The Design Department Inc

We had a great experience working with Pat. We had a large remodel of an early 1920s home where we wanted to update but maintain the traditional character. Pat worked within our budget and land requirements while also maximizing our wants and making the space functional. She listened to us, while also guiding us in our options. She also worked well with our contractor and engineer. Would highly recommend and will use again on future projects.

I have been fortunate to work with The Design Department on multiple projects. The owner, Patricia, assisted me with my personal house as well as a couple investment projects. In each case, I have been happy with the design. Whether you are designing your dream home or a budget investment property, I can recommend The Design Department.

Pat has designed a number of homes of which I have lived in or have built for sale. Along with the structural engineer, everything worked well as planned. I can say for sure the design department is a real value as I have built other architect, drawn homes that cost much more to build not to mention the design fees. Pat has the experience , and the eye to design any type of build . DB now retired homebuilder.

We had the best experience with Patricia. Patricia was able to take my ideas and put them into the design I wanted and even added a few ideas that I didn't even realize we could do like adding a 1/2 bath and a bigger pantry with minimal changes. Patricia was very accurate in her timelines regarding the process of having drawings for my remodel. I cannot express how knowledgeable she was and creative. I highly recommend her.

Pat is amazing to work with, she is professional and attentive to the needs of her clients. She made the process for our remodel simple, and her insights and recommendations were spot on. Highly recommended!

Our family suffered a house fire which resulted in a complete tear down and re-build. Having no experience with designing and building a new house, we turned to family members who had recently built a beautiful new house in Portland. They gave us the contact information for Pat Sauer at the Design Department in Lake Oswego. Pat met us at the building site, and we immediately liked the way she talked about the re-build project. She listened to our input on what we liked about the old house and what changes we could make with the new design. We signed a contract with Pat, and she produced a set of drawings on the schedule she gave us. The submittal process involved coordinating with the city and the mechanical engineer. Pat was always available to work through any issues. We never felt like we were on our own with the re-build. After we moved back in, strangers would stop on the street to tell us how much they liked the design of the new house. We are very happy with the design services that Pat provided and do not hesitate to recommend the Design Department to any family and friends (or people passing by) looking for a residential building designer.

Pat was wonderful to work with at every step of the process. Her expertise, regional vendor connections, and impeccable design sense made our process a breeze. We couldn't happier with the design of our dream home.

Pat came recommended by the builder we selected who had years of experience working with her over many projects. We really enjoyed working with her during the design and planning of our custom home. She is a great communicator and helped us through a very complicated process to achieve a result that was beyond our dreams. She is very detail oriented and completed her tasks very quickly. Her design ideas were great and she was very patient during the development of the project. I will not hesitate to use her services again and recommend her firm without reservation.

We focus on planning well ahead for a large task, and this was no exception. We wanted to finish our crawlspace (currently just dirt) into an in-law suite, and also redesign a bedroom and bathroom into two bedrooms and a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. These plans will double our square footage, so they were quite significant. I found Pat here on Angie's List, and the reviews were accurate- she is awesome at what she does! I really can't emphasize that enough. After our first few meetings to determine scope and measurements, we had to have some surveying done, as well as a structural engineer to look over everything. I know that other reviews have mentioned that they wanted their own people to do these things, but I found Pat's 'team' of people to be A+ as well; both for price and knowledge/experience. Although we are still on the hunt for contractors (who isn't? lol) to complete different phases of work, our workable set of plans are ready to go, thanks to Pat and her amazing knowledge, skills, experience, and work ethic. Now whatever contractors we hire will be ready to go with these plans. Our complete timeline for the plans took about 1.5 years, but keep in mind that we plan well ahead, so we were in no real rush. Throughout the process, Pat was ready and willing to meet with us in person or available by phone as we requested and her schedule allowed. She also kept us updated adequately via email and phone. Pat is great, and if I need anything similar done in the future, I have absolutely zero reason to search for anyone else.

Patricia met with us at the house to talk about what we were looking in this remodel. We discussed the scope and budget of the project and the style that we were hoping to achieve. While this was a major project we wanted to maintain a bit of the historic charm of the house. She was very professional, listening to our ideas and providing great feedback. She also provided some excellent references for general contractors and a structural engineer, which was very useful. She delivered a beautiful design, giving our family 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a den.

Pat was the most professional, thoughtful and helpful support I've had throughout this entire project. I would work with her in a heartbeat and definitely recommend to anyone working on site planning, mapping and city coordinating. She made the whole process manageable, and executed with thoughtful, clear and speedy outcomes.

Fantastic! Pat was referred to me from our General Contractor and we couldn't be happier with the work that she performed. She listened to us as clients, and then used what she heard to develop a stunning house that we are very happy with.

She was wonderful to work with. Very responsive to my ideas and prompt with delivery. I would highly recommend her services.

I was amazed at her ability to wade through the descriptions and lists of needs I gave her and come up with the perfect design. She understood what I needed in this building and gave it to me. She also foresaw issues with permitting that I didn't know to ask about and fixed those problems before they started. She had calm and complete answers for all of my questions and I felt supported by a seasoned professional. I had such a positive experience with her that I've been recommending her to anyone who will listen.

It went great! She came and looked at the old house which we were tearing down, but we hoped to be able to use part of the original foundation. She listened to my ideas and came up with a design for me. She was very helpful in making revisions to the design that would work for the house and also for me. My home turned out great and I love it. Thanks Pat!

