah, actually back then I did did okay on that. On your first one? On my very first one? I did. A lot of people go that road and don't make any money on the first one. Well, you know, I was looking for my dad to, you know, give me the experience I needed. So, that was very helpful. Of course. And where was that? Where'd you do that? We did that in Tacoma. Okay. So, here in the greater Seattle area down Tacoma. Yeah. My father started building I think in 1964 is when he started. So, you know, so he's a has a lot of experience there. But, uh, for the most part, uh, I did I was doing that. I was also a sales salesman for a building company. And uh you know I was uh pretty much in charge of doing complete I'm going to say look at the plans give me a complete house takeoff. Okay from everything from from the groundwork all the way up. Did that for several years. Okay you know and that was enlightening. But uh basically from there you know and then uh I went to work with my father and uh we were doing uh condominiums. Okay. Okay. We were also doing luxury builds on waterfront. All right. So, you know, that had a lot of it. Luxury single family. Yeah. Luxury single family, multif family. You know, we were just diving into a lot of different things all here and around the all of that. You know, I think you at that point we were doing primarily [clears throat] all Lake Washington waterfront stuff and in the Kimmore area. All right. A lot of that a lot of Kimmore was growing at the time. So, a lot of new construction. A lot of new construction. custom or right right not really any remodels pretty much all new construction for a long time for quite a while because you could buy properties just about everywhere back in the day. So you know but that's not so much the case anymore. No, not so much the case anymore because of you know uh a lot of properties have been bought up and people love where they live and they just want to give me a remodel. Right. So then now you got to renovate. So then you got to renovate. Okay. You basically have to do that. Excellent. So, oh, I forgot to say I got so excited here. I wanted to get Derek in. So, like and subscribe, right? Rate and review us on the podcast site, Apple or wherever you get your podcast. Click down below. Leave a comment about this one. If you have a question for Derek, we'll get back to you or a comment about another topic that you would like us to talk about and we'll see if we can get that done for you. So, work that in. But give us a like and subscribe. Go check out some of the other stuff that we've got. Link will be down there. check us out on the web or come on into the showroom if you're in the Seattle Belleview area and we can talk about your project. So, thank you again, Derek. So, a couple of things I want to just get in here. So, what is for you the most challenging part of being a project manager? Waking up in the morning. Waking up in the morning. All right. When does that when does the crow's pro what time of day is that for you? So, that's a little after 5:00 every day. So, you know, and those hours run between five and six every day. So, you're putting in a lot of hours to be a project manager, right? How many projects are you running for Armada on, you know, average at a single time? I know cuz you run a lot of the bigger stuff. So, what would your I would say minimum five at a time. Okay. Minimum. And that's you feel like you can manage that. That's not too many balls in the air. Yeah, I can manage that. Now, what if you were doing a $2 million project? Would you then also have four others to go with it or I would. You would. Okay. So, not too much uh volume for you to be able to run three or four, five potentially at a time. Exactly. Now, they're not always in the same place like everybody's framing, everybody's painting. Correct. You try to get them staggered, right? So, different things are happening. You want to stagger everything because it just helps your managing time. Managing time is critical, right? Absolutely critical. So, and plus you have to drive a lot. So, you know, who knows where all the locations are. It could be all around the greater Seattle. You bet. You have to be at the jobs on site, right? How many miles are you driving in a week? Month. I would say at least 400 miles a week. 400 a week. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, 20,000 a month or a year rather. Yeah. About 20,000 a year. Something like that. 5,000 more than normal. So what is how is working with Armada and our process different than some other companies that you've been with and their process? What would you say are the big distinctions there? I mean building is still building, right? So we got to put it up. We got to do the stuff. We got to call all the people, but what is some of the nuance differences? I think the biggest nuance is going to be being able to collaborate with your team members. That gives you a better success rate. Instead of trying to do it all on your own and try to figure out everything on your own, you have a team and with that team comes success. Right. Now, the one you mentioned before and I think I know a little bit of the background on this is where you said, "Give me the takeoff from the whole thing from the start to the finish." Right. Correct. That you were really in charge of the whole process kind of the early days through the design and the production. Right. So that's more you doing it by yourself. And the main difference here is is that in theory in theory, right, is that by the time it gets to you, all the decisions have been made, correct? Right. You know what the tile is, you know what the lights are and the sighting and the window, all that stuff is done. So in theory, really all you're needing to do is execute on the plan that there isn't a lot left for you to figure out that handrail detail or figure out like the stair thing or the fireplace thing, right? In theory that that's all pretty well pinned down. It is. And so and and we do the team, the design team, architectural team, they do a really good job of giving you clear and concise and accurate plans for the most part. Certainly there are surprises and we'll come to that in a little bit but you're really narrowly more narrowly focused on I think one of the things I like to try and and the way I like to try and characterize it for our clients is that they you have really sort of three main things right get everybody there is the way that I refer to it which means manage the schedule to me the quality control making sure that everything's done to our standard and what it's supposed to be like and communicating with the client And the last and not least, right, keeping everybody safe. Safe. Safety is critical on important. So manage the safety. Get everybody there. Quality control and talking to the client. In theory, you're not having to figure out what the windows are or what color any paint's going to be. That's all been done. So you can just then go execute. So what would you say after the long what 40 years here now, right? And 85 to is that going on 40 years at this point. So what would you say over that time period are some of the biggest mistakes that contractors make sort of continual mistakes in in project management? Not everything but like the stuff that you have experienced, seen, learned, you know, no to avoid kind of common stuff that you know people that are looking to do a project like what what would they be? I think some of the big things