Lesson 2 | Room Planner

Create a design concept

How many stages are there in the interior design? What are the features of each of them?

Understanding Project Details and its Components

Before starting any design work, you must have a clear direction and understanding of the interior design process.

You should also establish a relationship with the client and openly discuss any issues that could lead to wasted time.

Interior designers can offer their clients to choose from a wide range of design styles, colors, ideas. But it's important to remember the client's preferences. The designer's goal is not to impose personal thoughts, but to offer a variety of design options and direct the client to the right choice.

To avoid problems a lot of time should be spent here gathering information about the client's preferences in terms of design, materials, quality, etc.

It's one of the most important stages in the design process.

Q&A

Here is an examples of questions for the clients that you can use to create your design task.

Living spaces

Main questions:

The place data includes address, area, number of rooms.
Name, age, and the relationship of people living in the place.
Information about pets includes the amount, size, and habits.
Family lifestyle: how many time do you spend at home, how early do you wake up, what are you usually doing at home, what is your hobby, etc.
Future plans: how often do you make renovation, do you plan to have kids, pets, etc.
How often do you have a guests? And how much?
Storage: size preferences, list of items for storage.
List of furniture and items client going to keep.
Appliances: list of appliances that client already has, appliances he wants to add.
Preferences for every room. Ask about what your client wants to see in every room: furniture, preferences, room purposes.
Style preferences.
Color preferences.
Lightning preferences.
Materials preferences.
Dislikes: what do you hate in interiors, what designer should avoid.
Renovation budget: for redevelopment, for materials, for furniture, for textile, for decoration. Limits for every item.

Specific questions:

Eating habits: are you cooking, how often do you spend time on the kitchen, where do you usually having a dinner, etc.
Home office: how many space do you need, where do you prefer to work.
Laundry: do you need a laundry place at home, what do you need in the laundry space, where do you want to place it, appliances, and sizes.
Warm floor.

Public spaces

The place data includes address, area, number of rooms.
Name of the place and its purpose.
How many people visit the place per month?
How often owners going to make renovation?
Storage: size preferences, list of items for storage.
Preferences for every area (kitchen, terrace, dancing zone, places for equipment, etc).
Style preferences.
Color preferences.
Lightning preferences.
Materials preferences.
Dislikes: what do you hate in interiors, what designer should avoid.
Renovation budget: for redevelopment, for materials, for furniture, for textile, for decoration. Limits for every item.

Concept stage - Mood boards and collages

Help your client to define style preferences. The main helpful tool is Pinterest. You can collect here pictures and links from different design resources.

It’s important to have a systematic approach here. Name every detail you are saving to the board. An example, in the one picture it could be a textile, in another, it could be a sofa or maybe flooring solution.

As a result, you can create a collage with a representation of style for every space.

You can use any image editor for that. You can even google some online collage maker and pick the most comfortable one.

The collage should contain:

color scheme
coverings for floor, wall, ceiling
textile
constructions (beams, wall panels, etc)
furniture, appliances & decoration

Sometimes, if you are creating a decoration solution only for your client the collage could be your first work result. When the collage is ready you just need to find similar furniture, coverings, and materials in the stores.

Where to get inspiration

Homework

Imagine that you are creating your dream house. Fill questionnaire from Q&A chapter. If you already have a client or friend who planning renovation - ask them to fill it.
Collect most interesting design ideas to the board in Pinterest and create a collage.

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