Project.therapy
The Budget Game
First and always the most asked question is, “How much will my project cost” Almost any professional will say “You haven’t given me enough information to do that.” This is always the wrong answer.
You can’t blame a designer or architect for not being willing to throw out a number beyond some vague industry $/sf range. Most architects don’t do estimating and those who do probably shouldn’t. They rely on contractors who they have worked with in the past. Their experience is if they tell you what the project will really cost you won’t believe them and look for somebody who will tell them what they want to hear . Their process is careful and linear working through all the likely issues of existing condition, permitting etc., creating some documents and working with a contractor to arrive at a reasonable cost. This is an excellent process and costs a bunch of money and takes time. And when the price is surprising you will be frustrated and feel you are back at square one just a little poorer.
But what you can do is play The Budget Game. Using an AI Assistant, you can build a game board with all the parts of your dream renovation, things you want to do now and future pieces. You can develop a budget for your project.
A professional will say, “that’s not a reliable budget.” They’re correct. But it’s a reasonable guess, the kind a seasoned professional would make. And it allows you to mix and match your ideas into a project; all without the time and cost of engaging a designer or contractor or having to create a spreadsheet.
If you ask an AI Assistant what something costs, you get a lot of information that’s not very useful. So, I created an Estimating Tool which provides instructions, format and an estimating strategy so that the interaction is useful and consistent.
LET’S PLAY
This tool was developed on the free version of Claude. If you don’t have CLAUDE, here is where you can download it. https://claude.ai/
Here is the link to the Budget Game
Download this file and drag and drop it into the Claude browser and hit enter. The Budget Game will take it from there.
You will be prompted to describe your project. Write a little or a lot. You can work directly in the AI browser, but if I have a lot to say I prefer to work in word or google docs first the copy and paste the description.
Your first entry will begin a Question-and-Answer session. You will be asked questions intended to clarify your project and to get you thinking about what you really want. Aside from what the assistant asks you can always ask your own questions or seek design advice,
To save time the assistant won’t start calculating the budget until you are don’t, but at any time, you can type GO and get a first pass at the budget and then go back to answering questions.
At some point you will be done, at least for this session. Type DONE and the Assistant will prepare a summary of your project scope, outstanding questions, a list of code issues and the latest budget. You will be asked if you want to turn that documents into a pdf or word document that can be saved and shared. You can always go back and pick up where you left off.
In the end, you will have some idea of what your project will cost. Are you prepared to move forward with that in mind? Do you need to recast the project? Do you just need to find more money? You can work through all of this with the Budget Game until you reach a conclusion even if it’s to pause. But you may have identified some smaller projects that you can purse.
Now, if you want to answer How Long Will it Take, go to Session #2 to play The Schedule Game
Pro tips
An AI assistant is completely literal. If you tell them what to do, they will do just that, after all they’re only human. Treat it as a conversation. Describe the setting, what are you trying to accomplish, your sense of economy and quality. That will really help generate a useful question-and-answer session.
The Budget Game was created to minimize frustration. Some of you will have little experience or patience with describing your project. It’s just an idea. That’s fine start with anything. “Build a new deck” and let the Budget Tool lead you from there. Some of you will have a lot of information. You will have researched appliances, browsed images, taken pictures of your home.
I find it’s more fun to start small and begin the game. The Budget Game was designed to be simple, something you could play while sitting in bed over your morning coffee and get the first answer. Then keep playing and add more, photos, notes, or sketches, even on a bar napkin.