okay so one for sure would be trying to maintain a schedule. The reason you want a schedule, it keeps everybody engaged in the project. So, you got a start, you have a finish, you have all the inbetweens, but you really want to keep everybody engaged. And that's from subcontracting to client to uh vendors and all that. Everybody has a schedule, everybody abides by the schedule, and it keeps it organized. That's what's critical. And expectation. Yeah. Well, expectation is very critical. Then you know what's happening 3 weeks from now. So, I need to order the thing to make sure it's here so that those guys hit the door and it's kind of that just in time sort of delivery, right? Is that like the cabinets will be here on the 12th and we're scheduled to start putting them in on the 13th. Correct. Boom. Boom. Boom. Just like that. Exactly. Okay. What happens when everything goes wrong on the same day? Maybe across multiple jobs. How do you keep it together? cuz I've seen it like it's just no news, you know, bad bad bad this inspection, found some rot. So each job I give myself a ledger. So within that ledger is a day-to-day activities and how it's going down. So if you have a multiple things going wrong, you're going to label what's going wrong, try to sort that out. If you can sort it out at the same time, that's fantastic. If you can't, you're going to give yourself something to look at, understand, and resolve it within a certain timeline. Like for me, I like to resolve everything quickly. I don't like to go past 3 days if I can help it. I want to keep things moving. Everybody wants to see things moving. So each job, if it is multiple jobs, you're going to label it exactly what it is. Prioritize it. Prior prioritize it entirely. And you want to move through that fairly quickly. Now, uh, if [clears throat] it's all day long and that's what happens, sometimes you just need to reset yourself. You're going to, you know, you're going to take a big deep breath and you're just going to hit each one. Sometimes take a little break, talk it through. Sometimes you got to talk it through with other people, too. That sometimes helps alleviate the pressure of all the things that could be going wrong at the same time, right? There's a lot on your plate. There's a lot on your shoulders and your shoulders. Responsibility for millions of dollars worth of stuff. And this is people's homes. I mean, you're, you know, you're behind the wall here, right? This is this is everything to them. And, you know, my family, all of that stuff. So, this is not getting their car fixed. This isn't making a new suit for them. You know, this isn't even landscaping. This is the kitchen or the bathroom or the family room. It is as intimate as it can be. And especially if they're just if they're living in the home, they're seeing it day by day. Or if they're not living in the home, there's a little less pressure that way as well. That's fair. New construction somewhat. Yeah. Um, here's one for you. What would you say are just a couple things? Obviously, you both been doing this long enough now, but what are the the changes in project management or the tools and things like that that you have seen? You know, I have an imaginary list. I don't do project management anymore. I did for a period of time. But the different things that are happening in project management, the different ways that we're doing it, the tools, websites, stuff like that that you would say are making the job, I don't know if it's easier or, you know, more effective, more efficient, right? What are some of those things out there that you're glad have kind of well you know I wasn't so glad but anyway you you dive into different platforms and we have build a trend platform and our builder plan trend platform basically gives you the ability to you can schedule you have selections that have already been given to you from the design team and you basically can run through there put POS together and you can schedule uh whatever POS are necessary to get subcontractors on board. Now, the beautiful thing about that, too, is subcontractor gets the dive in the builder trend. They can follow the schedule. Wow, how great is that? It really is great. It keeps everybody engaged and you know, if it's off a little bit, you can make that subtle adjustment and everybody loves it because they can all follow along. That that's a big thing because we use it every single day. That's what we do. and you're you're going out there and I'm gonna I'm gonna take pictures and I'm gonna uh basically give you a daily log and at the end of the week I'm going to summarize that everything with an AI summary. What happened? Yeah. What's coming up? Yeah. And that just kind of brings all of it together nice and clean. You can understand it and they that AI aspect of it is pretty nice. I I do like that. Yeah. I do like that. And you know um what else were they? So just the technology stuff. You remember and I remember like far enough back there was not even a cell phone. There was no cell phone. There was no fax machine, right? Like it was a phone at the office and a pay phone at the 7-Eleven or the gas station on the corner. The job and you'd go down there and pay because you had a beeper. Thank god they came out. Yeah, the beeper. That was the first That was the first one. And then the fax machine. Right. Right. And then this all like and we we used to joke years ago I was like, "How do we build anything before the fax machine?" Oh yeah. With all the phone technology. Amazing. How did anything get built before that? This phone is really changed everything as far as construction goes. It's just amazing. So, what's Derek's talking about is builder trend. That's a that's a software SAS, right? A service, a software that we subscribe to that every project that we do, people that we are working with, we create a website as it were sort of under that umbrella for that project and they have login credential, right? So the homeowner can log in, you can log in. Our entire team has access to that. Correct. And then the assigned outside like your electrician or your plumber and these outside companies that we don't have as direct employees, they have access to that and then we really manage and run the job through that from the beginning. The documentation is there before you're ever involved. They've done a lot of stuff on that project portal. Correct. They've made all their selections. You've picked everything. Like you it's a it's like a spreadsheet. you go in like plumbing and then here's like the master bathroom or the primary bathroom and the kitchen and then you can see the sink and the faucet and the hardware
