In this episode, LaShaun Key discusses how to be a good client for an architect, and shares a recipe for amazing lomi salmon.

Katharine MacPhail 00:10
Hello, and welcome to Talking Home Renovations with the House Maven. I am your host Katharine MacPhail. I’m an architect, and I practice in eastern Massachusetts. Most of my work is additions and renovations to existing homes. About two years ago, I thought there must be a way for my clients to get a little bit prepared and investigate on their own – maybe I’ll start a podcast that will help them understand what goes into home renovations. So for the last two years, I’ve been talking to other architects, vendors, contractors and also homeowners about their home renovation stories. Today I am talking to LaShaun Key from South Carolina, and we’re talking about good clients. What are good clients that he’s had, what makes a good client, and how can we be good clients? LaShaun has an interesting history for an architect. He spent ten years in the military until an injury forced him to change his career. During one of the hardest seasons of his life, he says a conversation with his five year old daughter reignited his childhood dream of becoming an architect. He then went to Savannah College of Art and Design to become an architect, where graduated in 2010. He has found a passion for residential design. LaShaun continues to serve his community through ACE Mentors, which is an organization that mentors high school students in careers in architecture, construction, and engineering. He says that serving is a major part of his beliefs. Here’s my conversation with LaShaun.

Katharine MacPhail 01:40
Welcome LaShaun, thanks for coming on.

LaShaun Key 01:45
Thank you for having me, I’m excited about it.

Katharine MacPhail 01:47
Yeah, well I’m excited to hear about your story of a project that went really well. We don’t hear about that enough.

LaShaun Key 01:56
I wish I could have like ten more of those guys, on a larger scale.

Katharine MacPhail 02:02
All right, well, tell me about it.

LaShaun Key 02:05
Well, it was a great project. It was interesting, how I met him. I was doing a reclaimed wood wall in my house – you know, my wife has all these honey-do projects so I wanted to do a reclaimed wood wall. I was driving around, trying to find some wood all over the place, and I saw this fence that was pushed over. The owner was outside putting it on the curb and I was like, “you mind if I give you a hand and I can keep whatever wood I want?” He was like, “You know what, take all of it”. He asked me what I was doing with it, so I told him, and he asked me if I worked on houses. And I told him yeah, actually I’m an architect – though at that time I was working in commercial. He was like, “Do you do residential? I’ve been thinking about this…”, and we started talking about his house. So we stopped and went into his backyard, and he had a deck that was very old and falling apart. He was looking to redo it, make it bigger, but he wasn’t sure exactly what to do. He wanted to create a space for his family to hang out, maybe do some barbecues. It was a pretty house, but the deck was weird because you walked out his back kitchen and there’s just like a walkway and then the rest of the deck, which was elevated, was over on the right hand side. But the rest of his house was to the left, so it was kind of floating out in nothing. He was like, “just rebuild it like it is, but nice”.

Katharine MacPhail 03:59
Like it is but better, right? Don’t change anything, just make it better.

LaShaun Key 04:03
I told him I can do whatever you want, but consider this – you have all this room over here, you can build this deck to your left on the backside of your house and maybe close it in. I said he would have to pay a little bit more for that, and he was like, “look, I just want a nice area for my family – I’ll give you creative freedom, we can talk about it as we go”. He didn’t have a budget in mind. He was concerned about the budget, but he also was concerned about creating this space that worked well for his family. I was excited because he gave me creative freedom, you know, he said he wanted one thing but gave me creative freedom to interpret what that thing was after he explained everything that he needed. I think that was the key that made that project fun. It was on a very tight budget. But just him trusting me, made it the best experience that I’ve ever had.

Katharine MacPhail 05:18
And you were just a guy who stopped to help him take down his fence to claim his wood. But he trusted you anyway.

LaShaun Key 05:24
I was surprised an actual project came out of that. I mean, it was great. He paid me for the designs, we talked through it, got a structural engineer involved because he decided he wanted to cover the deck with a roof, then he talked about doing metal on the roof, all kinds of things – I mean, as he went on, I had to remind him of his budget. It was interesting, I never had to do that before. It’s usually the other way around. So we got it done, funny enough, just before COVID hit. I wasn’t able to go by there to see it finished for a while. He and his wife work in the medical field, and they got really busy. I remember riding by after things kind of settled, and everything opened up. And he told me it’s the greatest space, they spend majority of their time out there – him, his wife, and their baby girl. They’ve even put a TV out there. It’s a small dining side, because it comes out in the kitchen, and then a family sitting area. He was like, “Man, we spend a whole day out here – we don’t even be inside anymore, really”. That was the icing on the cake for me, that I was given this creative freedom and then the client talks about how much they love the space and spend so much time in it. So I was thoroughly happy. I would love to have a few more projects with him if I could.

