Renovations...Expectations...

I went and visited this client again last week and whilst her house is traveling very nicely there have been a couple of hiccups. There always are with renovations but I would say on the 'whole' this particular job has run very smoothly in the scheme of things. Still the biggest learning curve when dealing with clients ESPECIALLY in Residential design is their 'Expectations'.

On this visit we were inspecting the saga of the 'Walk-in-Robe', seriously it looked very 'clunky' (not your standard Interior vocabulary).
The client's expectations were to have something elegant, at this stage the walk-in-robe doesn't look very elegant at all,



We have come up with some solutions and yesterday we sketched them out for our project manager to brief the client. I will update my blog (it actually helps me to do this!)as to how we are going to achieve the result the client expects.

This happens in many cases whilst designing for Residential Interior fitouts for client's and it does take trial and error to see that a particular design isn't working. It's very much about how you resolve the mistake and handle the clients at the same time.

So in this case the solution is to remove one side of the cabinetry, narrow it down to have shelving and little drawers. It will still be practical, functional and create more of a dressing room feel, by opening up the space. Which is what the client was wanting to achieve but unfortunately with the little space allocated by the Building designer (not their fault either no blame here the council didn't help with their regulations..so it's been a 'round robin' of bad decision making), wasn't as achievable as we might have expected.

So what's the lesson learnt? Double check all concept drawings before they go out to the cabinetmaker and never set the client's expectations to high until you have given yourself the time to resolve the space. I'll update when the wardrobe is completed.

I have posted some more pictures from this particular renovation as it progresses.