all all like approved like you click approve and we we track it all from there we order it from there and then like you said longterm during the construction phase the the schedule is there correct your updates your daily logs are all there you can assign a to-do to the homeowner like hey you need to make a decision on this thing and the financial side of it is financial side. Yeah. Basically, it gives you a complete list of how your contract was put together and here's your payment schedule and that is all uh put directly in with with our uh so it's really one person place to go and look and see. It just has it all all the stuff and it's a popular tool for for for builders remodelers all over the country I would say pretty widely used but does require quite a bit of maintenance. It does, right? You spend how many hours a day? What portion of your day is across your four or five jobs that you're running? 50 or 60 a week. I'm going to say two hours every day. Two hours a day. Solid two hours every day. I'm in builder trend. Okay. So 10. So a quarter if you're only working 40 hours. Of course you don't, but in theory. So a quarter 25% of your time is in builder trend. Keeping that up to date, communicating with the client, and then once you put it there, it's always there. It's saved there, you know, it's all that information is there. So, that is a big difference and I think it does make us better and more effective. It does, right? Communicating with the client where everything is, it's a great thing. Um, how do you manage along that line? So, I go from there. How do you manage client expectations? Because I think managing expectations or setting reasonable expectations is a huge thing from the very beginning when we start talking them like I had Robin in project consultant, right? talking about like her interaction with clients and starting to set expectations on timelines and expectations on budget and those kind of things, but then it gets to you, right? And so they know the numbers and all of that stuff is done and now it's just about how long is this going to take to build? What is this going to be like to live through? Yeah, exactly. So what happens is we have uh several project managers for Armada, but what we try to do as well is get the project manager involved a little sooner than the start of the bill. Introduce it to client. Go walk the project. Get your head around the project. Talk to the client about their project and really get them engaged with yourself and how our motto works. I think that's a real critical portion of how we do this. What's the most satisfying part of all of this work, all of this stress, those early mornings and late nights and all that drive-in, you know, besides the paycheck, right? You know, but then what is that that intrinsic the thing that keeps you keeps getting you out of bed, right? Like what would you characterize that as? Well, you know, it's it's the love of what you do because the appreciation of being able to take a project, build a project and get a complete satisfaction from the client and it's not at the end of the project. You want satisfaction going through the entire project, right? So, that keeps you going as a project manager because you get that smile. You want to keep that smile through the whole project. Sometimes these projects are eight or nine or 10 months. Sometimes they're only 3 months. But still, even during this whole process, you want to maintain a good relationship with the client and that makes you feel good. You can go to sleep on that. You don't want to go to sleep on something that's really bothering you. That puts too much stress on you. So, the idea is keep the stress level down, but maintain, you know, continuity through the project. that makes everybody just more at ease so that that tension's gone, the confidence that we know what's happening and we know that it's going to be done well and we know when it's going to happen. And you know, at the end of the day, the big one is fivestar review. [laughter] Yes. Get that, Derek. Love the king of the five star review. Ex. Check our website or check us on Google and you'll see all the five star reviews that he's gotten. Um, so before we get into some of the other things, I just got one more for you here. If someone was considering getting into project management, and I know here at Washington State, you know, across the state, we have a pretty good school for that, but what kind of advice would you give someone if they were considering it? You know, if you could have a conversation with yourself 45 years ago about getting into this, what would you say? Or don't do it, go do something else, right? Or no, do this, but understand this. Yeah. Yeah, if you love building, that's your big portion cuz okay, I love building. I love being able to put something together and appreciate the accomplishment behind that. I think that's real critical. And then really being able to engage with people and follow that engagement through the poll process and like what you're doing, love what you're doing, you know, and sometimes that accomp accomplishment goes a long ways because maybe you were teaching other people, maybe the act of building gives you that satisfaction of, wow, look what I was able to accomplish, you know. So, you know, I know you have a team, but you still have to get up every day and you still have to look at yourself in the mirror and you have to understand this is what I love and I'm going to continue to love this. You know, you know, there's that's that's a good point and I do agree that like it's it's the for me it's I like problem solving. Yeah. Because you run into those. It's the puzzle. It's like how can we do this? And typically it's by this time we've figured out there's three or four different ways to do that. Now, what's the most efficient way? Right. Right. It's not like, oh, is there a way to accomplish this or solve this problem? What's the best way? [music] What would you say like kind of the reality of project management? Something that people need to be aware of the daily responsibilities and the typical challenges, coordinating multiple trades and managing the schedules, like what does that look like? Are you on the phone all the time or is it a lot of email these days or you know are you using the website the portal the project portal builder trend like how do you coordinate and manage because it used to be all old school right was all phone calls everything was phone call each client's so different I mean I just did a small project and the way they wanted to respond is only by text messaging and they're elderly couple in their 80s and that's like oh okay fine you guys are in it but usually it's going to We're going to start with emails. You can do emails within builder trend. That's all tracked. That's wonderful. But usually emails, uh, you're going to give your your daily schedule a a hit there. And phone calls. Phone calls are going to be driven typically. I'm going to say midm morning because early morning you're you're you're calling and talking to subcontractors. You're trying to keep your, you know, everything together. Multiple jobs, multiple phone calls. And the biggest one now is you can FaceTime everybody. You can really get interacted with FaceTime. So I've been doing that now for a few years and just if you have a question, FaceTime me. We're going to talk this through because you can't be everywhere all the time. So the idea again is managing your time. So you want to FaceTime, get it figured out, move on to the next. Are you facetiming with the guys doing the work or you facetiming with the client or sometimes both or sometime the design team? Sometimes both. All of that. more say like bigger majority would be your facetime with the guys at the job doing you know your subcontractors or maybe ara team or whatever it is working out there you're going to be doing that and that gives you better results right it's almost like you're there it's almost like you're there right that extends your like dies and like oh no this over there to the side thing correct and then you can be here doing that correct right so do you spend and this is one of those things when I've done the project management you know in the past is like Are you spending most of your time thinking about the