S.M. Monette Designs / Emerald Isle Design Group

In January 2017 we contracted with Susan Monette to design a beach house in Pine Knoll Shores, NC. Not any house would do, you see, because the lot we bought had a huge, old Live Oak with a large limb span on it. The tree is the reason we bought the lot but we soon realized a ‘normal’ house plan would not work on the lot without causing damage to the tree. We wanted a home under 2000 sf with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths with a garage and open floor plan. Another requirement was a plan that took advantage of seeing the tree from almost every room. Susan did an excellent job of listening to the features we wanted in a house and putting those thoughts to paper. She was very patient with my many questions and edits. I valued her opinions on design and placement issues along the way. She was always timely with any edits to the plans and available to meet. The design process took about 10 months from start to finish. Then the search was on to find a good, reputable builder. We selected a builder who not only had built before in Pine Knoll Shores, but had also recently built one of Susan’s designs. Win-win! We selected Mark A. Wojciechowski of Wojo Contracting, formerly Carolina East Construction, Morehead City. During the construction phase, Susan visited the project several times and also graciously gave me some additional design advice along the way. With the attention to detail in the plans and a good builder, the construction process went very well. After 16 months of construction and 2 hurricanes, our beach home, or ‘tree house’ as we and Susan sometimes call it, was complete in November 2019! My husband and I highly recommend Susan for any new home design or renovations/improvements to your current home. She was a pleasure to work with, listened to what we were looking for in a beach home and made it a reality.

Our project occurred in the fall of 2014 and continued into 2015. The project included the addition of a bedroom at one end of our ranch house and a “sun room” at the other end of our house. Susan’s design was fantastic. Her work with the engineers, code enforcement officer and permitting in Cape Carteret and contractor was first rate. She was quick to discuss any issue or concerns that we had during the construction and took all our recommendations for how we wanted the end project to look and “made it work”. She was AAA in my book for customer service. The proof of the whole project occurred this past year when hurricane Florence occurred. Our house additions came through the disaster in flying colors. We have been living with the additions for 2 plus years and we can not be more pleased. I would highly recommend S M Monette Designs for your next building project. Insure that you select a builder that will follow her instructions exactly and you will be pleased with your resulting project.

Susan helped us meet our vision for our 100 year old house in Beaufort. She is a great listener and offered us several options and solutions. We could not be more pleased with our new home. Susan Monette is tops in her field and an absolute pleasure to work with.

When we were unable to find a house plan that fully met our needs for a retirement home, a local builder referred us to S.M. Monette Designs. Susan listened to our long list of wants/needs and then created exactly the home we'd envisioned! The quality of her work was excellent, our contractor and the local building inspector found no problems with her plans throughout the construction process. Susan delivered exactly what she promised in a timely manner and for a very reasonable price. She handled last minute change requests efficiently and with good humor. With her help, our dream home is now a reality! We wouldn't hesitate to recommend her services.

We have built 5 homes from scratch since 1982. Worked with 2 different architects and one designer from Wilmington before we met Susan. Susan out performed them all!!! She is extremely helpful with her design suggestions, listens to what you want instead of what she thinks you should want, a fatal flaw in many architects, and changes were never a problem, even though I knew they were a real nuisance! Talented, perceptive and extremely accommodating. A rare combination. I told her she needed to increase her prices, but NOT until she was done with our house. She declined? An absolute treat to work with. Thank you Susan.

We gave Susan a hand sketch of our desired floor plan and a photo of a house we had seen which reflected the type of style we prefer. She turned this into a functional design. There were no errors that I recall. We had no trouble communicating our changes over the phone and with a couple painless revisions our plan was set. Susan was a pleasure to work with and did a great job following our vision. I would chose her again.

When we decided to remodel and expand our 80+ year-old home, Susan Monette was recommended by a friend who is a builder to draw our plans. She visited our site twice before she began her work and she returned once during the building process to check on our progress. Ours was a challenging job in that we wanted to expand and update our home, yet tie it in architecturally with the older design. Susan was tolerant of the significant number of changes we made, and in the end she produced plans that were exactly what our builder and his subs needed to do the job. We couldn’t recommend her more highly.

Susan designed our home and met all our must haves. Very easy to work with and timely. I highly recommend S.M. Monette Desgns for your new or renovation design.

Excellent communication and detail on our project. Nothing overlooked, a far superior plan. Easy to follow plans in every aspect.

We began our search for a home design by browsing multiple websites and just could not find a plan that bests suited our needs. We were referred to SM Monette Designs by our builder, Greg Hall of Ace Builders, and couldn't have been more pleased with the design work and collaboration that we received. Our lot had a very restrictive building envelope which made our project quite a bit more complicated than most jobs in the area. Susan was very flexible when it came to our requests and she gave us welcomed advice with regard to modifications that would provide the best possible product based on our requirements. The quoted costs were accurate and stayed right on budget. Susan was always very responsive to our email and phone calls so I would give her a top rating with regard to her customer service. The coordination between her, our builder, and the engineers were seamless. We would highly recommend SM Monette Designs for any home building project and should we ever have another we would definitely send the work her way.