Planning for Larger Design Projects
DO
Define your motivations and reasons for the redesign
There are both practical and aesthetic reasons why defining your motivations is a necessary starting point for your project. It’s important to understand what’s behind the desire to make a change. There may be strong practical reasons like a loft conversion for an expanding young family or a kitchen remodel for more space to host family and friends in style. There may aesthetic reasons, like a dated scheme left by the previous owners in your new home. Very often there’s a combination of both reasons and determining these in the refurbishment’s initial phases will spearhead the project so it tackles both sides successfully.
Define your appetite for the breadth and scale of the project
How much work would you like to carry out in your home? Are you keen to go all out and do a full renovation, rip out an existing kitchen and bathrooms, or alter internal layouts? Making these significant alterations to your home has implications that need to be considered. If you’re thinking of doing a fair bit of work, you’ll likely have to move out of the property for a set period of time - it could be several months or over a year, depending on the scale and rooms are involved. You may prefer to do things in a more piecemeal way and stagger the project over time for a lighter intervention.
Having open discussions with designer, contractor and potentially architect early on will help you meaningfully considering the extent of the work you’d like to undertake and the stages the work will move through to help you determine the right route for you so that creating the home of your dreams is a well planned and flowing process from start to finish.
Watercolour house portrait created for us by Meg Boscawen
Define your budget and timescales
These early conversions with a designer and other core members of the team can help guide on an indicative budget and give you an early sense of how long things might take. On all renovations but especially more complex renovations, the timetable can only be accurately determined as the design develops and the different specialists’ work is mapped out but having an initial indication of whether you’re looking at a 6 month project or a 12 month project can be hugely beneficial.
For a deeper look at budgeting considerations you may wish to read How Should I Budget for an Interior Design Project in London?.
Create an inventory of your current space and furnishings
Keep an inventory of everything you own and wish to keep. Be it kitchen utensils, clothes or treasured pieces you've picked up on your travels, these will all need to be considered when it comes to creating the new schemes in your home. We can assist in photographing furniture, artworks and other items, along with documenting size and number to help with spatial planning and determining how much storage space is required when commissioning inbuilt joinery.
Discover and develop your personal aesthetic
You don’t need to arrive at your first design meeting with a neatly defined aesthetic or a mood board for every room. You may love a particular hotel, have a favourite painting or find yourself repeatedly drawn to the same shade of green. Those are all useful starting points.
We’ll explore what catches your eye and what gives it meaning. It might be the colours in a treasured piece of jewellery, the texture of a favourite jacket or a detail you remember from your travels. Inspiration doesn’t have to come from somebody else’s living room.
Part of our role is to spot the connections between these references, draw out what feels most like you and translate it into a coherent design for your home. Mood boards help us explore that direction together, bringing colours, materials and shapes into focus before developing the finer details.
With so much inspiration available, it’s easy to admire a hundred different interiors and still feel unsure about your own. Working with a designer helps you make sense of those preferences and create rooms that feel personal and a pleasure to live in.
DON’T
Make lots of impulsive purchases
Once you’ve taken the time to decide on a budget you’re comfortable with it’s important to prioritise where to spend your money. You may decide to prioritise high priority rooms, such as the kitchen and living room, or you may decide to focus on fitted fixtures and fittings that become part of the architecture of the house (e.g. joinery and flooring). One approach I like to recommend, is to allocate an amount for a statement feature in each room being redesigned. It could be a luxurious wallpaper from somewhere like Soane or DeGournay, a hand painted mural, a bespoke piece of upholstery, or an original art work, it’s often these pieces that add that special touch that make a room memorable. Of course, a bit of ingenuity can go a long way here and antiques and vintage items are a great way to introduce unique pieces that have flair and originality without necessarily having the price tag associated with bespoke or designer items.
Once we understand your priorities, we can shape the design and allocate the budget accordingly, balancing the statement pieces with the elements that bring the whole scheme together. We track proposed purchases and costs as the design develops, giving you a clear view of where your money is going before you commit. You can enjoy choosing the pieces you love, knowing we’re looking after the detail and keeping the overall vision and agreed budget in focus.
A bespoke headboard ready to leave the workshop designed and created in collaboration with Ensemblier
Overlook how the furniture will be installed and when
On a full-scale refurbishment, there can easily be more than 200 individual items coming from multiple suppliers, each with its own lead time. Bringing everything together takes careful planning, which is why we coordinate deliveries through a professional storage and installation company such as Atlas of London. Pieces can be received, checked and stored until your home is ready, then delivered and installed in a coordinated sequence.
We also plan for access early on. A generous sofa may look perfect on the floor plan but getting it up the staircase can be another matter. Where specialist handling is needed, such as hoisting furniture through a window, we coordinate this with the installation team. It’s an essential part of turning the design into a finished home, and one we take care of well before installation day.
Forget to have fun!
Although there are undeniably many practical and often technical elements that need careful consideration when feathering a nest I’m a firm believer that it should also be a pleasurable process infused with a little fun along the way!
Creating a beautiful home is often a hard earned accomplishment and milestone in life so relishing in the luxury of defining your style and filling your home with personal pieces that bring pleasure and joy are at the heart of the experience.