future and the stuff that's upcoming? Right? Because you got a balance of what's happening today, right now, this week. And then you've got future stuff that you're thinking about that's going to be happening on that same job two weeks from now or three weeks from now or five weeks from now. Like you're thinking ahead and then you're in the moment, right? So how was what would you say your balance there is? Here's how I do it. So if I'm on site, I'm walking the site, I'm looking at next steps. Okay, we're doing this, this, this, next steps, this, this, this. With my next steps, it could be whatever that task is. I'm figuring out next steps. I'm writing I'm jotting it down. I'm jotting it down. I'm writing notes either in my, you know, my phone or I'm going to write it down on a pad. I'm doing next steps. And then when I'm done with next steps, I have to go to the next project, next steps. Because you're always thinking ahead. You always got to think ahead. And if you have to problem solve at that time, the idea would be figure it out. Give yourself no more, like I said, three days, but just figure it out. Try to get it done. Try to manifest the best thing you can to get through any issues. But you, it's always looking ahead and I try to look ahead as far as like 30 to 45 days. Depending on the scale of jobs, the long lead times. Well, if you're doing it like a whole new build, you have to do that because, you know, your subconscious are very busy as well. So, you got to make sure that your schedule's correct. And if it moves, it moves. Here's why. Oh, we've had some changes. Now, let's get our head. Well, that's one of the beauties of the build return, right? Is that like you build your schedule before the job starts, right? You build out your entire schedule every single day. What's going to happen? Like the plumber is going to start on the 10th and he's got seven days, you know, he's there till the 17th or whatever. That would be we a weekend and that's so wouldn't be the 17th but you get my point. And then if something happens prior to him and like it pushes, he's notified, right? Like he'll get like, "Hey, get notification today. You're not coming on the 17th. No, you're coming on the 18th, right? You're pushed out one day. I'm pushed out, but I'm not letting Bill drive all my own decisions. I am I am going to engage with people. Here's why you want to engage. Because that personal uh contact with everybody, even if you're facetiming or not facetiming, the idea would be you're connected to them. Let's talk through exactly what I'm looking at, how you're looking at it, and make sure we're on the right pathway. You don't want mistakes. You want to try to intervene before any mistakes happen. So, all of that makes sense. I appreciate that. But clients, you know, when I'm working with them early, they one of the questions they ask a lot about project managers is how many projects do they run at a time? And then, are they here every day? So, I kind of have an answer to that, but I want you to answer it. Are you at your four or five jobs or however many you have? Are you at those jobs every single day? [sighs] What do you like to do? What is reality? Here's what I like to do. I like to be there every day. Every day. Every day. I like to see what's happening every day. I was raised like that and I still have that still mentality to be there every day, but I can't be there every day. You know, I have a team, a team of Armada people that help with manifesting the whole process here. So, I feel like I don't have to be there every day. That's why I FaceTime. I love the process of facetiming to who's there making sure things happen. But the idea is to keep things going on the schedule that shows that something's happening every single day, right? Try not to have I'm going to call open days. And if they're open days, try to explain to the client why we have open days. It could be a scheduling malfunction or it could have something to do with maybe delivering them materials. We don't have materials yet, you know, or whatever the case. But, you know, for the most part, you try to be there every day, right? We don't we don't want open days. We definitely I mean, around inspections and as you transition from sort of one phase to the next phase, that often can be gappy, right? from the time like we're wrapping up mechanicals and we're getting ready to start drywall, there can be like a little clunk in there, right? As you kind of transition to the interior finishes. And then the next one is as you get to the later phase, there's a a clunk there a little. And then keep in mind too, the client is very engaged in all these processes. They come out, we have meetings, we go through, I walk through and explain everything to the client from start to finish. Everything's explained. I try to do that weekly. You have a weekly site meeting. try to do it weekly with everybody, right? And then back to the when how often are you at the job? Like there are different points, right, where if you're on a large project, right? And we're in the drywall phase there, like that job would be okay probably not to go to on a random day that is the, you know, fifth day of an 11day drywall schedule. That's right. Not that much. You might pop in cuz they're they're good. You know what's happening. There's not going to be any surprises. You can then where the benefit of as your jobs are different phases, correct? Where you have a job that's drywalling that needs less immediate attention, of course, unless there's guys doing work outside or something like that. But then now you've got somebody that's starting to install a kitchen. Now you're there, you're there for sometimes hours that day, right? Like you're laying out the cabinets and you're making sure they got everything in the right place. And as it gets detaily, the tile is exactly like everybody understands what the tile is supposed to look like. But you know, on big project like Charlie, basically what you're going to do is you might have a tile installer, but you might also have I'm going to say, oh, maybe the doors and mil work are getting installed in this phase over here. And maybe somebody's outside doing some kind of outside work that you need to. And then your process of being at that job sometimes has to be several hours a day because you got multiple things going at the same time. Yeah. You got the roofer there, you got the sighting guy there, you got the heating guy there and the plumber. You might have four or five different disciplines and that obviously is a better way to go because it crunches your schedule. It does. And it and it makes up for any lost time cuz that does happen, you know. So you try to bring people together and try to manifest, you know, the best coordinated efforts for everybody without I'm going to say bonking heads, right? Well, and that's a good point, right? So on new construction, new build, or a large renovation where we're doing kind of a whole house or something like that, there's places a lot of people can be working. If you're doing just a kitchen, you can't have five people there. No. Or you're doing a bathroom, you can't like there's one guy and even if he's got a helper, the helper might be in the garage. That's right. Like you can't even get two people in that room to work. So like you can't overlap those. But a big project I got heating guys upstairs, I got plumbers downstairs, I got the roofer, I got the sighting guy and I who maybe electrician out