Katharine MacPhail 07:01
I find if clients tell me what they need, and then they let me come up with a solution to their problem, it goes a lot smoother. Like that’s the way the whole thing should work, instead of saying “I want this room out to the side that’s fourteen by sixteen, and has this kind of roof”, and all the rest of it.

LaShaun Key 07:14
It was weird, because when I was working in the commercial sector I was working with a lot of developers, and their hand is on every single decision. It’s like no do it this way, this way, this way. So it was real weird for me to engage my client this way. I kept pinching myself, like, “is this a dream?” And it works so well, there’s all this communication and collaboration back and forth with him saying, “What about this? Can I do that? What do you think about this?” And once I’d explain it to him he was like, “Well I trust you, because you’re the professional”. Which is really nice to have your client tell you, that they trust you in your judgment. It speaks volumes. And it made that relationship so much better when he said that. Whereas when there’s no trust there, and they question every single decision or move that you make – it’s like you said, they give you what they want, and you’re interpreting it to give them what they need.

Katharine MacPhail 08:22
You know I hadn’t thought of this question before, even though I’ve been practicing a pretty long time at this point. Like twenty years or more. I had a client a few years ago who asked me, “How can we be good clients?” And I was floored by that question, because nobody had ever asked me that before. I had never really thought about it in that way. Like, what? What makes a good client? I guess if you’re spending all this money on an architect, it would be good for people to know how they can get the most out of it, how they can bring their best to the table.

LaShaun Key 08:58
Yeah.

Katharine MacPhail 08:59
So what do you think? How can people be good clients? What I told them was that I would like them to listen to each other. I find sometimes people are at odds – seemingly, they haven’t really talked to each other all that much about what they really, really want out of a project. So then it just becomes kind of a disrespectful atmosphere between the homeowners, you know? But that’s only one thing though, I’m sure we could come up with a better list.

LaShaun Key 09:30
Well fortunately for me in this situation, I mainly dealt with one person, the husband, because his wife was very hands off. She was more focused on the baby and work. They had renovated this home through the years, and the husband led a lot of the renovation, so I guess they had worked it out. She understood him, he understood her, and he kind of knew exactly what they were doing. But what makes a good client? Or how can a client be good to an architect…um, I guess looking at this client with me, I would say first of all the communication between the architect and the client has to be there. You have to have open communication lines. We can talk about something that we disagree on and still communicate in a respectful manner because we’re a team. You may even bring that into the contract, we are a team working to finish this project that will solve your problem. We may not all agree on every single thing, but we have to work together to get there. So, communication and teamwork. Trust in your design professionals. You’re the client, and you’ve hired this architect – you’ve decided to pay this architect good money to come up with a solution for your home or wherever. But even if you’re working commercially, you hired them so trust them. Don’t put your thumb down on them. Now I get it, if you’re paying good money then you want a certain service. But you’re also paying good money because of the designer’s professional judgment, their experience, their knowledge, and their creativity. As the architect, we’re taking all of that information that you’re giving us, and we’re regurgitating it out for a solution that we think will meet your needs. So trust in that architect is key. I can think of many times growing up, I didn’t trust a person or a situation because I thought it wasn’t in my best interest. When we say hindsight is 2020? Now we get past that situation I’m like, oh, man, they really did have my best interests in mind. I think having that in mind as a client early, can help situations to be a lot better.

Katharine MacPhail 12:23
Yeah, it’ll definitely help an architect do their job.

LaShaun Key 12:28
Yeah. Because when I approach a project, I realize this is not my project. Like, at the end of the day, I do not live here. I may have a picture of it, and it may go on my portfolio, but it is not for me. So anytime I approach a project, I throw out what I like and I listen to what the client likes, what they want. I mean, I bring in whatever things I think might complement what they’re saying. But at the end of the day, I try to make the client’s project.

Katharine MacPhail 13:09
I mean, that makes sense. But if they just tell us what they want, then they’re not open to other interpretations that might end up serving them and completing the project in an even better way.

LaShaun Key 13:22
Yes. My mom used to say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And I don’t want to say that, but yeah.

Katharine MacPhail 13:32
There must be more than one way to skin a cat. I’ve never skinned a cat, actually.

