Interior designers - experiences?

[Lindyboo]

I’ve never used the services of an interior designer and don’t know anyone who has. I’m contemplating such extravagance for the main room in Chez Shack, before we commit to the building/electrical work, due to its long-by-narrow shape and the abundance of doors leading from it. This room seems to defy the laws of furnishing. Also I have no talent, so need a surrogate imagination to assist me in turning a pit into a palace. Anyone ever used an interior designer? Any do’s/don’ts etc?

 

[shelli]

Aw come on - i bet you can do it if you put your mind to it - we can help!!

1st job - get some graph paper - do room lay out and dimensions - show doors windows and any fitted cupboards etc

decide what you have got that that you want to keep and use in the scheme - eg a family piece of furniture, antiques, collections of treasures to display or similar

start collecting pics from magazines that you like Period living etc to get ideas on colour schemes

emptying the whole room and looking at it completely bare of furniture and curtains will help you see it in a new light too

post the graph paper drawing and any other pics you have to this site for ideas from forum members

I bet you don't need a designer - remember you have to live in this room - anyone elses interpretation of it will always be a compromise.

shelli

 

[Lindyboo]

Shelli – bless you for your confidence in my abilities! However, this is the first room that’s flummoxed me. The others I can get to grips with – done the graph paper etc and I’ve previously done decent jobs of designing and fitting my own kitchens and bathrooms, which I intend to repeat here. The problem with this room is – well – it’s a pig. Three doors and one window, long and narrow, large chimney breast (now an ‘inglenook’, formerly housed a kitchen range) with a narrow cupboard to one side and a door to the other. Frequent passage is required through it to two other rooms – repositioning any doors or knocking through to another room would involve major alteration and expense (we’ve already discussed it with the builder).

I found the website of a local(ish) interior designer who doesn’t charge much (£95) to come out and present some ideas, which the client can then either undertake themselves or leave to the designer and claims to be content to design single rooms in small homes. I thought it sounded not unreasonable, but maybe it’s too good to be true?

It’s my impression, from various websites, that interior designers generally expect and prefer to work on large Georgian houses or swish penthouses – well, if we lived in those sort of places I could come up with my own ideas anyway. I’ve never seen another room – or indeed house – like ours and so I’ve no model to work from, so to speak. I’ve scoured hundreds of magazines, websites and quite a few books, but haven’t seen anything similar. Hence, I’m becoming desperate enough to pay for it …

Anyway, I’ll try as you’ve suggested and post some pics and or/drawings on the site. Ta.

 

[Nemesis]

It's worth having a browse through the 'Period Property of the Month' here too, give you some ideas about the sort of look you like.

 

[shelli]

Okay - so we begin - I am wearing flamboyant fancy scarf today and have been making curtains so feeling tres creative darling

I can picture your fireplace end with door on one side and narrow cupboard on the other - where are other 2 doors in relation to this, where is window and how big is room (in feet by feet) ?

If £95.00 designer fee is just for a callout - then thats pretty expensive! Like you say you have already pored over magazines and books - my guess would be designer turns up, tells you what an awkward room you've got and then talks about going away and doing some designs for X£ per hour.

 

[Nemesis]

I would suspect, also, that a great deal of what would be paid for would be boards with colour schemes and swatches of carpet and materials... and have you the ability to junk all that you have currently have re furniture and accessories and start again, or will you have to retain stuff?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

As an Interior Designer and Finisher I have to say I am very hurt by your comments. However, I do agree with some of you!

Anyway, here are one or two suggestions which might help .

This is on the assumption that your fireplace will be the focal point.

You only need 2 or 3 bits of furniture to move around and the aim is to create a couple of 'square' areas within the long narrow room, which will have their own space or identity within the larger space, then you can add in smaller pieces.

If you have a sofa, place it in the middle of the room facing the fireplace---- just forget about the doors and things for a minute.
Place a small table behind the sofa, stick a lamp or vase of flowers on it.

Now, stand back ---- do the two bits of furniture block your thoroughfare? If not, then you will have effectively divided the room into two more easily furnished spaces. You can move it nearer the fireplace or further away etc.

Alternately, try putting a sofa parallel with a wall, but inwards, next to edge of the fireplace, put a low coffee table in the middle of the remaining space, balance it with another sofa on the opposite side.

Juggling around with those essential bits of furniture should help, just keep standing back and checking your thoroughfares.

Good Luck

 

[shelli]

you see Lindyboo - with Interior designers you just have to wind them up a bit to get them moving! :wink:

That is cracking advice Jocelyn - I will definitely try that type of approach in our awkward dining room

You are obviously one of the high quality interior experts XXX

Shelli

 

[Nemesis]

I currently (ie for several weeks...) have a pile of Hexham Courants and Cumberland News about a yard high in front of the sofa, which I kept as there were articles I wanted to cut out. They seem now to have become a sort of coffee table, as I haven't actually much got round to the sorting.

Now I ask you - would an interior designer have come up with such an innovative and inexpensive idea?

No.

Just think outside that box. Or both boxes.

 

[Lindyboo]

Thank you all for your input – very interesting and helpful. Tomorrow I’ll have a go at posting a room plan on the site, which I’ve drawn up.

Nite nite

 

[jocelyn plummer]

One thing that I have never solved is how to put a round dining room table into a long narrow room, it won't go in the middle, it won't go at one end, it's the table that has to be changed for an oval I think. :roll:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

One thing that I have never solved is how to put a round dining room table into a long narrow room, it won't go in the middle, it won't go at one end, it's the table that has to be changed for an oval I think. :roll:

Or buy a lighthouse.

 

[shelli]

One thing that I have never solved is how to put a round dining room table into a long narrow room, it won't go in the middle, it won't go at one end, it's the table that has to be changed for an oval I think. :roll:

Or buy a lighthouse.

or buy Belle Isle on Windermere

Cue Nemesis with link!!

 

[middi]

There are a lot of INFERIOR designers about.

 

[Hatster]

I think a really good designer might be well worth it, but the problem is knowing who's really good!

We had our kitchen (another very long, very narrow room) designed first by a rather inexperienced designer, and then re-designed by his boss. It was a complete transformation - the boss made it seem far more spacious, and found room to put in a funky breakfast bar and bar stools when before there wasn't even room to bring a chair into the room. It was so good that we're definitely planning on getting a designer out for our new house - John Lewis have designers who'll come out for £250, but the price is redeemable on any purchases. Since we definitely want curtains at least from JL, we reckon that this means that we'll get a designer for free.

We would certainly have the boss guy back again to re-design our new kitchen, except he retired and moved to Spain :-(

 

[Penners]

What you need is a feng shui expert. It's the ancient Chinese art of putting the telly on the other side of the room.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Then charge an exorbitant fee for the advice :lol: