Wait — right now?
One day I got a call from a former manager. He wanted me to put together an estimate for an atelier project.
I was already buried in my own work and almost said no. But atelier and residential projects are the ones where the drawings themselves are interesting, so I took it.
When the drawings came in, they were less complete than I expected. I had to fill in the gaps using my own judgment and standards, and I documented every one of those assumptions in the notes section of the estimate. I stayed up most of the night to finish the quantity takeoff along with it. When I handed it over, he was genuinely happy — I still remember that.
That’s what started this.
I’ve been wanting to take on more estimating work directly, so I decided to start writing here. This blog used to be about restaurants. Now I’m opening it up to owners and contractors who need estimates.
I hesitated at first.
But think about it — most buildings that actually get built in Korea don’t come from the large conglomerates. They come from small and mid-sized construction firms. Houses, multi-family units, small commercial buildings. The people sitting with the drawings and pulling quantities are people like me. My experience was built inside those firms, which is exactly why the numbers I produce are grounded in what actually happens on site. Lately a few places have started coming to me first.
What I work on
Houses (concrete and timber frame), multi-family and multi-household buildings, and small commercial buildings. On the commercial side, I’ve worked mostly on atelier-type projects — the ones that aren’t standard, where the geometry gets interesting. Multi-family projects repeat unit by unit, so if you set one takeoff assumption wrong, the entire estimate moves with it. Those need the most care.
What I focus on
Two things: finding what’s missing, and catching what will get added later.
If you only follow the drawings, entire line items disappear. Things that aren’t marked but are required to build. Things skipped because there’s no detail drawing. If you don’t catch those upfront, they surface one by one after construction starts.
The same goes for additions. When you do enough estimates, you start seeing the items that don’t appear on paper but always show up on site — quantities that get pulled in by the construction sequence, the things that happen where two finishes meet, the single line on a drawing that turns into several trades in reality.
Catching those early means fewer difficult conversations about change orders later. I’m not trying to make the numbers balance. I’m trying to produce numbers that hold up on site.
If you’re building in Korea
If the estimate is the part that worries you, it may be worth having someone look at it.
One note: for electrical, mechanical, and civil, I can review portions of the takeoff, but these are usually contracted separately, so I can’t guarantee full coverage there.
The quantity takeoff sheet comes with the estimate.
This isn’t about tearing down someone else’s numbers. It’s about reviewing them together, so that nothing breaks later.