in the garage. And you know the beauty of that you know you know as a project manager you can get coordinated efforts between those subcontractors. Sometimes they talk to each other and then they can bring problem solving together and that helps bring a better process. That's a huge thing. And our guys all know each other cuz we use the same guys for the most part. So the plumber knows the electrician and he'll even give him a heads up. Hey, this is a thing. Watch out for that. The heating guy, they work together. The framers and the mechanical guys, right? The framer and the roofer, you know, the drywall guy and the tile guy, you know, they the overlap guys, they really it makes a difference. It brings that more team to it where you know the heating guy is not going to bash out and take a sawzaw and cut all this stuff out and make a big mess out of it cuz he respects the framer and understands that's going to be plumber whoever but you know the idea is you don't want to create extra effort for other other subcontractors. They put their effort into this. The idea is to collaborate and make sure and sometimes when you're doing job walks like even at the beginning you'll bring these people in as a group to talk through larger projects to get a better result at the end of the day. Right. Get everybody's buy in about what it's going to be like and whatnot. Right. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. Um okay. So moving on. Next thing I want to talk about some industry challenge market conditions. Right. So, talk about that a little bit and some of the challenges that you've seen come and go. Um, we have spent some time here talking about how much things cost. You know, kitchens are $100,000, $120,000. And then we often get the reaction, oh, I can buy a whole house in Texas for, you know, 300 grand. You know, why is it why is my addition that much? You know, the price of labor here compared to some of those places. like some of that stuff, the you know, weather, labor, material, supply chain. Give us just kind of some of that part of the challenge. Not the client, right? Not really that stuff. No, but and not so much the design or the project, but just getting all that to push out so that we get everybody there, get the stuff like how is that changed or currently new stuff that you're dealing with that has sort of popped up and is a new issue that uh you know, that stinks. I'm having to deal with that on a regular basis. Yeah. And some of that could be like uh energy codes. Ah, so energy codes are a big thing. So trying to manifest how that works nationwide. It is making a bit of a change nationwide and it's becoming a little more challenging to bring houses up to the proper insulating value that they need to be. Yeah. The proper energy coefficient, right? Yeah. Though the new construction might be a little easier, but older construction, oh my my walls are 2x4 construction. how how can I bring this up to standards? And so you got to work through some of those issues. You'll see that your the cost of that has gone up substantially. You know, uh lumber prices, well, they've they've gone up a bit, right? You know, um I think overall you're going to see your labor prices go up. It's just the cost of living, your inflation has really driven everything to a higher I think cost overall. You're going to see anywhere from your concrete cost all the way to your tile cost. You're you're just going to see that all the way through. Now, I can't say Charlie just all in general what you know what's been what it is because I don't do a ton of that. But for the most part, you can see where subcontractors have to bring a number together that makes sense to keep them in business. Yeah. you know, they'll start a job and they say, "Well, you know, it needs to be this price for me to make this happen for you, you know, and then you start working that all the way down the line for a whole project." And you see that overall like, well, people say it costs this much, but it was only this much back then. Well, inflation, you know, the cost of fueling business, everything, fuel, everything, you're seeing things just go up for that. And [sighs] it it is challenging. It's challenging for everybody because everybody wants something fresh, right? They just do. What about permits, regulatory delays? You know, like what you've seen over the years of kind of how that part of the world has changed. You know, when you did your first house back when you said that spec house, how big of a deal was getting a permit for that new construction? Yeah. Back then it was quite easy actually. But, you know, nowadays they And 10 years before that, you might not have even needed a permit. Yeah. you know, and getting permits now is a little bit challenging. Here you got geotech you have to do. You got so reports you have to do. You know, hey, you're building a new house, but I'm taking a house down. Hey, I got to go and get a a demo permit. Oh, I got rat abatement here. Oh, and I got I got other abatement I have to do asbestous, you know, lead paint, you know, and that's just a whole array of things that has to happen just to get a house taken down, right? Well, and you mentioned from a permitting standpoint, you mentioned the energy code. Energy code, right? So, we have to put in a XYZ efficient heating system and be so well insulated and be air infiltration and heat recovery and heat recovery is a big one. The U value on the windows on windows, all that. Oh, yeah. Kind of like the crawl space, the attic, the ventilation. It's just it's a lot more challenging. There's a lot more a lot more hoops to jump through the co that's added to cost. It is because you have to take the like a remodel for example. You're taking that and bringing it to today's standards and you know people always asking well why does it cost so much? We have all these factors going into a remodel to create Yeah. One one of the ones that just is is so obvious that happens so often right is we're doing a kitchen or a bathroom or something not a huge project but you know reasonably sized project and the house might not even be that bold. maybe something from the 70s or 80s even and you have to do an electrical service upgrade or a whole new panel box, right? Like, well, everything works now. Well, it does. You're not wrong about it. But now, because of the way the code has changed is that your kitchen currently has three circuits and when we get done with it, it's going to have 11. That's correct, right? Because every single thing is on a separate circuit. And everybody forgets those are dedicated circuits meaning that it goes from that appliance directly to the panel which is a bigger cost and you got to run the wire all the way. Yeah. Yeah. You don't get to it overloads. It'll you don't get to run a wire from the garage at the panel box into the kitchen and then go from the disposal to the dishwasher to the lights to the refrigerator to the microwave. Correct. No. Each one of those is a wire that goes all the way back to the panel box and now I need a new big panel box. Yep. Right. I I I refer to that with clients. I'm like, "Oh, you're going to need to upgrade your panel box." And that is what I refer to as is unsexy money. You know, that is just infrastructure stuff that you got to do that as soon as the project's done and your friends come over for the first time, I promise you that you won't take them out in the garage and open up the panel box and go, "Look, seven