We interviewed several architects always keeping our minds open to their ideas and methods. The truth is none were bad! But Pat seemed to be the most interested in interpreting our creative ideas into actionable plans, so we hired her. We were right. We felt much less like she worked for us and far more like she worked with us. We maintained creative input throughout, and she made the ideas, ours and hers, actionable. Between the two jobs there was certainly no shortage of details but Pat's knowledge of design, structure and Portland's building codes, kept the road to accomplishing this feat clear. She was always cooperative, available, creative and delightful. We loved her work, sincerely liked her as a person and would highly recommend her with confidence.

Pat was very good at dealing with my mother-in-law and wife, who are very visual and needed to see sketches. She came over several nights to understand what we wanted. The end result is a very nice 800 SF ADU that is very efficient in the floor plan and looks like a mini main house. We have received so many positive compliments from neighbors. Additionally, we had Pat walk the prints through the maze of the Portland permitting process. Our neighbors who also were building and ADU did not do this and it took them twice as long to get permits and they had to take off a lot of work. I highly recommend this service.

As with all projects, it is a process and takes a long time, but IT WAS SO WORTH IT! :) It was a huge, massive project. Pat's part went very quickly and smoothly. She was very patient, reasonable, listened to our thoughts and concerns, was very knowledgeable about building codes, and helped us design an intelligent, fun space that we use every day. We had some concerns about the upper part of the house staying structurally sound, as our crawl space had a support post every four feet in either direction, but with her help and the help of her structural engineer, Matt, they were able to clear out almost all of the posts allowing us to have a huge gathering place to watch movies, play games, pingpong, foosball, etc. She was in regular contact with our contractor, helping him figure things out when questions arose. Pat was fantastic. She is a delightful person and does a great job. We couldn't be more pleased.

Being retired custom home builders, we have had many years of working with architects and our experience with Pat was outstanding. She listened carefully to our needs, noted our style so everything she suggested complimented that, pushed us to think outside the box on some areas and was timely in her response time.

excellent craftsmanship. Some delay in responses to inquiries. Overall very happy, it was a very custom request and they delivered really fantastic results within the time estimated for exactly as much as was bid. Very happy & would recommend to anyone who needs doors for hacked IKEA cabinets.

We really liked Pat when we first met her. We were initially impressed with her responsiveness in getting back with us about details concerning our property, even before we hired her. We're not sure if she got incredibly busy from then on, however, but we gradually felt more and more like a number to her. There was also a fairly serious over site during the project: Our house is 47' wide and sits on a 50' lot. We didn't know our house was 47' wide, but Pat did after measuring it. Yet, she completed all preliminary drawings and was six hours into construction drawings before informing us. This was crucial information, as it effected the setback of our design, and we had to change it. We also had issues regarding her professionalism: Pat likes to use and recommend certain industry professionals. That's understandable. Anyone who's worked in the industry for 20-30 years has connections. When we decided to go outside of her circle of contacts, however, she seemed to try to sabotage the reputation of a particular vendor, even though she was not directly familiar with her work. We went with that vendor anyway, and were incredibly pleased with the results. We did like the structural engineer Pat uses, and feel he was responsive and did good work. We had direct contact with him in the end, which was way easier than having Pat be the go-between. All checks were written to him but given to Pat to deliver in the beginning. When we were ready for bid copies of the design, however, we were delayed in getting them because Pat decided to mail him the check, and he would not release those copies until he received it. Had we known, we would have driven it to him ourselves. Summer was creeping up on us, and contractors were getting busy. Also, we did not use Pat's permit retrieval services, as our contractor was able to get an over-the-counter permit from BDS just as easily as she could. Pat claims to know a lot of city employees, and offered to keep making trips to BDS until she recognized her "A" Team members, yet couldn't contact them ahead to see if they were working. Her hourly fee for making trips down there until they happened to be working the counter could really add up, so we didn't go that way. We have not heard from Pat since receiving our final drawings. Our construction project was completed approximately a year ago. We're not even sure if Pat knows. We are very happy with our addition, as our contractor did a great job. The design, however, was fairly straight forward. We feel it could have been done by someone else just as easily.

Great from start to finish with good advice and help navigating with city permitting process and good recommendations on a contractor.

I cannot say enough about how Pat's positive approach enabled a plan to be formulated according to what I needed to have done to feel comfortable with my home. Her willingness to delve into the city's guidelines for property development assured me that the plans would be in line with what could be done. She is knowledgeable, thorough, and pleasant to work with in moving towards one's goals.

The kitchen was to be an extensive remodel involving the removal of a load-bearing wall, all new custom cabinets and lighting, and moving of the stove to a new location. As for the patio, we wanted to replace our concrete slab with a covered patio that would run the full width of the rear of the house. Our first meeting with Patricia was at our house to discuss our ideas for the kitchen and patio. Patricia arrived on time and we were immediately impressed with her professionalism and friendly and engaging demeanor. Being new to the remodeling world, we had some rough ideas of what we wanted to do, but were less sure how to turn those ideas into reality. Patricia quickly validated our desires and offered suggestions on how to make them happen. We made an appointment for her to come back and take detailed measurements and finished up that first meeting. Patricia emailed me with a detailed scope of work and estimate. As work progressed on the plans, we frequently emailed back and forth as we came up with ideas or changes. Patricia was always willing to entertain changes (we couldn't make up our mind whether we wanted a single level or two-level island) and was always quick to turn around our ideas and provide an updated drawing. Part of the process included Patricia working with an engineer to deal with the removal of the load bearing wall and the patio pillars. Other than sending us an invoice showing the costs for the engineering review, this was completely seamless - Patricia took care of everything. Given the stress that can be part of a major remodel, Patricia of The Design Department did everything possible to make the design process relaxed and fun. We would give her full marks for professionalism and experience (and patience!) and would happily recommend her to anyone in the market for a designer.

She was absolutely wonderful. She was really good.