Reasons Not To Skip The Designer - Part 2

Tammy was so excited to begin her kitchen remodel. She’d been scrolling Pinterest for months saving inspo pics, and touring model homes for ideas.

The one thing she was adamant about after months of research was having Taj Mahal quartzite countertops. She’d seen them installed at a friend’s house and had fallen in love. So when her contractor told her to go and select her slabs, she was thrilled. Tammy walked a few different slab yards before selecting a batch that had the movement she liked and the number of slabs her contractor told her would be needed.

Fast forward three months. It was install day for countertops!

Tammy was excited to see her vision come together as planned, and mortified when she found that the stone slabs she had selected looked completely different in her kitchen than she'd anticipated. She’d been expecting a creamy beige color like her friend’s kitchen and had received more of a grayish green color.

Immediately she called her contractor, who then called his fabricator to confirm the slabs were the exact ones Tammy had purchased, and reviewed the layout for. Mary looked closely at the sink cutouts and confirmed that yes, these must be the same slabs. However, the results were no less glaringly different than she’d been expecting. Not only were the countertops basically gray in the light of her kitchen, but the cabinet color she’d selected was noticeably warmer, much more in line with what she’d hoped the Taj would look like. But instead of softening the blow, the cabinet color was now exacerbating the issue.

Tammy couldn’t unsee how “off” the colors were in her newly installed $200,000 kitchen. Devastated at having invested so much in a flawed set of selections (her custom cabinets cost her $60,000 and her stone cost her over $30,000 installed), she asked her contractor what her options were.

His response: We understand that this doesn’t look the way you expected, but we cannot be held liable for a client’s selections. We can have the cabinets re-painted, and/or swap out the stone, but any of these changes would be at your cost and would delay your project completion date (each sub has a waiting list).

Tammy was not about to spend thousands more to have her new kitchen disassembled when she'd waited so long. But she was admittedly disappointed with her finished results, having invested so much in what she was SURE she wanted.

THE LESSON:

Tammy’s problem wasn’t that she didn’t know what she wanted. And it wasn’t that she didn’t have the capital to invest in exactly what she wanted. Her problem was that there were aspects of making selections that she didn’t fully understand--safeguards and extra steps that need to be taken to avoid these very expensive mistakes.

While decisive clients like Tammy may not require a full-service approach, having an experienced designer involved from the project onset as a consultant could have ensured that she would be fully satisfied with her sizeable investment. A good designer could have looked through Tammy’s inspo pics and recognized that she was after a warmer tone of Taj, then helped her select accordingly, going through the necessary steps to ensure color compatibility with the lighting conditions of the space.

With a full-service designer on the other hand, it could be taken a step further, through additional techniques at every stage of the project (proper lighting decisions, well-chosen cabinet and wall colors to compliment the stone, and ensuring consistent undertones across all finishes).

Full-service interior designers, when used properly, achieve several things:

1.        The client saves time

2.        The client avoids expensive mistakes

3.        The client maximizes their overall investment

4.        The client receives a totally finished space, not a checklist

5.        The designer can often refer a well-qualified builder

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If you’re a busy professional considering a home renovation project in the new year, now is a great time to reach out and start the ball rolling. Good planning takes months, not days. Don’t wait until you’re knee deep in half a dozen mistakes to call a designer. Call the designer FIRST.

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This is an example of a real project completed by Judy Olson Interiors and our team. We went to great lengths to ensure that the tone of the natural stone countertops would mesh well with the cabinet color, as well as the original stone floors that the client requested to keep. The results are flawless and our client receives regular compliments. This was a full service arrangement in which we took our client seamlessly from concept to completion, managing every detail on their behalf.