grand," you know, for your whole new panel box. It is. It is. And then another one too is galvanized plumbing. So galvanized plumbing was introduced forever ago. And now what's happened when you get into a remodel, you'll get this galvanized plumbing throughout the house and we don't have any water pressure. Well, because that galvanized pipe is now corroded so badly, you get a trickle effect going through, right? It's like arteries in your like it's all downhole. Well, that's a big upgrade. Yeah. You want to take it all out and you want to put a new water system in, you know, and that's health and well-being. Yeah. Well-being is a big thing because the mental aspect of that you think about that constantly. People forget about that. It's the well-being that keeps that peace of mind. That peace of mind goes a long ways. Right. Right. Um Okay. So, we're running a little long here. So, quickly want to run through a thing. So, a few things. So, in your experience, different places. is what would you say are some of the differences between Armada and how we do things and how we like to take care of our clients versus other places that you've been or when you ran your own thing, you know, cuz you did the spec build thing independently for a long time, right? That was your whole that was my world for quite a while. So, but uh coming to Armada, I understood when I was first introduced to uh the owner, you know, we had a long conversation about what Armada is bringing to people in general. And what it was is, you know, we collaborate well with clients. We have a team and that team drives success from start to finish. And I call it team because within our team, we're talking to one another all the time. We're always caught up when you come into the office, you're doing face-toface. We're looking at projects. We're collaborating. It may not even be my project. It might be other projects, you know, but you're bringing not only ideas, but solutions to what it is. And the solutions are really brings the a great success at the end of the day because this is what people want. They they want to understand that I can do this for you. Here's how I can do And I and I'll tell you that that I I've been doing this just about as long as Derek has from a different angle and a lot of times, but we have a pretty deep well of knowledge, but I will just the other day I had him go down with me to look at a project that was a little bit funky and I'm like, "Hey, I I want your eyeballs on this. You know, tell me what you see. I have my thoughts about it, but I wanted to check." And so he's the go-to, unfortunately, because he's got all the knowledge that [laughter] everybody in there like, "Hey, call Derek. See what he thinks. see what he thinks. So he has to support all of us in that. So but he becomes that resource. Um which is great to pass that knowledge on and help those less experienced project managers that don't have 40 years. But the biggest thing though, I mean, you know, even having my own business for such a long time and then coming coming here to finalize my career would be, you know, having that team, having the family be a really a big part of what you do every day. And everybody supports everybody, right? you're not on an independent island trying to get off it. Everybody's engaged, right? And it's easier for you like, you know, if you want to take a vacation that we've got somebody can step in while you're gone, [laughter] right? You know, and we don't have to bug you and you know, so that you're not just solo out there on your own. Everything's on you, all the stuff. So, it's good to have that team mentality, the training, you know, the additional stuff that real important, right? [music] building successful client relationships. I know that's really important to you. Um that you know you always are worried about the client and like what's how is this going to affect them? What's the right thing to do? it that seems to be whenever we're having a conversation about something it's like okay that's a technically reasonable solution but it impacts the client like this so I want to do it differently right like so how what do you do there to sort of engender that because by the time you've met them they know us they know Armada they know some of the other team but they haven't met you yet and so you're the new guy coming to the party well hopefully they have met me but well I mean like when they first meet you but they've been they might have been working with us for three or four months That's or sometimes even longer sometimes the job. Exactly. But you know I think the idea is just to truly really just engage with the beginning aspect of it. Get to know your client. You know listen. Your biggest thing is to listen. Just listen. Let them just give you everything and then you can engage with them and let them be really a big intricral part of the build and day-to-day conversations, you know, and it's the the clients have to have that comfort. They have to understand that the process that we're doing, you have to believe in that what I'm doing, what I'm telling you is the way we need to do it. And you know, sometimes you get a little kickback here and there, but the idea is to work through any issues. Uh, you know, I'm going to say, um, some people really are bothered with like, oh, you're going to be in my house every day. How dirty is this going to be? Well, it might taste like dust for a while, right? You know, but we are going to do all these things to give you your best experience. you know, believe in what I'm saying to you and they'll understand that because they'll see it day by day by day and then the more you engage with them, the more comfort comes with that and then they're going to understand how the bill goes and the results are going to be fantastic. Always have them smiling. Throw a little humor in there. That doesn't hurt anything. Throw a little humor in there and basically, you know, bring it to the end. We're gonna get you through this. We're gonna get you through this. And again, five star review. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Setting that expectation. Now, here's one that I would ask, Ray, is sort of that I'm sure you have without a doubt seen like the extreme spectrum of client involvement. Like they want one thing we used to say a lot is like every time you go to pick up a board, the client's standing on it, right? They're there constantly. They're in there. They want to know what's happening. They're double-checking all this stuff. And then you've got the ones that don't want to know anything. They're kind of checked out, right? So, and then they need to be not treated differently, but you need to help them, you know, be comfortable like this person wants to be highly involved and know what's going on. So, you have to be able to manage that. And then you've got the person that just tell me if anything's bad going on. Let me know what's happening. Right? And so, do you have a preference? Do you enjoy this? Are you like more in the middle with a little bit of involvement and like is detachment is that a problem down the road like all of a sudden way at the end now? It's a misconception because a lot of people think that well we're going to be too involved the contractor is going to hate us at the end of the day and it's not going to be a good project and it's going to be not a good outcome. So like for new builds I tell people if you're going to rent a place I want it close by. I want you