When To Call The Interior Designer?

At what stage in a project should you call in an interior designer? “Sooner than you think!” is probably the best answer to this question. Potential new clients will often call and electively say “you can’t come over yet, it’s still a building site”, when actually, it might already be a bit late……

Whether you’re building a whole new house, or just altering or extending an existing one, as much of the interior as possible should be planned, drawn and sourced before the builders even hit the ground. Because what few clients realise is that one of the most important days on site is the day the electrician first arrives.This is typically as soon as the roof is on and can easily be well before the windows are in.

The electrician’s first job is to “first fix” all the wiring, which means running the cables you need from where the fuseboard will be, to all those locations where you want sockets, lights and switches. It’s all too easy to think that this is just (a slightly boring) part of the building work and standing in a cold and draughty shell of a house, you’re thinking it’ll be months before you get to the fun bit of choosing all those lovely things for the interior.

But if you haven’t chosen what size of bed you’re going to have and where exactly it’s going to go, how do you know that the sockets will end up in just the right position on each side of it? All too often, the electrician assumes the bed is going to be 4’6” wide and in the middle of the wall (and why shouldn’t he if no-one’s told him otherwise) and the wiring goes in accordingly. Weeks go past, the walls are plastered and painted and your thoughts turn to organising new furniture.

With a nice big new bedroom, you, or your other half, decide that what you’d really like is a generous 6” bed……. Arriving back home, you decide that now is the moment to call the interior designer, as you’d like a hand choosing paint colours and new curtains and blinds.

This scenario happens so often and it’s such a shame. It also illustrates perfectly, how interior designers can save you money. Call a professional designer in early and they’ll ask you all sorts of questions. “What size bed do you like to sleep in?” might seem a rather personal question at a first meeting, but the designer knows just how important that is in the planning of the whole room, wiring included.

So if you’re planning a project, the message is call the designer in early! A professional designer should be fully equipped with hard hat and hi-vis jacket, be accustomed to visiting building sites and have a working knowledge of building regulations. They’ll be keen to be part of the team who are creating your new home and should be able to communicate well with the architect, you, the client, and the contractors. In short, they’ll be looking to work closely with you and relieve you of much of the stress of the process.