How UA Designs Grew to 50+ Projects While Keeping Team Growth in Check

Before adopting Houzz Pro, UA Designs managed projects using a mix of tools and highly manual workflows. As a full-service firm acting as the central connector across clients, architects, and contractors, the team handled complex residential projects with no centralized system in place.

Project tracking lived in large Excel spreadsheets. Client presentations were built using printed tear sheets and physical binders. Every product detail, from specifications to pricing, had to be entered and formatted by hand.

Building a single project schedule could take an entire day, according to Director of Operations Deana O’Donnell. Even then, errors were difficult to avoid, and updates required constant rework.

As the firm grew and projects became more complex, these manual processes became increasingly difficult to manage, limiting the team’s ability to scale.

UA Designs implemented Houzz Pro to consolidate its workflows into a single platform.

“They showed me the clipper tool, and I was like, ‘Done.’ I bought back hours of my life,” says owner and principal designer Sarah Brohm.

Today, the team uses Houzz Pro to manage project tracking, client communication, design presentations, proposals, approvals, and internal documentation. Instead of working across multiple systems, everything is centralized in one place.

“We are always walking around with our Houzz board open. There’s no way we could track what we do for a project anymore,” says Sarah. “I did a design meeting yesterday with 15 different spaces. The fact that it all lives there, in Houzz Pro, is a really good thing.”

Houzz Pro has also elevated how the firm presents itself to clients. “Houzz Pro is aesthetically pleasing and has a very professional appearance. It gives a sense of legitimacy to us,” says Sarah.

Since adopting Houzz Pro, UA Designs has significantly increased its project volume while maintaining a lean and efficient team.

The firm has grown from managing approximately 10 projects per year to more than 50, without scaling its team at the same pace, allowing the team to take on significantly more work without a proportional increase in headcount.

Manual data entry and administrative work have been reduced, saving the team an estimated 8 to 10 hours per week. Tasks that once required hours, such as building project schedules and organizing selections, can now be completed much more efficiently.

With all project details centralized, the team works from a single source of truth, reducing errors and improving coordination across projects, Deana says, reinforcing the operational impact across the business.

The client experience has also improved. Instead of relying on scattered emails and printed materials, clients now have a single place to review selections, access project details, and approve decisions.

“Approvals in Houzz Pro are huge,” says Sarah. “We used to physically sign things with clients, and then we would forget.”

For larger, more complex projects involving multiple stakeholders, this visibility helps keep everyone aligned and reduces miscommunication.

“There’s no way we could grow to where we are today without Houzz Pro. We’d probably still be at 10 projects a year,” says Sarah.