Space planning, kitchens and baths, casework, and finishes, drawn to the same set the building is built from.
An electrician standing in an open stud bay needs to know where the island is, because that is where the outlets go. A cabinet shop needs the wall dimension before it cuts, not after. Tile that takes ten weeks has to be picked in week two. Interior decisions are usually described as the fun part, and they are, but every one of them has a date attached to it and a trade waiting on it.
We design interiors the way we draw the rest of the building: to scale, dimensioned, scheduled room by room, and coordinated with the mechanical and electrical work before anything is closed up. Space planning and room layouts. Kitchens and baths. Casework, millwork, stairs and trim. Finish selections carried into a finish schedule a contractor can bid. Lighting and switching laid out on a reflected ceiling plan. Where furniture and equipment are part of the job, we specify and schedule those too.
Most of this work rides along with the building and is priced inside the design fee. Some of it does not: a kitchen on its own, a bath, a tenant fit-out in a space somebody else built, a finish and millwork package on a set another firm drew. We take those as their own engagements, with their own fee. Coe + Coe Construction builds a good share of it, which means the person who drew the casework is often standing there when it is installed.
Before finishes, the rooms have to work: how you move through them, what is next to what, where the light comes from, and whether the space holds what you need it to hold. On commercial work this starts as a test fit, which answers one question and no others, namely whether the square footage is enough. On a house it is usually a conversation about how a household actually uses a morning.
The rooms with the most decisions per square foot and the least room for error. Appliance and fixture dimensions, clearances, counter heights, sightlines, venting, plumbing walls, and where the outlets land in a backsplash you have already chosen. We draw the plan and the elevations, and we pick the appliances before the cabinets are ordered rather than after, because the reverse is how a refrigerator ends up an inch too wide.
Built-ins, cabinetry, paneling, wainscot, shelving, trim profiles, stairs, rails and guards. These are drawn as plans, elevations, sections and details, dimensioned against the wall they will sit on. A shop can build from them and price them against the same drawing everyone else priced, which is what keeps a millwork allowance from turning into a change order.
Flooring, tile, counters, paint, hardware. We work through selections with you, then put them in a schedule keyed room by room to floor, base, wall, ceiling and trim, so the decision exists in one place instead of in an email thread. Long-lead items get flagged and ordered early. Where a code requires a rated finish, the rating is in the schedule with the product.
A reflected ceiling plan showing fixture layout, ceiling heights, soffits, and how it all coordinates with diffusers and sprinkler heads. Then switching and controls: which fixtures are on which switch, dimmed or not, and where the switch is when you walk into the room with your hands full. This is one of the cheapest things to get right on paper and one of the most expensive to fix later.
We write our own specification sections for interior finish carpentry, architectural woodwork, painting and casework rather than pasting in a manufacturer's. During construction we review the shop drawings against them: cabinet shop submittals, tile layouts, stone templates, hardware. Mockups where the finish warrants one. The point of a specification is that somebody has to match it.
Where it is part of the job, we inventory what you have, select and specify what you need, schedule it by room, and track it against a furniture budget kept separate from the construction budget. On institutional work we can run the quotations and check the delivery against the order. We buy nothing without your written authorization, and anything purchased is purchased in your name.
A full gut renovation of a lakeside cottage in Glover: interior walls removed to open the ground floor into one living, dining and kitchen room under an exposed collar-tie ceiling, with a new maple stair, cable rail and painted-blue casework. A modern kitchen for a hundred-year-old lakeside cottage in Greensboro. A kitchen remodel in a historic camp on Lake Caspian. Cherry casework and soapstone counters in new houses in Orleans and Caledonia Counties. Reclaimed beams, maple floors and an exposed brick chimney inside a clapboard farmhouse. Interior finish work through the main living floor of a house in Short Hills, New Jersey: millwork, wainscot paneling, trim and paint carried room to room. Interior build-out of the Cabot flagship retail store inside the Yellow Barn in Hardwick. A ground-floor storefront fit-out in Montpelier. A commercial kitchen remodel for the Craftsbury Community Care Center, publicly bid. Interior drawings for a house under construction on Lake Willoughby.
See our projects →Usually comes before
Architectural Design
The full arc, schematic design through construction documents. The anchor service — everything else is upstream or downstream of it.
Usually comes after
Construction Administration
Submittal review, RFIs, site observation, change orders, payment certification, and minutes. Available to an owner who already has a set.
Next step
Tell us the rooms and whether the walls are open yet. If a cabinet shop or a contractor is already scheduled, say when.