New Year, New Home

As soon as the New Year celebrations are over and you’ve barely hoovered the last of the streamers from the carpet, most of us are planning our next project.    It could be a holiday, a wedding, a house move or an extension of our current home.    With the housing market in decline many people are choosing to stay put and extend their home or simply work with what they’ve got. 

In a world that is more design conscious than ever we continue to strive for a home that is our own brand of perfect.   A place where we can relax, work, entertain and simply “be”.  With a multitude of interior magazines to guide you on style, colour, lighting, furniture choices and space planning it is no wonder that many people choose to take on the role of designer themselves.   This route can produce good results but more often can be costly, time consuming and not meet the individual’s expectations.    

The services of an interior designer can be the difference between good and fabulous.     Interior designers will have access to trade only suppliers and they will take the headache out of sourcing, combining and implementing.  Design fees are sometimes waived if the client purchases through the designer themselves making the design process affordable too.  The benefits are two fold.   A qualified designer can produce a scheme that meets the practical and aesthetic requirements that the client has requested and within the stated budget.   And so the word “budget” comes up for discussion.   People rarely want to divulge their budget for fear the designer will at best come within a fiver of the budget or, at worse exceed it by thousands.    But give your designer a break.   Most of us would far rather work within an honest and realistic budget and meet our clients’ expectations than work without a budget and be so far of the mark that they are not retained by the client.

A colleague of mine once met with a prospective client whose brief to her was to provide a new scheme for a dining room.   The scheme was to include a complete redecoration together with new furniture, furnishings and lighting.   He also asked her to include a bespoke item if possible as he would like a “one off” item of furniture.   Despite some gentle persuasion he was not prepared to divulge his budget but said only that it was “not insignificant”.   When the designer later returned with the complete scheme the client looked in horror at the scheme totalling nearly £8,000 and then exclaimed that he had only earmarked £3,000 which he felt was more than enough.    I should add that the client loved the scheme and paid the design fees.   Whether the room was ever completed my colleague does not know.   And so there is a lesson here  …  my colleague learned never again to work without any budget at all.    As for the client, had he given a budget guide from the off, the designer would have been able to advise them that his expectation could not be met.    A compromise could and doubtless would have been found.    If you are thinking of hiring a designer, hire someone whose work you like, and someone you like as a person. Designing any part of your home should be an enjoyable process and it is important to work with someone with whom you can relate.    And remember, please give them a guide to your budget !

Oct 08        Nov 08