Welcome to Westchester.
Thinking about a renovation? Read this first.

Hi — I’m Brandon Cavanagh. I co-founded Design and Biz, an independent renovation advisory firm based in northern Westchester.

When my family moved here last year and bought a 100-year-old house, we knew we’d need to renovate. We had no idea how much it would cost or how long it would take. Every decision opened a door to a need or requirement we hadn’t known existed. We consider ourselves savvy consumers, but having never renovated before, we didn’t know what we didn’t know.

As the months went on, friends and colleagues asked how it was going. They were surprised by the length of the timeline — but not surprised by the broader experience. They’d either lived a version of it themselves or knew someone who had.

I just don’t accept that it has to be this way. Renovations are hard because of many moving parts, multiple independent stakeholders, and a different zoning and permit landscape in every town. Architects focus on design. Engineers focus on structural soundness. Contractors focus on building. Each role has its own scope, and the coordination across them — the bigger picture for the homeowner — is what tends to fall through the cracks.

That’s the gap Design and Biz fills. We take the broader view across the whole project — coordinating across architects, engineers, and contractors, keeping communication clear, anticipating what tends to fall between scopes, and minimizing surprises around scope, cost, delays, and town requirements. We also built four free AI tools that surface the cost, permitting, energy, and climate-risk picture before construction starts.

Everything’s at designandbiz.com — the tools, our town-by-town guides, and a free 15-minute call if you want to talk through your project.