LaShaun Key 13:38
I’ve never skinned a cat either. But just the idea though, that there’s more than one way to do something. I think to educate the client on that, you’ve got to have a good relationship. If you’ve got a great relationship, then you can have those tough conversations where you want to go in a different direction because you know it’s complementing what they really want. But what they said they want is not meeting their need, if you will. Like sometimes you gotta have a sit down where you say, let’s talk about this so I can help you understand where I’m coming from. Let’s forget all the other things, try to move the antagonizing back and forth out of the way, go to a neutral setting and just talk about it. Sometimes that helps a lot.

Katharine MacPhail 14:37
Okay, so far we’ve got communication and trust in the professional. Is there anything else that you can think of that would help make a good client?

LaShaun Key 14:52
I mean, obviously pay. I’ve been in a situation where they didn’t want to pay, or they wanted to pay me…what’s the word…I’ll just say cheaply. Very, very, very cheaply. Somebody mentioned something a while back, I’m trying to remember correctly…it’s not just my time that you’re paying for, the experience to get to the point where I’m at now had to come at a cost. It’s funny, I was talking to a gentleman yesterday who’d been contacted by a client to design an extension on her home. It was a really small room. And she said, it’s just basically lines on paper, can’t you do a quick sketch so I can submit it to the permit office? This was actually a client I had referred to him. I said look, it’s more than just lines on paper – when we draw those lines, we’re thinking three dimensionally. When we draw a wall we think of how tall that wall is, but it’s not just that. Is that one flush right? Where’s the water going to drain down into this existing structure now? They’re not thinking about that, they just see a line on a piece of paper. We’re thinking about, okay, I gotta heat and cool this space. Is the structure of this house sturdy, is it gonna stand up? The client’s home was in a low lying area and I was like, okay, is this a flood zone? What’s gonna happen when water starts to rise in this area? And he was like, “You know what? I never thought about all that”. So yeah, this is what we’re thinking about when we draw the “lines on paper”. It’s not just lines on paper, because then I have to deal with the permanent office. The client quickly understood that it wasn’t just lines on paper, or just a quick XYZ. So having an understanding that it’s more than just doing X there’s a lot of knowledge and years of experience that have gotten us to this point of being the architect, working on your project, and solving your problems. I’m not saying we’re trying to get rich off of you, but we do have to pay for that. Plus, they don’t ask doctor or a lawyer about that.

Katharine MacPhail 17:22
To waive their fee?

LaShaun Key 17:20
Yeah. When a person goes to the doctor they have cancer, they want the best possible treatment right? So they say here you go, take care of me, and they don’t bat an eye at the bill. But when it comes to us, it’s like, oh, can we do this cheaper?But you want the best end goal of your desire. So to be a great client…I understand that you have a dollar amount of budget that you are trying to stick to, but being able to pay is important.

Katharine MacPhail 18:02
Yeah. I mean, in the end, the reason we do what we do is because this is our job, which is how we pay our bills. There’s other things that go into it, like dedication and just love of building spaces and things. But in the end, we would like to get paid when we put out the invoice. It’s kind of an uncomfortable situation when someone is not paying their invoices for maybe three months or so, and yet just continuing on as if nothing’s going on. At some point I feel like that starts to eat away at the trust between the two people, because it’s a contractual arrangement that’s not being held up.

LaShaun Key 18:44
Yeah. If there’s issues, again, I go back to what my mom say – my mom was big on communicating, growing up. So I took that to heart, and I try to add that to my professional life. And I say look, if there’s a problem, let’s sit down and talk. Matter of fact, let’s not even do it during the day, let’s let’s go have dinner somewhere. Because there’s something about food. I’m a foodie, I love food, and there’s something about eating a nice meal, in a nice environment, and then discussing things. Putting the confrontation aside and just talking and saying, look, help me understand. That’s a big thing that I like to say, help me understand. Help me understand why I can’t get paid for this, help me understand what the big disagreement is, or whatever. And I think if we’re able to do that, and the client is willing to do that, I think we can we can solve some of those issues a lot better.

Katharine MacPhail 19:45
Yeah, I agree. Okay, so communication, trust, being reliable on your payment schedule.

LaShaun Key 19:55
Yes. Yeah, I think those are the key things. If a client can take care of those…I say this because I’m a client to others. And so I have to remember that. Like, I was somewhere doing business with someone, and I was like, how much do I owe you? And they said, I’ll see your invoice. I was like, look, I got my card right here – you have to get paid for your services, I don’t want to forget this. That’s just me, I’m real big on making sure I take care of you. Because at the end of the day, this is a business, whether we disagree or whatever, you performed the service. And I have to be right by that. I’m a people person, so I love to keep my relationships intact. I hate when there’s strife between people. It bothers me. I say, hey, let’s talk about this, let’s figure out what’s going on. Because I like having you in my life, even though we may not agree on a bunch of things. I like people. I love having people around. So having that relationship is key. I do this, even outside of my business, when I’m the client, right?

