Thoughts

So you’ve decided to hire a design and build company for a project. Perhaps you want a new front, side or rear one or two storey house extension,  maybe a new kitchen or even a full home refurbishment. The first step and perhaps the most important, it ensuring that your vision is fully captured and turned into reality.

We strive to find out exactly what you’re looking for, right down to the very last detail. This involves everything from consultations, brainstorming and concept designs to helping you select certain fixtures and fittings.

However, the entire scope and focus of the project rests upon the initial ideas you bring to us or any other design and build company. It’s all about ensuring that your thought and ideas are accurately communicated from the get-go.

That’s why we’ve compiled 5 of the best ways you can share your ideas and some useful things you can bring to an initial consultation to show any design and build company exactly what you’re looking for.

1) Written briefs

The vast majority of the concept design stage occurs through face-to-face communication between yourself, the designers and any designated project manager. However, it can help to create a written brief, or even a series of notes, which helps you to consider how to formulate your ideas. By taking this route instead of ‘off the top of the head’ approach, you can spend days or even weeks prior to the initial consultation creating and tweaking your own thoughts and creating a final written brief which lays down fundamental points you’re looking for.

This brief can be passed on to the design team at the initial meeting, or it can simply be used as a reference point to recite and expand on your thoughts.

2) Magazine clippings

Interior design magazines are packed with the latest design ideas which you can use for inspiration, so it can be worthwhile to buy a few and then cut out any snippets which you can show the designers to get across your ideas. After all, a picture paints a thousand words! Magazine clippings can showcase anything from full interior design schemes through to item of furniture and even certain colours which you may like.

3) Images from the internet

Thousands of interior design websites give you a treasure trove of images which you can use to showcase your favourite ideas. You can either print them out or even store them in a photo album to share on your tablet or laptop. Social media websites such as Facebook and Pinterest are also well worth checking out.

4) Mood boards

Mood boards are an interior designer’s top trick. This involves creating a board or scrapbook where you store all of your favourite ideas from a range of sources in a collage format. This can involve magazine clippings, photos, colour swabs, streaks of paint, wallpaper and even things like fabric or lace. This not only helps to get across your ideas in a creative way, but it also allows you to experiment by combining different colour and textures to see how they look on the mood board itself.

5) Questions

The most successful projects stem from two-way communication. It isn’t just about sharing your ideas, but it’s also about finding out what we can do and how we can use our design experience to develop an initial idea into something you prefer even more. In the case of initial consultations where you haven’t quite decided which design and build company to choose yet, having some pre-prepared questions also helps you to find out more about the company and whether they’re the right fit for you. This is why it can pay to create some interior design or business-related questions which you plan to ask on the day.

If you’re unsure about what steps to take with your design and build, extension or refurbishment project, contact us – we’re here to help.