Design & Preconstruction · A standalone professional service
Design & Preconstruction develops your entire project on paper: engineered plans, a complete budget, site strategy, and construction documents. It is a professional service you can hire on its own, and the finished package belongs to you. Build with us, or take it to any builder you choose.
Why we sell the plan first
Most rural building projects go sideways in the same place: a number gets quoted before anyone has done the work to know it. The design gets drawn during construction, the site surprises arrive on invoices, and the budget conversation happens after you're emotionally committed.
We run the sequence in the other direction. Discovery, site evaluation, design, engineering, and a complete budget happen first, as a defined professional engagement with its own deliverables. Solving problems on paper costs hours. Solving them during construction costs change orders.
Because you own the completed package, the engagement stands on its own. Some clients hire us to build what we planned together. Some take the package and build with family, with another contractor, or in a future season. Both are wins, and we'll tell you so in writing.
The engagement
Your goals, intended use, design preferences, performance priorities, and how the property should grow over time.
Access, topography, drainage, solar orientation, wind exposure, utilities, and the constraints your parcel sets before design begins.
Floor plans, building layout, and exterior concepts, revised with you until the design fits the life you described.
A complete project budget: the building, plus site development, well, septic, power, permits, and the categories that surprise people later.
Where each dollar earns its keep. We show you what to invest in, what to simplify, and what each choice does downstream.
Structural design through a Central Oregon post-frame engineering firm, stamped for your county's snow, wind, and seismic loads.
Subcontractor consultation during design, so the people who will build it have already sanity-checked it.
Engineered plans, documented scope, budget overview, schedule, and takeoff, organized and construction-ready.
With the package in hand, you choose how to build. A construction proposal from us is one option among several.
The question under every project
Two barndominiums with the same square footage can land six figures apart. These are the drivers, and preconstruction is where each one gets pinned down for your site.
Well depth, septic system type, power distance, and driveway length are decided by your parcel, and in Central Oregon these routinely total $50,000 to $150,000 before a post is set. A soils report and utility review price them early.
Permit requirements, snow-load zones, and wildfire-zone rules differ by county, and each one changes engineering and assembly requirements. The permit path is mapped in preconstruction, with timelines.
Windows, insulation, air sealing, and roof system are where performance dollars live. Each tier changes both the build cost and every heating bill after, so we price them as a lifecycle decision, together.
Clear spans, tall shop doors, and complex rooflines all change the structural package. Post frame handles big spans efficiently, and engineering tells us exactly what your design asks of it.
The same shell can carry a workshop interior or a custom home interior. Interior finish is commonly a third or more of total cost, which is why we scope it in design instead of leaving it as an allowance.
Building the shop first, the home in phase two, and the barn in phase five is a strategy many acreage owners choose. Phasing changes utility sizing, site layout, and what to engineer now for later.
The investment
The fee scales with project complexity and is billed as an initial deposit followed by bi-weekly progress billing across a typical twelve-plus week engagement. You see the work as it develops: site findings, concept drawings, budget drafts, engineering milestones.
On a project headed for construction, this is planning the project already required. Done first and done professionally, it becomes the roadmap for everything after.
“Because clients own the work they pay for, our preconstruction process is designed to stand on its own as a valuable professional service.” Sean Kampstra, Owner
Who hires preconstruction on its own
You own or are buying acreage and need to know whether your site and budget support the building you have in mind, before you commit either one.
You plan to do part of the work yourself and want engineered plans, a real budget, and a construction sequence designed by someone who builds these.
Your build is two seasons out. Planning now means engineering, permits, and budget are settled while you watch material prices instead of racing them.
Questions people ask Sean
You do, once the engagement is paid for. Engineered plans, budget, scope, and schedule are yours to build with, with us or with anyone. That ownership is written into the agreement.
No commitment to build is attached to the engagement. Most clients who plan with us do build with us, because by then the working relationship has been tested for three months. The choice stays yours.
That discovery is the service working. Value engineering shows what moves the number: simplifying forms, phasing the property, or adjusting finish level. You make the call with real numbers instead of finding out mid-build.
A typical engagement runs twelve or more weeks from kickoff to final package, driven mostly by design revisions, engineering, and county response times. Discovery and site evaluation give you meaningful findings within the first few weeks.
After the package is complete. The construction proposal is priced from the documented scope, drawings, and takeoff, which is what makes the number dependable enough to sign.
Tell us your county, your property status, and what you want the building to do. Sean will tell you what we can assess from a first conversation and what preconstruction would pin down.
Schedule a Discovery ConversationOr call 541-408-5569. Bring your questions.