Hi friends, it's Danny with ADU Resource Center, and today we are in Eagle Rock talking with Elizabeth. Elizabeth, we're going to have our second open house today. Thank you very much. With us is Emmon, her, uh, her project manager from ADU Resource Center. So guys, we're how much this far from finishing? We're almost- So close, yeah. Very, very close. We're doing landscaping, so if we build the ADU first, we know landscaping's the very last thing. So I see a new driveway, a new st- concrete out there, so that means we're getting close. Is the final inspection set yet? It's done. It's done. Yeah. We've- So it's done done. We're getting our certificate of occupancy in the next few days. Nice. Okay. Yeah. So, um, we're going to have some people coming out today that are just brand new and starting, and they are at the bottom of Mount Everest looking up, and they're going, "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do this." So we want to hear from you- Mm-hmm ... uh, for two reasons. Number one, you're almost done, so which now qualifies you as an expert. So congratulations. I wouldn't go that far. And number, and number two, you're a woman, so it, we have a lot of women, I would say 80% of our clients are driving the project. Mm. The, the wives, not the husbands, right? But you did say off-camera that your husband had a lot of input. Yes. He was with me every step of the way. So I was the main point of contact for, you know, ADU Recenter, uh, Resource Center and for our contractor, but, uh, every decision was made as a team- Nice ... me and my husband together. So let's go way, way, way back. You guys are talking, saying, "Hey, what do you think about an ADU?" Mm-hmm. How, what was the motivation, and what was his reaction? Or who brought it up? Did he bring it up, or did you bring it up? Actually, we bought this property with an ADU in mind. We were looking for properties that had potential for added value. So, um, we looked at a lot of hillside lots and, uh, we find, found that to be challenging. Um, with the idea to add a unit, uh, on a hillside, the cost became, you know, challenging for us, so we determined that we wanted to find a flat lot. Uh, we had a few neighborhoods already selected. Right, right. And, uh, we got really lucky with this property. My husband is the one that, I, you know, it's funny, I looked for property for a year and went to open houses all the time. He went to, like, three open houses, and he's the one that found this house. Nice, nice. So initially, that was a detached garage back there, so you guys could imagine expanding as an attached ADU onto it, right? Well, actually, this was a five-car garage. So the original- ... owners were here for over 40 years. It was a family. And, um, they had the two-car garage, a two-car garage in the center, and then a one-car garage- Oh, wow. Wow ... uh, on the side. The one-car garage was unpermitted. We had to raze that. That was one of the first things that we did. Wow. And then the idea was always to, um, use the center two-car garage as the, um, the conversion into an ADU. ADU. Yeah. So did you... Oh, okay, so, and good for you for that forward vision, that you can picture what the possibilities were. Did you imagine how many bedrooms at the time? We think we want X amount of bedrooms- ... X amount of baths, or did it just kind of figure- As we go ... figure itsel- itself out? That was a learning process, for sure. Yeah, we, um, we looked at how can we maximize, uh, given the budget, that, constraints that we had. Yeah. So we looked at a lot of your floor plans, actually. Uh, when we found ADU Resource Center, one of the things that I really appreciated about your website was just all of the options that you gave, and it gave us a lot of ideas. We ended up going with a custom design here, but it showed me the potential of what we could do. And, um, we thought about going up, um, and doing a two story. We thought about expanding. We thought about all the different options, and in the end, this one made the most sense. We decided to do less, better. So rather than, you know, going with, like, a four-bedroom, two-story or something like that- Yeah, yeah ... we decided to do a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, one story with the extension that we added. Um, and I'm so glad that we did, 'cause it, it turned out beautiful. Turned out wonderful, and there's a couple of highlights, two in particular. Number one, I love the bathroom. I love all the tile work in there, so we'll be inserting ph- photos of those while we're talking. The other thing that I really, really like, I love the ceiling height. Mm. So tell me, I mean, we know that eight foot is a standard building height. It might be what's in the main house up there, right? So you went how much? How high is it? Do you know? Nine and a half. Nine and a half, wow. Um, it's so funny, too, because when this was a garage, it felt so dark- Yeah, dark ... and cramped, and I felt like the ceilings were really low. And it was the existing height that determined our, um, ceiling height for the ADU. Uh, we didn't actually have a lot to say about it. Yeah. And it turned out so beautiful. I'm so happy with it. So one of our trademarks is to match the ADU to the-... charm and style of the main house, and you have a very