involved in what we're doing. I want you to be able to come by. If I, hey, there's something. Can you come by? At the end of the day, I want you involved. I want you to see this. I want you to touch it. I want you to say, hey, give me your opinion on this. Make sure this is what you thought it was going to be. That's right. Right. Because now we're starting to see it in 3D. Before it was just a drawing. Now it's here. You can see it. You You want the engagement. You I don't have a problem with that. And some people do have a problem with that. But, you know, if they're too much involved, you just got to set standards. You know, that's what it is. You just basically say, "All right, it's too much, and here's why." You know, if you're honest with people, they understand that. Don't try to pull any wool over anybody's eye. You just got to be honest with like, "Look, we're going to do our meeting once a week." Yeah. We're just going to do that and we're going to have everybody involved and you will be engaged in this project. I can't have you be by yourself, right? So you don't want, you know, that every minute, every day. You have to temper that a little bit. You got it. Sometimes you And then the people that are just sort of totally detached, you don't want that. You want to pull them in a little bit to get them a little bit more engaged. And if they're overly engaged, you want to throttle that back a little bit to like it's not a matter of not being engaged, but I can't answer the phone every five minutes. That's right. Right. So, we'll have a meeting every week. We're going to do it. You can send me the emails. I'll get back to you at the end of the day. Obviously, if it's urgent, I will, you know, respond. If there's water running in or something, I'm on it. But if it's just, hey, I think the, you know, whatever, the doororknob's crooked, okay, we'll deal with that, you know, when we meet next week. We'll put that on the list kind of thing. So, okay. So, that level of, you know, a level of involvement, not too little, not too much. Try to find, but you want them involved. You want them involved. You want them involved. Okay. And so then as we're heading out the door here and winding up our little our little uh conversation, thank you anyway or by the way for popping by and checking us out. armada.com. Armada Design and Build in Belleview. This is our podcast. Let's build with Armada. If you like what you're hearing, click on the link below for more stuff. Like and subscribe, rate and review. But on the way out here, Derek, if people aren't in the Seattle area and they can't work with Armada and they're looking to get something done, what would be the point or two that you would say two or three things that you would plant in someone's head to make sure that the people that they are talking to and considering that they they do this or they don't do that or they, you know, like what would be those advisory points or what's the red flag thing kind of thing? What would you say to that couple that's thinking about doing a project and they're interviewing people and they don't know like look out for this, make sure of that. First of all, you probably just want to look up that builder or builders, whatever the case, just study exactly what they've done, how they done it, and maybe their process. Uh, another thing, if if you start with an uh a conversation, just make sure they're listening to what you're laying down for them. you know, you want to make sure that he's understanding, you're understanding that that collaboration's coming together because if it's not, that might might be the right bit for you because they're not engaging in what I'm saying here. I think that's very critical. So, that's that connection. It's still it's still the connection. People really love that connection and that and then sometimes it's not all driven by price because you can't really drive everything off of price. You have to drive it off of basically what they're offering and how this is going to work for you at the end of the day and this will be fantastic. This is what I'm looking for. I want to be proud of what you've done for me. That's clients really want that. They want to bring their friends in and say, "Look how beautiful this is. Who did this work for you?" Armada Design Bill or maybe it was somebody else down the road, you know. Uh but but you still want that you need that connection, right? So immediate minds understanding and then what about process stuff? What would you say like are the big ones there? Like they should definitely have a published schedule. Would you agree with that? That I think schedule is also another big point. You a published schedule is wonderful. Some people won't really put that together because they're not on the right platform. So schedule connection, you know, and everybody's going to look at the bottom line. They're going to look at the bottom line. So, somebody when you're first starting out should be able to give you some rough numbers of what they're thinking. What about um their process for dealing with stuff as as things change or surprises come up? Like how do we deal with that? Right? I mean, we know how we deal with um an unforeseen condition, right? Something we have a plan for that. Like how this is how we do it, right? Would you think that that would be advice you would give someone that's looking for someone like ask that builder, how do you deal with unforeseen conditions? What do you do? What is your process? Okay. So, would you agree? I would agree with that. And really what it boils down to is that I can see what I can see. I can touch what I can touch. you know, I can bring in certain subcontractors, but if we're doing a full demo, you might find some skeletons in the in the walls and that leads to some change orders at times, you know, but for the most part after demo, you can pretty much figure everything out. But knowing the process depending on how large your project project is, the process would be the subcontractors are using, do they abide by the schedule? Is that schedule maybe published for those subcontractors? I think that would be another big thing and maybe look at their fivestar reviews, right? Yeah. Do they have those? Do they have those? You know, because, you know, hearing it from somebody else besides that concept. Have they done that kind of work? Are they familiar with it? Well, you know, all things you see a lot with younger companies, right? They're always trying to get to that next level, do the next bigger job. Right. Right. And they're maybe getting ahead of them. Like they can do a little kitchen or a bathroom, something smaller. They're really good at that, but they haven't done that million-doll second floor edition with a twotory and a whole new like that's a whole different kettle of fish that you need to work up to, right? You want to make sure that they're that they match the scope of work. They do, right? That this is not new ground for them. You don't want to be the guinea pig on them figuring out how to do a seven figure project. That's correct. Right. In my opinion, and you would No, I would agree with that. All right. So, [snorts] one more for you on the way out the door here. um is what is your thought if someone what would you tell a homeowner if a contractor they were talking to said, "Oh, you don't need a permit." How would you respond to that? Like getting That's a kind of a tricky one because sometimes you don't need a permit depending