PS- we are in central Indiana.

Ironwood, how is everything with you? Feeling well?

A "design" concept should be possible - so long as you leave EVERYTHING in place. As soon as you "move" something, now the design team starts to get nervous. To sign off on a project, you may have to pay the designer more (much more) to put things together for you.

As soon as they realize you are going to do the work yourself, they may be a bit gun-shy as to "liability" should something/anything go wrong with their design being translated by your work. Designers have great "vision" but do not have the technical background to set up an architectural drawing. They rely on their contractors to know about code and how to achieve "code" while still offering up the designer's final "look". By doing the work yourselves, you are taking away this "technical know-how" that many designers rely on from their bonded builders. This may be a "legal" thing.

There may be an "income" issue with this as well. It is possible that part of renovation design "profits" for designers come in the form of dove-tailing...or getting small kick-backs because the designer used a particular company to do the work. You might be by-passing this form of income the designers usually count on in their business model.

I'm not certain as to how your area works...but I'm guessing it is a mixture of these two issues that is causing designers to hold back on taking the job. If you want a design that you can impliment...work with an Architect. They will detail the job to the last galvanized ringed nail...so that there is no possible way your project fails due to lack of "code".

Sure. I do it all the time. Good designers are fast on their feet so someone should be able to come in and work out the whole bathroom design in a few hours over your dining room table with you as an active participant. I've done whole houses that way (if you go to my "ideabook", all of those houses were conceptualized in a one day "eyeball to eyeball" session with the client) so additions take less time.

So you have an idea, here's a design session photo (that's me in the middle) as well as the final drawing (kitchen AND master bath in this case) but all starting from scratch. Three hours later we had it conceptualized.

And the best of luck with your project. Exciting times!!!

Hey Judy! I'm OK. I've had this bug going since just after Thanksgiving, a real nasty one. It is going around, so I'm not alone. Wish the market would makeup its mind...had waaaay too much to do last summer, 14 job leads heading into fall and bupkis now. It's really cutthroat out there...

Sure have missed you and your advice, Ironwood. Maybe you'll have time to add your expertise, till work picks up! (-: