A big reason (besides atmosphere) why people hire designers is because they have a hard time visualizing the end result. What will that fabric look like on that sofa or is leather better? Read my opinion on leather here. Will I like that colour all over my living room? Managing expectations is a very important part of our job!
The length of drapery is something I’ve been focused on lately. After reading Joni’s post on Curtains, I decided (depending on the house) to start installing my drapery at floor length or even pooling if necessary (I confess I am a romantic!).
So right before Christmas I installed 60 yards of fully functioning striped, silk drapes, just touching the floor (like the above photo) in a living and dining room. Then I received an email (from my clients) in the new year saying they didn’t like the fact that the drapes seemed to have too many ‘kinks’ in them (above and below) and were puffing out too much from the forced air vents.
I thought they were talking about the fact that silk has a natural ‘wrinkly’ look to them, just like linen! As it turned out, they simply needed to be taken up by 3/4 of an inch with a chain added to the hem, otherwise it would take too much fussing and managing, which in the end--the lesson here is--if they are stationary, you can pool them or have them touching but if they need to be drawn nightly, they need to hang just off the floor (unless you are okay with the fussing that will be required)!
It’s also a good reminder that if you are installing silk or linen in a clients home to let them know they will never look perfectly straight because of the nature of the fabric!
Yesterday, I received a hasty email from a client telling me that the colour I had chosen for her powder room was way too purple!! It was 2112-30
I tried to assure my client that it would in no way look that purple once it was all painted in her powder room and that currently there was zero context for the colour but I might as well have been Charlie Brown’s teacher. . . (after all there it is, PURPLE and she can see it with her own eyes!)
However, I was completely responsible for the fact that I had not shown her how purple a gray it was in the first place, (because I did not have an oversized sample of it in my kit) and it wasn’t obvious just looking at it without comparing it to anything else. I should have compared it to a greeny gray and a blue gray so that she could have made the decision seeing it in context!
So to fix it, we whipped out to the nearest Benjamin Moore store to tone down the purple (in the gallon) so that she was happy. Which is what we want, isn’t it? Turns out the upholstery is not as purple as the colour and once it arrives and we decorate with some fun and fresh colours (including the existing yellow in her living room to bring in flow), it will be fabulous!
The adjoining great room, painted in Inukshuk (A taupe with a little pink in it) looked fabulous in her north facing room. She was happy that it looked brighter than she thought (because all colours get twice as bright once they hit the walls) and as a north facing room adds gray to a colour a little pink was needed to have the colour look beautiful!
So there it is, a lesson in the latest colour trend (in action) and I need to learn to articulate it better to my clients because what is obvious to me is not obvious to everyone unless it’s compared to something else!
A great reminder that managing client expectations starts at the beginning of every job all the way to the end, and makes all the difference between a good designer and a great designer!
Related posts:
What Everyone should know About Gray
White-on-Gray-on-White by Kelly Deck
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