How to Evaluate Backyard Designers Near Marengo, IL Before You Hire One

Searching for backyard designers near Marengo, IL turns up companies that mean very different things by the word designer. Some have a trained designer on staff. Some send a salesperson with a template. Some outsource the drawing entirely and you meet the person who made your plan exactly once, on paper.

Marc Bolanos is a co-founder, owner and senior designer at M.A.B. Landscape Group, and he holds a degree in landscape design from Harper College, which is the sort of detail worth asking any firm about directly. 

The point of asking is not credentialism. It’s that a designed backyard has to survive contact with grading, drainage, frost depth and a construction crew, and the person drawing it should know how it will be built.

Related: How Landscape Design Turns the Backyard From Unused Space Into the Room Nobody Wants to Leave

Who Is Actually Drawing Your Backyard Plan?

Ask the question plainly and listen for a name. A designer who will be on site during construction has a reason to draw something buildable.

A plan produced by a third party the contractor has not met tends to hand off problems: elevations that do not resolve, materials that are not stocked locally, a patio edge that ignores where water goes. Ask whether the person who designs it will also see it built.

What Should a Design Deliverable Actually Contain?

A design deliverable should contain, at minimum, a scaled plan showing the footprint of every element, the materials named specifically rather than generically, elevations or renderings where grade changes, and a phasing note if the whole thing is not being built at once.

Our 3D design renderings let a homeowner walk the space before anything is excavated, which is where most layout changes should happen. A single hand sketch with a price on it is a proposal, not a design.

Which Questions Reveal How a Designer Thinks About Your Site?

Ask what they noticed on the property before you told them what you wanted. A designer who leads with drainage patterns, sun exposure, mature trees and where the ground falls is reading the site. One who opens with a product catalog is selling from it.

In northern Illinois the follow-up question is about frost depth and how footings for structures and walls are handled, because that is what separates a patio that holds its line from one that moves.

Related: Outdoor Kitchen Ideas for Better Backyard Living in Marengo, IL

Should the Whole Backyard Be Designed at Once Even if You Build in Stages?

The whole backyard should generally be designed at once, and this is where a plan pays for itself. 

Designing the full yard and building it over two or three seasons lets each phase connect properly to the next: the patio is sized for the pergola that arrives later, the electrical is sleeved for lighting that is not installed yet, the grades work as a whole.

Building feature by feature without a master plan usually means undoing something. It also makes the spend predictable across years rather than all at once.

How Do You Check That a Designer Has Built What They Draw?

Ask to see finished projects rather than renderings, ideally on properties with grade similar to yours. Ask about industry membership and manufacturer credentials, which are verifiable rather than self-reported.

Two or three completed yards tell you more than an hour of conversation.

Start With A Plan For The Whole Yard

M.A.B. Landscape Group designs and builds backyards for homeowners in Marengo and across northern Illinois.

If you’re collecting quotes and finding them hard to compare, the missing piece is usually a design that everyone is pricing against. We will walk your property, talk through how you want to use it, and produce a plan you can build now or in stages. 

In Summary

Is a backyard design worth paying for if we already know what we want?

A design is usually worth paying for even then, because knowing what you want and knowing where it fits are different problems. A plan resolves sizing, circulation and drainage before money is committed to materials. It also gives every contractor the same document to price against, which is what makes competing quotes comparable. Most of the changes homeowners want to make happen on the drawing rather than on the ground.

How long does the design phase take before construction can start?

Expect a few weeks between the first site visit and a finished plan, depending on how many revisions the layout goes through. Building in the same season is realistic if the design phase starts well ahead of the work. Permits and material selections sit between the two and add time to the front end. We give a construction window once the plan is approved rather than at the first visit.

Can a backyard design be built by phases over several years?

Phasing over several years works, and it tends to be the smarter approach on larger yards. The plan sets the final layout so each phase connects to the next. Sleeving and base work for later phases can be installed early while the ground is already open, which is where the savings sit. We mark the phase breaks on the drawing so a later crew is not guessing.

Related: How Outdoor Lighting Changes the Way a Backyard Lives After Dark in Marengo, IL