Katharine MacPhail 21:07
How do you know if somebody is going to be a good client? You can probably tell, just like that guy could tell when you were helping him with his fence.

LaShaun Key 21:13
I ask a lot of questions when I’m meeting a potential client for a project.

Katharine MacPhail 21:18
What do you ask them?

LaShaun Key 21:19
I want to know about them, not just a project. So typically what I’ll do is…well, I have a proposal for a project for an extension on a home. And we got to talking and you know, he’s a hunter. It’s funny, everyone says when they were in school they wanted to be an architect. He said he wanted to do that, but life happens or whatever. I got to know about their family. I want to know about their family, what their interests are, their hobbies. It’s not like I say, what do you do? What do you like? It’s just a conversation.

Katharine MacPhail 22:09
You don’t just ask them like, what’s your favorite color?

LaShaun Key 22:12
No. ‘Cause you do want this information but you gotta be tricky about how you get it. I notice the things in a house, you know – if you see a specific color all over the place, maybe take note. Like if you come to my house you’ll see teal everywhere, and you will probably realize that turquoise is my favorite color, teal is my wife’s favorite. And so during a conversation if you say something like, “oh, I really liked that accent wall”, the client will reply “yeah, my wife wanted me to do that, it’s her favorite color”. Boom, now you got information that you can start to use to help process what type of person this potential client can be. So you get them to talk. This guy actually gave me a tour of his house, showed me his garage, all his treasures from hunting and stuff. Really great guy, we could be friends just from what I know of him and getting to know his family. So stuff like that, asking these questions or having these conversations and being observant. Walking up to a house, a lot of people have stickers on their car. You can get to know a lot of things looking at the stickers, like “my kid is an honor student” and such

Katharine MacPhail 23:44
You’re right, you can tell a lot.

LaShaun Key 23:46
So I use all of that information to tell me about a person, and how this potential client will be with me.

Katharine MacPhail 23:59
Do you not take projects based on your reading of the client, in terms of their personality? I mean, are there people that you would say no to just based on on that interaction?

LaShaun Key 24:11
Yes. Well…I’ll say yes. I had a potential client, really a contractor who’s been trying to call me on some very little things, and I keep telling myself that this is not in my wheelhouse. I am at a point now where I want to say, hey, obviously we’re not in the same circles of projects that I want to work on, so this is not a good fit. But the people person in me keeps that relationship there. But I’ve got a call from a couple of times where I had to say this is probably not the best fit for me, client wise. I’m fortunate enough that I’ve not had that experience yet, where I had to say this is not going to work. I hope I never do, but I’m sure it will happen eventually. But I’m always mindful of that. I’m always excited about my next project, where I’m getting the next word. Because I gotta pay these bills. But I’m also very mindful of, do I want to add stress to my life? Do I want to have a difficult birth of a project? I really don’t. So I try to keep that in mind as I talk to potential clients.

Katharine MacPhail 25:41
Am I interpreting this correctly, in that you might advise homeowners to feel how that relationship feels? And if it doesn’t feel right, not to move forward?

LaShaun Key 25:52
Yes. Yeah, if the homeowner is meeting an architect, or…you could say this for anything, really. HPAC guy coming to your house, whatever, getting to know him. If they don’t feel comfortable, chances are I’ll say don’t move forward. Obviously you got to ask yourself why. You have to be able to answer why, “because” is not a good enough answer. You need points as to why. If it takes a couple of conversations, then have those couple of conversations, but yeah. Wouldn’t recommend anyone move forward where there is hesitancy. We get hesitant, or what they call “buyer’s remorse”, where you sign the dotted line and you’re like “oh, did I really want to do that?” That happens, that’s natural. What I’m talking about is where the conversation wasn’t going well, it wasn’t heading in the direction that you liked or they liked, it was just difficult, Then I would highly recommend finding someone else. Call me if you have to.

Katharine MacPhail 27:11
Alright, well, I think that’s all really great advice. How can people get in touch with you if they want to call you and can’t find anyone they like?

LaShaun Key 27:20
Well I’m in the Charleston area, so hello. You can find me by going to my website, which is Key Design LLC dot com. That’s probably one of the easiest ways to reach me. I’m on social media. I have an Instagram, but I’ve used it very little. My kids get on me about that and I’m like look, you guys should use it then. But it’s the same thing, at Key Design LLC, no S. I found out there’s another Key Designs with an S, I am without an S. So Key Design, LLC. Both for the website and social media. You can also email me LaShaun Key at Design LLC dot com.

