Six Projects, One Design Studio

A Chicago design studio runs six residential projects at once, at every stage from design to closeout: a Lincoln Park house and a River North condo in Chicago, a residence in Evanston, a Williamsburg brownstone, a Brickell penthouse in Miami and a ranch outside Jackson Hole. With no project management function of its own, the principal coordinates all of them between client meetings.

Each project enters through one intake form with one consistent set of fields, so six separate jobs feed a single monthly view. Project 01’s FF&E scope is baselined at $277,000 across 39 lines, and every order deadline derives from it.

What the principal gets back is time, roughly 12 to 15 hours a week: 6 to 10 of jobsite coordination across GC teams working different phases, about 3 no longer spent assembling documents before a client meeting, and the vendor follow-up that fills the gaps. Every decision stays with the studio. The coordination around it simply stops landing on the principal’s desk.

Once a month the whole roster fits on one page: each project’s stage, where its FF&E sits between design and delivery, deposits and decisions due, open risks, and what is committed against forecast. By November the studio had $412,000 committed for the year, on plan at 68 percent of forecast, with two projects in delivery and one at closeout.

That view is what caught the overlap. Projects 01 and 03 were both shipping Italian cabinetry in the same window. Three options went to the principal, each with its dollar and billing-period effect, and the second was chosen: one 40-foot container instead of two 20-foot ones. It saved $3,900, and a four-day hold at clearance was absorbed in the cushion at no cost. When the two projects’ deliveries then competed for the same site window, a nominated receiver took both through January for $3,800, keeping each site clear for its own trades. In the same month Project 04, the Williamsburg brownstone, reached closeout with every line delivered, and its $9,000 retention was set to release on November 25 while the other five kept moving.

Project 01 shows how procurement ran across the roster. All European cabinetry from three makers went into a single container, removing a duplicate freight bill and a second customs event. Appliance openings were checked against the cabinetry maker’s shop drawings before release, the hardware was locked to one finish across seven areas on a single order, and a guest bath tile with a shorter lead time was chosen so it would arrive and be invoiced before year-end billing, with the design intent intact.

When an appliance arrived damaged, the photographs taken at intake settled the claim without dispute: a replacement at no cost, its eleven-day cycle absorbed in storage. From then on, photo-documented intake became standard across all six projects. Production slots in Italy were sequenced the same way. Project 05’s orders were booked behind Project 01’s reorder window, which the makers held open through January 20, so Project 01, next to install, kept its safety net.

Client deposits and vendor payments were mapped against each other, per project and across the roster. The November read showed $125,000 of client deposits due between December 12 and January 10 across four projects, and on Project 01 alone about $69,000 of vendor payments due by December 4, led by three euro invoices payable before release.

Seeing it early changed how orders were written. The powder room wallcovering was released on balance-on-delivery terms, moving its payment into a later period. The substitute guest bath tile closed its invoice before year-end instead of carrying into the new year. No receivable on the roster was older than 30 days. The one call still open, staging Project 05’s deposits against Project 01’s balances in the same window, went to the principal with the options written out.

Each project carried its own decision and risk register, read across the roster every week. On Project 01 alone it held two dozen decisions by November, and many of them kept choices open for the client. The dishwasher was specified at ADA height so either handle system could still be chosen. The countertop was held at 4 cm so an island overhang stayed possible until template. Stone and shower glass were measured on site, after cabinetry and tile.

Others looked after the people who would live with the work and the trades who would build it. Closet modules were capped at 90 cm so a full hanging rail would not sag. A two-inch removable scribe panel kept the LED transformers reachable without taking millwork apart. Blocking positions for every cabinet, accessory and sconce went to the GC in writing before the drawing set closed, and the plumber confirmed rough-in heights for the space-saving vanity traps before the wet walls were shut. Where a decision was still open, like the two stone template visits on December 16 and 23, it carried a written position and its cost: five cushion days for every week of slip.