Managing Client Expectations is also a huge part of our job as designers. Every job is different so it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the business. Most of your advice is based on experience and training but most importantly, your own design aesthetic. This post outlined what I learned about silk drapery this year.
SourceIn July I painted my living room just before my sunflower yellow sofa arrived, it was all waaaaay tooooo yellow! Read the full story here.
In September, one of my projects was published in BC Home magazine (below), See that green chair in the foreground of this photo? Well I had originally specified two chairs to be positioned in front of the coffee table/ottoman right across from the sofa.
Interior Design by Maria Killam
Both of the chairs were delayed and so the sofas were installed first. When the chairs arrived one week later, my client called me and said, “Maria, when I walk into the house, now I see the back of the chairs instead of the coffee table, I don’t want to look at the back of the chairs.” And she was absolutely right. When you walk through the front door in between the dining room and the library (below). . .
Interior Design by Maria Killam
The first thing you see is the living room (below) with the view of the golf course including the coffee table which then becomes the focal point of the space (not the fireplace, not shown, on the left). Having both the chairs directly in front of the coffee table also impeded the flow in terms of walking from the hallway from the office and powder room and into the kitchen. Luckily the office right next door was large and we were able to use the second chair in that room which worked out perfectly. Whew. But as you know, it doesn’t always work out that way. I could, at this very moment, have a moss green chair sitting somewhere in my house :)
With specifying colour for walls (very different from fabric and other surfaces), most of the time I look like a True Expert and sometimes I don’t. Lighting still trumps the best predictions in the world and can suddenly change that fabulous colour I specified into something that makes you want to cry. It’s why I’m in this business, it’s never the same and endlessly fascinates me.
And I don’t lose sleep over it anymore.
Related posts:
5 Ways to know if you should Quit your Day Job to become a Designer
The first Mistake a New Colour Consultant will make Every Time
Should you Pay for a Room to be Re-painted if You chose the Colour?
10 Ways to Save money now by Creating a Focal Point
Effect of Natural Light Exposures on Colour
New to this Blog? Click here ; Follow me on Facebook and Twitter; Become a True Colour Expert