historical-looking facade on your house. You have a flat roof, Spanish tile, white stucco, very, very classic look, and so that's what we copied over here. Yeah. Um, I think, though, that if we look at the building heights on the outside, they look similar, but the- the roof height is- is quite a bit, or the ceiling height in here, is quite a bit taller- It is ... which gives us a really open feel. Yeah. I don't know if you, you, you guys like that, but, um- Well, I think one of the differences and, uh, why we have such higher ceilings here than in the main house, actually, is that we, we ha- uh, don't have central air. We've used, um, the split system, which has given us so much flexibility. We didn't have to have an attic space. Um, and in the main house, we have an attic- Right, right ... um, and a crawl space. It's really tight up there, but it definitely lowers our ceilings, so we don't have these really high, bright ceilings in the main house. Great. Um, the second thing that we're obviously looking at, we're seeing a kitchen pattern that is always Shaker white s- Shaker-style cabinets. You didn't go that route, right? No. So tell me about these cabinets, and Emman, I think you know what the name of them. They're, they're a Shaker style, but- These are European cabinets. Yes, they're newer, just came to the market, and, you know, she was the one that she found the color and the design that she liked. So our good friend Vache at California, uh, c- um, uh, Construction, did he show these to you as a sample, or did you find them on your own? He sent me to the showroom- ... um, and they had all of the examples out. Um, and I immediately resonated with the white oak style. Um, and I just thought that was so beautiful and so different, um, than anything I'd seen in any other ADUs. You know what it is? You know why? Because we're seeing white everywhere- Mm-hmm ... and we're used to that now, but we're used to seeing traditional oak, which is dated. Yeah. This is not. This doesn't look dated at all. It looks very contemporary, so I think people are really gonna really love that. Um, let's talk about the transition. Well, first off, before we talk about the transition to construction, how was your experience designing? You never designed a- a- an ADU- ... before, right? And so the people that are watching never have either, so they're- No ... scared. Nobody wants to make a mistake, so was that a scary process, or was it simpler than it sounds? Well, hopefully for the people watching, I, I made the mistake for you. So I actually worked with an architect before I found ADU Resource Center, and, um, you know, they were fantastic. They came up with a lot of great ideas, but in the end, the price to build was so astronomical and beyond, um, what we had discussed at the starting point, that I felt like it was a little bit of a bait and switch, you know? Yeah, yeah. And it was a disappointing thing, because we had gone through this very long process with an architect- ... and I felt that I had, I had to have a certain caliber of, you know, whatever. So, um, I, I learned the hard way. Um, and so we had to sort of start from scratch. Yeah, sure. But it, it was a good learning process for me. Um, and the design process with ADU Resource Center was so different and so much easier for me. I'm such a visual person. We literally sat down together. After I had reviewed all of the floor plans on your website, he had put into, um, CAD, their, their, you know, um, soft- software, our existing building. And, um, and then we literally moved walls together, and we visually designed the floor plan together. And it, with me and my husband and Emman and, um- Charisse ... Charisse. Charisse was amazing. Um, and we said, "Okay, we want a two bedroom, two bathroom." We start placing things, um, and then we're just like, "No, that wall needs to move a little bit to the left. This bathroom needs to be a little bit bigger. We want to fit a king-size bed in that room." So we literally designed it, um, in your offices- Right ... together, and I felt so much, uh, more at ease with that process because I, I could see it happening in real time. Plus 3D. Yeah. Right? And, yeah, exactly. And we got the renderings, and so I- I just found that process to be really, uh, smooth. You know, I'm gonna speak to something you mentioned earlier, the, which is a very, very common problem, and i- this is what sets ADU Resource apart from all of our competition. There's very few people that are really one-stop shop. They claim that they are- Yeah ... but they're really s- outsourcing everything, right? An architect is not a contractor. Right. Right? So when they're designing, they're designing for their eye, but they have no idea what it costs, and they constantly overdesign, and they don't take into account the budget because they can't forecast. They're not a contractor. Yeah. At ADU Resource Center, we took that problem out. So now we say, "Look, let's do this. Let's figure out what a sensible budget is and work backwards. Now let's design something within that budget, and we'll give you a, a multitude of options, but we'll stay within that, that zone where you're at." So there's no guessing. There's no disappointing. There's no surprises. So that doesn't happen at ADU Resource Center, but it happens every