Katharine MacPhail 27:20
Okay, well, great. I’m gonna link to all that in the show notes. So if people want to reach out, or check out your work, that’s where they can find that.

LaShaun Key 28:15
You know, I’m a fun guy. I love life, love to have fun, and just happen to be an architect.

Katharine MacPhail 28:21
What do you like to cook? You said you’re a foodie. If I came over, what would you cook for me?

LaShaun Key 28:26
You? Oh man, that’s a struggle because I would want to cook so many different things. I’m going to fix you some Hawaiian food. My wife is from Hawaii and man, some Lomi salmon. That’s one of my favorite dishes. You eat sushi?

Katharine MacPhail 28:46
Yeah.

LaShaun Key 28:47
I have to be sure to ask, because we’ve met some people that don’t. It’s funny because for years I said, I don’t eat raw fish. Because growing up my mom was like, you better cook that food. So when I met my wife, she’s from Hawaii, we go to these luaus and stuff. They would have Lomi salmon and I’m just eating it up, I’m killing it. And this has been going on for like eight years, and then we were somewhere and she heard me say I don’t eat raw fish. And she was like, you eat Lomi salmon. I said no I don’t, I don’t eat no raw fish, okay, my mom would say it. And you listen to your mom, okay? And she was like, no, you’ve been eating raw fish. So I went to Google and I looked at the recipe, and I was like, oh, I eat raw fish. And it was so good. It blew my mind. So it would be a struggle to say…maybe Lomi salmon in something. Or, I love to smoke. I do an amazing pork belly. My beef brisket is also pretty good. My family loves my wings. I have a rub that I put on, my own special rub. It’s a lot of different things that I love to cook or love to go eat, so I can’t pick one.

Katharine MacPhail 30:11
Okay, well, you can surprise me if I ever come down through South Carolina, I’m definitely coming by. But I’ll give you a heads up so you can get ready.

LaShaun Key 30:21
The table will be spread.

Katharine MacPhail 30:23
Well thanks, LaShaun.

Katharine MacPhail 30:24
Thanks again LaShaun, for sharing your insights. Sometimes we have clients, and sometimes we are the client. It’s good to be mindful of that and be the best we can be in both roles. So thanks to you for listening. The big excitement this week, I don’t know if I’ve said that much about it in the past, but I’ve launched a group page on Facebook. It actually started in March of 2020, but I was the only one in it until this week. I’ve invited people who have been on the podcast before, and people who are already following my other page. So what I’m hoping is that we can build this community there where architects, homeowners, vendors, contractors, and all of us can just be there together and discuss questions or issues that pertain either to the episodes that we had, or just what you’d like to see on the show or whatever. It’s just a community. So come join me there, it’s called Talking Home Renovations Together. We already have several past guests in there. LaShaun is there, Isra from the episode last week is in there. Caitlin Parker, who was the Tulsa bungalow, she’s in there. Anyway come on, and check it out. I’d love to have you there. We can get to know each other.

Katharine MacPhail 31:38
Come join me on my other social media. I’m on Instagram at Talking Home Renovations. At Twitter, I’m at Talking Home right now – although I don’t really know how to use Twitter so much to be honest. I’m on TikTok too much. Join me on Clubhouse on Saturdays, 10am Eastern, where we discuss past episodes and other issues. We just chat for about half an hour, forty-five minutes or so. So that’s the Talking Home Renovations Club on Clubhouse. Anyway, as you know, in the show notes there are lots of links there to LaShaun’s information and my information. If you like this podcast, I would love it if you would leave a review or even just a rating. If you’re in Massachusetts, and you need another set of eyes on your design or you need some architectural advice, I’ve got an ask an architect design helpline. So there’s a link to that in the show notes. This podcast is a member of Gabl Media, the most engaged AEC multimedia network on the planet. So check out the podcast and video channels that are a part of that network at Gabl Media dot com. That’s G A B L M E D I A dot com. As always, this is a production of my architecture firm Demios Architects, where we believe that architects are for everyone. Until next time, take care

Katharine MacPhail 31:39
As always, send me an email if you have suggestions or comments. I’d love to hear from you. You can go to my website, which is Talking Home Renovations dot com, for episode enhancements, transcripts, information about becoming a guest, or just to catch up on past episodes. Speaking of episode enhancements, you can sign up for my mailing list and get those delivered right to your inbox. You can get a free download on my website about ten common mistakes to avoid while renovating, and then you also get to have the episode enhancements delivered to your mailbox every Wednesday morning. The episode enhancements are where I put photos and other things that can’t go in the show notes, because they don’t allow photos in there