paulmmw7

Thanks so much for all responses. We are slowly growing, working out kinks and I’m sure I’ll have many more questions for you all in the future.

For all other Design Build Firms on here, what types of advertising do you guys find success in. We are a young growing company and want to get our name out there as best as we can. TIA

I have found a way to manipulate the files to easily export to my pricing program. I'll be on vacation all next week so now its time to learn how to design kitchens in Chief and make presentations. At this point I'm really looking to learn how to get as close as I can with the door styles and colors to one of my semi-custom/custom Brands, same goes for color options. any good videos you guys recommend me checking out? Im excited to get this started.

I just contacted my support team form the software company (equilibrium) that I use to price out all of my jobs and they are telling me that they don't support Chief like they do w/2020 and a few other CAD programs. Doing some digging in, I can however import from a Excel XLS File Type or an Excel XLSX File Type. Forgive me this may be going over my head, this is all like a different language to me, I might be asking a very obvious question here but can I take that same cabinet schedule and create a XLS file to be imported into (equilibrium)?

I am in Mass so Eastern Timezone, I may just rent it for a few months before purchasing to make sure its the right route to go. Ill go through the forums to look for that audio. Email me directly if its easier at pmachado@woodpalacekitchens.com

Mark, Thanks for all of the Feedback and tips it is much appreciated, I will look into the process of creating the CSV files I think once I have that down It will be a no-brainer to my owner. Thanks for sharing your plans they really look awesome, they give me quite the motivation to get started with the program. I planned on doing my own jobs with the Trial version, until I get to a point where I will talk with the owner about the investment in CA. I originally thought I'd just get the interiors version, you seem to be against that? My company is only a K&B studio, we aren't a design build. The plans that you sent me couldn't be done with just the Interiors version of CA? Also have you seen any videos on youtube or anywhere of creating the CSV and importing it to pricing programs? Again thanks for all the info!

I’m thinking of making the switch to CA from 2020 v11. I’ve always been interested in the software. The simple things that CA seems to do so easily that are just so time consuming in 2020 such as wall dimensioned elevations, detailed professional notes, the renderings produced so easily are just light years ahead of 2020. I realize there have been many threads about the difference between them. If any of my concerns have already been spelled out in another thread or videos please copy the link in your response. My current company hired me because of my 2020 skill set, but I've always believed that CA is the real program that can really blow the minds off any Higher end client. Right now we export our finished 2020 layouts as a CSV. File then import it to a program that prices out all of our jobs (equilibrium). I’ve read that you could make a cabinet schedule and create a csv. File out of that? Doing this will be vital to making the leap, If so I’d love to find out more about that process. If this can be done it will put the owner of my company at ease. He will be opposed to this change simply because most of our cabinet Manuf. don't support CA with catalogs. I’m looking for reassurance from you guys that even though there is no Cab brand CA catalogs it is still easy enough to create door styles that are similar, cabinet colors will be easy to mimic. The templates seem to be more user friendly as well as working within them, and I’d love to know if there is a video showing how to use them. I’ve attached a typical presentation that I give my customers w/2020. I’d love for someone to attach some examples of preferably kitchen jobs they’ve done for there customers w/ CA. I'm 28 years old I've been using 2020 for 5 years I went to a vocational school where I used AutoCAD for about 3+ years since then have used updated versions of AC. So I want to believe it will be an easy transition. Feel free to email me with any info in regards to major differences between the 2 programs or an sample layout presentation. I look forward to hearing all of your different thoughts. Sample Plans.pdf