day out there when people are working fragmented like that. Mm-hmm. Right? So anyway, thank you for that. Yeah, I mean, one thing that I'll say, too, a- that was a pleasant surprise for me, is that the price never changed. You know, I, Nice, nice. I, of course, we changed our minds. We changed our plans. We added a lot of work, um, to the, uh, the contract in the end, because there were things that came up that we were like, "Oh, yeah, we want to do this while we're- And you should ... while we're in it." Um- You can change the budget, but we won't. We won't. But the, yeah, the, the base price of everything never changed. Awesome. And what, what we did add was also very reasonable in my mind. I thought you guys were very honest with your pricing- Thank you, thank you ... and I appreciated that, yeah. So after the design's over, then this guy, me, introduces you to Vache. Yeah. One of, one of our, uh, we have 20 licensed contractors that do all of our work at ADU Resource Center, and California Construction is by far one of our top. So you like him? We h- He's o- You okay? He a good guy? Yeah, I mean, Vache is fantastic. Shant, who's our contractor, who's more of a foreman, he's here on the ground every day-Um, maybe he doesn't want me to tell the world this, but we talk on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day. He's a great communicator, and for me, that's really important. I'm a project manager in a different form, um, uh, in my career. And so I always... my brain is always reeling. I like to know how processes work. I like to know order of operations. I always need to have contingency plans. My brain just never shuts off, and he was a trooper with me the whole time and, um, always took my call or called me back, uh, within a reasonable amount of time. So one thing I think that we, we should emphasize to the viewer is that, that all along, during the design phase, during the construction phase, you have one project manager. If there's ever a problem, you make one call. Yeah. You don't have to chase down subs or teams or, or whatever. That's the advantage of working with AD Resource Center is Emman is your project manager- Yes. From the very beginning to the very end, and then I know you're going to send all your friends and family and customers to him, which you've already started doing. Thank you. Um, okay, so maybe one last question- Sure. Then we'll let you go. So two questions. Okay. Um, did you learn anything that, for the benefit of anybody watching the video, because they're new, they're scared, they're, they don't want to make mistakes. Yeah. What advice, now that you're almost at the finish line- Mm-hmm. Looking backwards, is there any advice that you can tell somebody that's just starting? They're thinking about starting their design with us. Mm-hmm. What advice can you give them? We know the first one is don't go to an architect- ... that, that's not affiliated with a contractor because you'll over, overdesign. Yeah. I would say don't be afraid to ask questions. Um, don't be afraid to look at a lot of examples. Um, you know, create your Pinterest board. Put your, you know, Dropbox together with photos of things that you like, um, or things that you don't like, uh, you know. Get your wishes together as well. Yeah. You know, the Pinterest thing that you talked about is super, super important because if we show clients, you go, "What do you think about this?" "No, what else you got?" "What about this?" "No, what else you got?" Yeah. We're feeling around in the dark, right? But if you'll help us by collecting kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, things that you think are cool, then we go, "Aha, I know her. I know exactly what to show you." That helps. Mm-hmm. That means we get to the bullseye, and that's how we can create things like this. Yeah. You know? I, I work in the arts, so I'm a very visual person. And, um, you know, one of the things that I asked my contractor earlier on was, "Okay, what, what are your sources for materials? Like, what should I be looking at?" So, you know, they sent me to the, some tile, um, you know, centers, and they sent me to the kitchen cabinet guy, and they sent me to the counter guy, and they sent... You know, they showed me the, all of the flooring options. And, you know, it took me time to sit with those materials before I made those decisions. By the way, did you enjoy that? That's not a homework assignment. That's a courtesy. Yes. I enjoyed that, and I sought that out- Okay. Because that was important to me. You don't have to do that. Yeah. We'll do it for you. There are customers that says, "I don't... I-" It's overwhelming. I- Yeah. Yeah. I can- But if you want to, it's more than available, and I think it's fun myself. Yeah. Me too, especially the tile. And you'll see, I, I went... You know, I chose three tiles that I was very happy- Beautiful. With in the end. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, last question. Okay. Then you, you take the rest of the day off. Um, if you did it all over again, would you still go through AD Resource Center? Absolutely, 100%, no hesitation. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, buddy. Thank you. All right. We are with Elizabeth in Eagle Rock, and if you would like to build your own ADU, call the number below.