You’ve started a Room Board on Houzz. You’ve pinned 100 pins to your Pinterest. You’ve ripped apart every shelter magazine you can get your hands on. But you’re still trying to figure out how to start designing your space!
When hired by clients for interior design services, we’re tasked with creating a brand new space in their home with just a handful of ideas and minimal direction. It’s thrilling. It’s terrifying. It usually ends pretty well! [see our 5 star reviews 🙂 )
How do we take what’s going on in our client’s brain and translate it into a full room design? We thought we would open up this portion of our process to help you uncover how to get closer to your dream home.
ALL THE FEELS
A unique space should feel a certain way when you enter it. And those feelings should translate directly to how the outside world views YOU. Are you warm, inviting, down to earth, and world-travelled? Are you feisty, chic, with an apartment full of Fendi and an oven full of Versace? Well, then, your home should feel that way, too! “How do you want your home to feel?” is the first question on our New Client Questionnaire. Here are some of the key words we include to get our client’s design minds jogging. Which ones resonate with you? Circle them and then use the chosen words as a basis to build your very own design mantra!
Casual Formal Spacious Clean lines Warm/cozy Light/airy Elegant Sophisticated Fun Lively Well-Travelled/Exotic Romantic Eclectic Chic
THOSE HARD QUESTIONS
Ever had to join that dreaded work ice-breaker right before a meeting with a new client, where you have to now admit that your first album was 98 Degrees a la
Nick Lachey? [hands up!] We have our own “ice breaker”, I-need-a-minute-to-answer, I-never-thought-about-that questions that get our clients thinking about their ultimate space. A fun aspect of this section is whether or not you and your hubby/wife/partner/roomate/dog are on the same page when it comes to your deepest design desires. How would you answer the below? How about the person(s) you’re sharing the space with? This helps to inform the first set of questions when you’re hitting an artistic wall! Try these on for size and see where your imagination takes you!
If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Pretend you have a free day from work, what does your perfect day off look like?
What would you define as your “happy place”?
RED, WHITE, AND/OR BLUE
Color is our second language, but not always our clients (which is why they have hired us in the first place!). It’s important, after day-dreaming about your new space, that we have a concrete discussion about design styles and colors. Which colors are you
normally drawn to? Which colors do you feel uncomfortable around? It’s easy to say you want your walls to be white and your bathroom to be blue…but there are thousands of shades of white and blue. We end our questionnaire with a color wheel where we ask our clients to advise on what colors they are having a visceral, gut-informed reaction to. The colors are organized in a way that is appealing to the eye. They are also labelled in a way that’s not “orange” or “red” but instead “Citrus Zest” and “Rouge”. It’s important to not make assumptions that you don’t like certain colors before giving your designer a chance to explore that colorway with you. If you’re designing for yourself, start with your faves and then maybe explore the colors to the left and right of the color wheel…maybe, just maybe, that “Rouge” you’ve crossed out in haste will make it onto your walls as a pop of color in a sconce! Rather than sharing the color wheel with you, check out one of our favorite color wheel generators, and make your own color palettes! https://coolors.co/
We hope you found these 3 tips helpful and have made kicking off your home’s design a little bit easier; and ofcourse, if you’re still feeling stuck, give us a call! We offer Design Consultations where we can workshop your design style and help you make some design decisions in the comfort of your own home.
Yours in Design,
Jaclyn Isaac and the Downtown Decorators team
201.691.7546
info@downtowndecorators.com
www.downtowndecorators.com
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