3 MISTAKES I made designing my first project
GETTING TO KNOW MY Client’s taste.
When my friends hired me to design their home, the first thing I asked them was: “What decor style are you aiming for?” and they said: “We like how your house looks, so most likely something similar”. My house style is mediterranean, it has 12ft tall ceilings and dark wood flooring, so my decor is very neutral and light. On the opposite, their house( which it was being built at the time), is more modern, open space concept and the flooring is mat white tile and grout-less meaning the entire first floor looks huge. When I created a vision board with some furniture layouts and light fixtures I called it “Earthy Luxe” and for a reason; the color palette was mostly neutrals with some pops of color of dark grey and terracotta, lots of wood and brushed gold and black fixtures, they absolutely loved it. Once they moved in and furniture started to arrive, my friend calls me and tells me: “I really love everything but I feel it needs to look a little more modern, because of the style of the house, and we need a pop of color.” and she starts sending me all this photos of colorful abstract art, ultra modern mohair accent chair in emerald green; and I panicked. “They hate everything, thats it, they hate me”. Thankfully not all furniture and light fixtures were ordered and I was able to find some modern pieces and give my client what they wanted. What I’ve learnt from all this? is that one question like: “What’s your decor style?” is NOT ENOUGH. I never asked them for inspiration pictures because I thought: “ what kind of designer am I if I’m not able to magically bring my clients vision ( a Vision I don’y know) to life, and that’s not how it works. It takes a million questions and lots of inspiration photos to get an Idea of what they want, then once I have that idea I can get creative. Lesson learned !
staying true to my Vision and convincing my clients that patience is key.
Biggest lesson was as simple as that: Staying True To My Vision. Ordering furniture nowadays required us to practice a lot of patience, everything is on backorder, custom-made pieces could take up to a year and when we were expecting the shipping notice email instead we got an email thats been delayed for another 3 months, and not to forget the times the light fixtures came in damaged. So it happened, that the chairs for the breakfast/wine nook were on backorder for about 6 months,I really loved them and couldn’t t find anything else that would go as good as those. So my client starts looking for chairs herself, sends me one she likes the most and were IN STOCK AND READY TO SHIP!!!! and asked me for my opinion, I said: “Yes, those are pretty”, when I knew those where not the chairs, they were very Scandinavian looking and didn’t vibe with the rest of the decor. Chairs arrive and she hated them. Luckily the store kindly took the chairs back and didn’t charge a restocking fee, and some really cool chairs came in stock, so we ordered those.
When designing for first time homeowners is very tricky, because understandably they will want to pick some things themselves and sadly is not until the piece arrives they realize it doesn’t compliment the rest of the room. So my take on all this is that: they hired me for a reason and sometimes as harsh as it sounds, it is my job to remind them.
don’t be afraid to ask the Tradesmen anything.
For project “Miami but make it Cali” I designed a Fireplace Wall and a Wine Cellar Wall. The wine cellar(more like an enclosed wine wall) is all glass featuring a double door. When we had the. consultation with the glass specialist we said we wanted tempered (ultra strong glass) clear glass. Install day comes I see the glass partitions have a blue-greenish tint, it literally look like shower glass. I died!!! When I asked him he said it was clear. Clearly it wasn’t! So I search it up and Tempered glass looks greenish because of the Iron Oxide content in it. So to avoid this it needs to be a low-iron glass, which can be way more expensive, but budget wasn’t an issue. My mistake? Assuming the glass specialist will know that when I said clear I meant no greenish tone, which I thought it was obvious as it was a Wine Wall by a Dining Room not a Shower or Office Partition. The owners weren’t bothered by it, in fact they liked it, on the other hand I’m still mortified by it. So, definitely, It won’t happen ever again.