We Love Conversions

Properties originally intended for one purpose and reconstructed to serve another are the ultimate design challenge.  It stretches us and often provides exciting structures and materials like this church to condo conversion that we provided most of the furnishing for.

You can see the amazing ceiling work that provides drama and background texture and complexity to the project.

While the period structure, woodwork, and plaster transport our minds to another time, the project also offers nooks to create more traditional rooms that receive the extra architectural benefit of unusual ceiling heights or angles and original flooring materials.  One example is this living room that we designed and outfitted with pieces all available on our showroom floor now:

And, every church has a kitchen, and we were pleased to be selected by the room’s designer to add some of the finishing touches:

So, from our point of view, the bigger the challenge the larger the reward.

Latest Survey Results for Interior Designers

We just came across survey results of the town’s leading designers that was commissioned by ASID to help them with their businesses.  We wanted to share the news on the most common mistakes they can make.  This might help you manage the relationship with any designer you choose to work with.

1. Not engaging the client: It is always great to understand what the client wants and deliver that rather than a variation of the last scheme you completed. You already knew that of course! However have you thought about the client decision making process? Try to understand that: your buyer; your consumer; and your decision makers could all be different people. Taking the example of a residential project (the principle also equally applies to a business to business project) your ‘client’ may be one partner but the decision maker could be the other partner and key influencers/users could be the kids. You need to engage with all parties to get “buy-in”.

2. Not listening hard enough: It’s easy to listen but often easy to not listen hard enough. In the sales process you may be inclined to talk too much. Ask questions, lots of them and make sure they are relevant. Try to ask open questions like “tell me about the sort of style you want to achieve” rather than closed questions which often do not get you correct information eg if you ask “Do you want red chairs?” your client may very well answer “No” but this has not told you that they want animal skin covered chairs!

3. Attempting to ‘create’ demand: You might have been asked to do a specific job, say on one room. In uncertain times you may be glad about that. Nevertheless it is still a mistake to miss the opportunity of trying to broaden the opportunity.

4. Don’t make too many assumptions: Well don’t make ANY costly assumptions. You might assume your client only has a certain budget. ASK those embarrassing questions about money and don’t forget that most clients have reasonable contingency factored in to their plans .

5. Risk: All projects entail risk. Always have a ‘risk register’ (list of things that can go wrong). In advance, plan what you will do in the eventuality of any of those risks happening. Also for those truly monumental risks that may well be out of your control (and fault) then agree up front with the client what will happen in those circumstances. Otherwise the client will expect you to sort the problem out when it happens at your cost as it is ‘not their fault’. A simplistic example would be the removal of an interior wall which you and your client assumed to be none load bearing. The removal of a non-load bearing wall is straightforward but removal of a structural wall is not and is much more costly.

6. Qualify new prospects: Your marketing campaigns, if well designed, should generate lots of leads especially if you have decided to invest heavily in those campaigns. After such a successful investment you will be energised to thoroughly follow-up all your leads. Great! Nothing wrong with that. Well nothing except that you only have limited resources to follow up the lead so make sure you focus those resources on qualifying the prospects and further refine your focus on the best prospects. Do not allocate equal resources. A simple rule for qualification is to follow ” BANT”: B – Existing Budget, or access to funds; A – Authority to approve and progress; N – A Need exists to necessitate action; T – Timeframes are sufficiently clear.