on what you're doing because if you're doing like for like and you're just exchanging things, that's not a permit. If you're doing an addition, you need a permit. you know, doing electrical, you need, at least around here, but some jurisdictions says if you're replacing your front door, you need a permit. I'm changing two windows, you need a permit. Why? Because maybe you need a different size header for this window. Maybe it's not structurally sound. It could be a number of things. Um, yeah, we're very permit happy here in the Pacific Northwest, overly permitted, you know, right? And and I from a long-term standpoint, a security ass a shity issue that the homeowner knows that somebody other than the builder is checking the work. Correct. Right. I mean, that's a that's a benefit of the permit is that you have a a licensed uh electrical inspector looking at to know that plumbing HVAC and then uh if you're doing well, you know, in some jurisdictions, even if you're changing walls inside your house, they're going to need a permit for that because you're changing the footprint. Yeah. We've run into that recently now where I think it was in Kirkland we're just do moving one wall boom full permit you know we got to do a site plan and the whole thing you know like we're not changing anything but we got to do all that work to get the permit and I would you know I would just tell people if you're looking outside of Armada that's that's critical critical to really understand that whole process and making sure that builder will explain the entire process to you. Exactly. Okay. So, is there one thing, another thing, anything that we didn't cover today? Derek, thank you again for coming in. I know you're busy. I appreciate you taking the time away. But sort of the last thing, something we didn't talk about that you definitely would want to leave the homeowners with. Something to if you're thinking about a remodel, make sure of this or be sure of that. Is there anything else or did we totally cover it? We covered just about everything, but just come see us, right? you know, you know, whatever project it is, come see us because we can talk you through the entire process and get you comfortable with a really great build at the end of the day. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. That's one of the things that that keeps me, you know, motivated and going. Like, I've done the big ones, I've done the small ones, I've done like, you know, in the early days it was, oh, I want to do the big project. I want to do the compliment. Like, so it kind of got all of that out of the way. I've done all of that. And the and the reward for me now is the thing that keeps me getting me out of bed is helping people achieve something that they otherwise could not have done without us. Not me, but the whole team, right? They they weren't going to be able to build that project without us, you know, and I'm a part of that team. And that's right. And what they get and I really now that you and I are both in the grandpa zone, right, that a lot of our clients are young enough to be our children. Correct. you know, when I was, you know, 30 years ago, they we were the same age or they were older. But now, I have this somewhat sort of paternal concern for people because I know there are a number of people that are unscrupulous in this industry out there that will cut corners and not do things right and and get worried about people getting taken advantage of. Well, and it gives contractors really a bad contracting companies, bad names, and you don't want that, right? And it's only got to be a couple and then like, oh, everyone's, you know, they're all crooks and that kind of thing. And I particularly worry about young couples, you know, that I find that are generally the age of my kids now at this point in their late 20s and early 30s kind of thing that I just get and they don't know anything about building. They don't know anything about what we're doing, you know, kind of they just don't know that I just I worry about them being taken advantage of a lot, you know. Yeah. And then when I'm involved myself with something like that, I want to try to make sure that they get the full understanding of it and then that's an accomplishment as well. Yeah. Educate and teach. I don't want to just say that. I don't want to say do this. I want to give them the overview. Get 50,000. Here's your option from kind of A to Z. Here's where I think makes the most sense for you, but give you a sort of bit of a a broad general education on, you know, windows to start with and then let's narrow it down or on roofing or whatever this may be. Don't just say, "Oh, you should do this window with no background, no fill in. I want to give them some." and let them decide. You know, one of the things I say is you don't need us to make the decision for you. You don't need anyone to decide for you. You need someone to give you information so you can make an informed decision. Correct. And that's a big part of what I see my responsibility is. That's right. Before they get to you, is to give them all the education and let them pick all their stuff in an educated, informed way. And then by the time we do that, we say, "Well, all of that costs this much." And now we've got a really good plan and we're going to hand it off to Derek. And Derek's now going to go execute this plan. That's right. Right. He's gonna make this reality. He's gonna get it off the paper, get it off the screen, and it's going to be a kitchen you're gonna walk into and love. Right. And that's the part that I just I love it. I love it. I love that that helping them there. The problem solving always like, uh, you know, oh, this one's hard. I want like, oh, I like this one. You know, this this is going to be a challenge, right? We get into those. Um, so anyways, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Derek's busy. Glad to him, Glad for him to stop in today and spend a little bit of time with us. Like and subscribe. Armada.com. Check us out on the web, our YouTube channel. What else we got? The podcast stuff. Come on into the showroom. We do seminars a couple times a month, right? Derrick's been here for those where we'll do a free seminar about ADA ADUs or DADUs or new construction or all about kitchens or bathrooms. If you want to do that, that's on the website. You can register. We've got the entire year set for that. You can go find the schedule and RSVP and reserve a seat for one of those upcoming seminars. Um we're just kind of all over the place. We are. We want to be here. We want to be your resource for whatever you need to do to your house. you know, whether it's something you really want to do and we're loving it or ah it's something we got to do. Like we this kitchen's 50 years old. It needs an update, right? But okay, let's do that. Or just got off the phone a little while ago with a guy had a fire, you know, obviously didn't plan for that. That's right. Didn't plan for that, but we're going to go fix it. Derek just took care of one. I had fall that tree fell right through a guy's house. Okay, we're here. Steve, he wasn't a fire. He was He was a tree. He was a tree guy. Yeah. Yeah. Big insurance project. Yep. We took care of Steve. Derek did a great job with him. So, we're here. We're happy to help. Give us a call. Check us out on the web. We'll come see you. Help you solve your problem. And check us out. Send us an email. Comment below. Thanks very much. We'll see you next time.