Process
Dovetail Construction brings decades of experience in custom residential and commercial building to every project — and, after tens of thousands of hours working on some of the country’s most demanding construction projects over the years, we’ve learned firsthand the right way of doing things, driven by a set of fundamental actions:
We begin every home construction project with a conversation, listening closely to learn about your priorities and preferences, ideas and concerns. Asking questions and offering thoughts and feedback is critical to a successful process, and is an important and productive first step for all parties involved.
As we see it, collaboration ensures that vision and execution stay connected, allowing details to be thoughtfully resolved rather than mistakenly overlooked. It also fosters clear communication, helping to anticipate challenges, maintain quality, and ultimately deliver a home that feels cohesive, creative, and deeply personal.
Accurate early estimates help align our clients’ vision with real-world costs, ensuring that design decisions — from materials to craftsmanship — are both intentional and sustainable. The Dovetail team works to produce a well-executed estimate that will act as an all-important roadmap, guiding the project with transparency, discipline, and a shared understanding of expectations.
Collaborating and creating beauty with design and engineering professionals is something we enjoy doing within every project we work on. By working closely with architects, designers, and engineers, the team can thoughtfully evaluate materials, methods, and details to ensure every element delivers the highest possible value without sacrifice.
Similar to collaboration, the Dovetail team plays a key role in coordination, particularly among critical systems such as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. Working in conjunction with the architectural, engineering and structural design teams, we closely monitor timelines, budgets, and benchmarks to keep the project moving forward on time and on budget.
We not only expect to be checking in with our clients along the way, we enjoy keeping everyone up-to-date on progress, addressing any questions or concerns, and offering guidance and input throughout the process. It’s your home, and so we know you’ll want to be hearing how things are going from start to finish.
When your home is complete, that’s not the end of our process, but the beginning of a lasting relationship. Thoughtful follow-up and clear communication ensure that any final adjustments are handled promptly and that the home continues to perform as intended. We’re fiercely proud of our work, and aren’t satisfied until you are. One of our clients said it best: “You have treated the design and construction as if you were building your own home.”
Our Technology
While Dovetail places tremendous focus on our personal relationships, we also know that in today’s construction world, technology also plays an important role in any successful project.
But first, before we leverage our tech platforms, this step in the process really begins with getting our team put in place and reviewing the project collectively. We look for similarities among past projects and refer to our vast historical cost database, while also seeking input from our superintendents, subcontractors, engineers, and consultants.
We then begin estimations by performing quantitative take-off using On Screen Take Off (OST), specialized software that color codes and measures the many elements within a construction project (such as cubic yards of excavation and back fill, square footages of stone, board footage of timbers, lineal footages of cabinets, etc.). These quantities then get entered into Destiny, which is estimating software that assists us in calculating the costs that relate to the specific quantities. The resulting estimates provide Dovetail and our clients with outstanding transparency, accuracy, and confidence — which becomes the basis for cost control and reporting over the lifespan of the project.
Cloud-based Procore is Dovetail’s project management software, an industry-leading platform that allows the entire design team, ownership, and subcontractors a single, user-friendly online hub for all project information, including things like blueprints, specifications, schedules, project photos and videos, cost reports, and requests for information.
Over the course of construction, we enjoy having our clients on site, but we also capture images using high tech 360 cameras and drones to keep our clients informed, as well as to review and resolve any issues. All project images are also stored on Procore, providing critical information for everyone involved.
In this way, technology supports Dovetail in doing what it does best — creating amazing living spaces for our clients who we like to call friends.
They have the ability to interpret the architects ideas properly, fully engage the process and successfully manage relationships along the way.