Primary bathroom, freestanding tub beneath plantation shutters

Bath and kitchen design in Vacaville, Fairfield and Napa

Your bath or kitchen, decided and drawn before a contractor prices it.

Not sure where to start? Start with one $350 visit at your house. If you want them, drawings and a priced list of every finish and fixture come after, for a separate fee.

For houses you live in or just bought, mostly built from the 1970s through the 2000s. You hire your own contractor, or I can refer you to one.

Probably not a fit if you want someone to run construction, or you’d rather pick things as the job goes. Already have a contractor’s price? Bring it.

The contractor’s price for my primary bath was $32,000. In addition to that, I spent about $17,000: $14,672 on finishes, fixtures, shutters and furniture I picked on my own as the job went, before I’d added it all up, and one $2,620 change order. I didn’t see the real total, $49,292, until the end.

I reverse that order for you. Your room is designed and drawn, and every finish and fixture is chosen, priced and ready for your contractor to bid, so you know the whole cost before work starts. You see what your choices add up to while you can still change them, and the room goes with the rest of your house, or there’s a plan to get there. If the honest answer is a smaller project, or none, I’ll say so.

Three contractors give you three numbers because each one has to guess at what you want. With the layout, finishes, fixtures, lighting and paint decided and drawn, every contractor prices the same job, and the decisions that change the price are made before anyone bids. That won’t rule out every change order (an extra charge once work has started), but it helps keep them to a minimum.

Seeing the choices side by side also shows where the money goes. Before buying my kitchen appliances, I priced three matching sets: KitchenAid at $5,311, LG at $4,556 and Whirlpool at $3,601. That $1,710 difference is more than half of my starting fee for a kitchen design, and it’s one line on the list.

Design always gets paid for. At a showroom, it’s built into the markup on what you buy. With me, it’s a fixed fee, and I don’t sell tile or cabinets, so what I choose for you can come from any store or brand.

I’m Ryan Mathews. Ryan Mathews Design is my interior design practice in Vacaville, California: bath and kitchen design for houses in Solano and Napa counties, and farther out with travel added. I’m the designer you hire before the contractor prices the job, or before construction begins.

How it works

My part:
design: finishes and fixtures selected, priced and drawn

Your contractor’s part:
construction: materials and labor, priced and built

I come to your house for 90 minutes ($350). Before I leave, you have a rough price range for your room, based on retail prices for finishes and fixtures I’ve chosen and bought before.
If you want more, I design the room (from $1,800, or from $3,200 for a primary bath or kitchen), then draw it and price every finish and fixture in it. Here’s a real one.
I give you the drawings and the priced list in one document to hand to every contractor, so they’re all pricing the same job.
You hire the contractor you want and work with them directly. During construction, I can check in with your contractor on the design for $175 an hour.

What a room design looks like

The material selections, the drawing and a priced list of every finish and fixture, all from my own primary bath. You get the same three things for your room.

Selections board for the primary bath: wall paint color, lighted mirror cabinet, champagne bronze faucets, white quartz, a white cabinet with brass pulls, a smart toilet, a ribbed oak cabinet, a freestanding tub, a shower set, marble-look tile and pebble tile with a square drain — **Example selections, primary bath** Tile, quartz, fixtures, lighting and furniture on one board.

See the drawing and the priced list

What it costs

First visit $350: Ninety minutes at your house. We walk through your ideas, and before I leave you’ll know what should change, what can stay, what to decide first and roughly what the finishes and fixtures will cost. If you don’t have a price range for your room when I leave, you don’t pay for the visit. You can stop there and run the project yourself. The $350 is credited toward the first thing you book within 30 days.
A plan for the house $850: You don’t have to do the whole house now, but you do need a plan for it: which rooms, in what order, and what carries through all of them, decided once and written down. Drawings and priced lists come when you book a room design. The plan covers up to four rooms, plus $175 for each room after that. Book four or more room designs at once and the plan is included at no charge.
Room design: primary bath or kitchen from $3,200: The whole room decided and drawn so your contractor can bid and build from it, with a priced list of every item. See a real one.
Room design: any other room from $1,800: A hall bath, laundry, bedroom, living room, family room, hallway or entry, drawn and priced the same way as above. See a real one.

The exact fee for your room is set in writing after the first visit. See everything that’s included, or book a first visit.

A 1991 house in Vacaville

My own house, taken apart room by room inside the same footprints. The baths match on purpose. In a house like this, they should read as one new build, not two separate projects renovated at different times. I took every photo here on my iPhone. None are retouched.

Before and after Same wall, same window, same footprint.

Primary bath Veined porcelain walls, a corner bench and a pebble floor.
Hall bath Tub filler, valve and handshower in champagne bronze.

See the rooms