I do full site plans including driveways, swimming pools (grading and retaining walls with spot elevations), patios , fencing, …and most anything else that you might find on a residential house lot for under $2k. I don’t provide construction details and specifications with it, but they are all custom designed for the client and site. It will be a b&w line drawing with no elevation drawings, but certainly not cookie cutter design. … that is why I sell 90+% of the jobs I write proposals for.
Hardscapes, retaing, stairs, grading, … is not that much mor complicated than arranging good plantings if you do that kind of thing everyday for a long time. … we are suposed to compete with engineers after all.
Sell first. Adjust your product output (not your design) to minimize your time investment realistic to the selling price that you can actually sell second. Lift your prices to find the point of diminishing returns third. My method is not right for everyone, but the three steps just above are what anyone should do. How you do that will have to be what fits for you. You’ll eat a lot of hours for a while, but you’ll gain productivity through practice and adjusting your output materials to match the project type.
Once you get things going, you can adjust. Without selling you can’t get it going to find out all of those little thresholds of what you can sell, how you can make more money, or how you can cut costs of production.
Inertia of the design professional. A designer in motion stays in motion. A designer at rest stays at rest. Motion is the key to everything. Get it going at any cost – then figure it out.
Engineers Plan: (very poorly sited in my opinion)
First Draft prior to construction of house:
Revised this week after house construction – dug the pool today:
Design fee $1,800 …no extra charges (paid last July when first draft complete – revised this past week w/ no extra charge). … the pool is sunken 3′ from the SE and SW and there is a 4’drop from there to the NE – proposed contours and spots throughout. Its not flashy, but I can sell them, make money, and get referrals more than I have time to do them.
I cut of the plant schedule, notes, and titleblock, but you get the idea.