​It’s not quite the same bag as buying a used car, but it comes darn close!   Transforming an interior environment that includes a challenging set of “givens” – some that can’t be changed  but maybe a few that can be modified – is sometimes enough to make you lose your hair...
 
“As is” comes in many forms, shapes, sizes and complexities.  Often a new client puts it right up front:  No structural changes, no major modifications of existing configurations...just do what you can!   And, oh yes; the orange ceiling color stays.   Oh, boy.
 
Like most Interior Designers (and Architects) I welcome challenges!   Most of them make you stop short at first, then the wheels get turning and the Interior design team accepts that this one will be different.  It simply means that the planning, strategies and prospective Interior design concepts will have to develop from the old exposed pipes, the mystery box in the far corner of the (orange) ceiling, and the sloping concrete floor.   The client’s clear message of limitations rings in your ears.
 
All of such challenges are not quite as radical as the example above, but almost any fixed situation – be it color, structural anomalies, or immovable objects – immediately force the team to “react.”     Creative design is usually reactive primarily at the front end – listening to the concept the client has in mind, learning the negative stipulations and/or limitations (including financial) and learning their Vision.  Then, the Interior designer moves into “active” mode, creating the client’s vision from their talent, knowledge of resources and understanding of the problems and possibilities.

​When considering your Interior Design Vision, you probably initially consider how you want it to look!  Next in line follow the important considerations of feel, function, purpose and support.  Those are the other sides of your design vision for which your professional designer takes responsibility on your behalf.  
 
Not everyone with a picture in their mind automatically sees the best ways to connect their visual preferences to those critical “other aspects” that will result in a successfully performing finished project.
 
Wanting your investment in your environment to be beautiful, to be in line with current style trends and to be attractive to the relevant market is predictably typical.  That desire (and goal), while credible and doable, does not – in itself – cover all the essential bases.
 
A commercial environment must meet many criteria to qualify as a successful installation.  Its overall design integrity, its specific configurations, the detail applications and its responsibility to appropriate functionality are high on the list of essentials.  A beautiful appearance with few or poor functional components that address the purpose of the environment, just will not work successfully, over time.

​Isn’t it interesting how we often describe colors and lighting in terms of our sense of touch?  Lights are soft; that color feels cold, and so on.  It’s because the concepts of color and light are deeply integrated with texture, particularly in design considerations.
 
There are significant differences between painting a wall “flat,” and, texturing it first, then painting.  Applied color changes because of the highs and lows of a texture; light will play capriciously as textures vary.
 
Your designer must consider all textures carefully when choosing lighting, and color. That is one of the junctures where all three elements must be simultaneously managed.  It is important to remember that changing one of these factors affects all three.

Many projects present added complexity when the client requests that “secondary” or special use environments be designed into their primary use vision. 
 
With the clear trend to focus more and more activities on one primary site, the opportunity arises for creative design challenges.  One of the simplest is the dedication of part of the residence to business activities: the home office.  With the advancements of more efficient electronic capability, many individuals telecommute for a company as employees of a business located elsewhere.  Independent contractors (owner operators, the self-employed, etc.) are no longer limited to renting an external office.  The stigma of “working out of one’s home” simply no longer exists.
 
Interior space planning and design professionals have met this challenge.  Designing secondary environments within or adjacent to a primary residence requires unique management strategies for both designer and client.  The needs and patterns of family life must be weighed in consideration of the sound, concentration and privacy factors essential to an appropriate workplace.
​

​Just as we all have individual personalities, preferences, wishes, dreams and idiosyncrasies –kitchens are special, individualistic Interior space!  (...or they should be!)
 
The outfitting of a kitchen should agree with the importance of a kitchen to the individual most likely to use it.  Your professional Interior design team knows that getting it right with your kitchen design is a top priority for a functional, balanced home.   Matching a kitchen design to its projected use and user is just good old common sense!
 
Home kitchens have evolved amazingly in recent decades.   The very early paradigm of kitchen as the family gathering place (often the only heated room in the house) has evolved and transitioned with many, many variations.   All reflect the residents’ lifestyle.

​For those familiar with flow charts and critical path planning in their everyday work, the meaning will jump right out! 
 
However, not everyone is involved with very close and precisely timed junctures in their ordinary work patterns.
 
Achieving your desired project completion date hinges on a series of activities, availabilities, choices, decisions and actions that must converge appropriately.   They are the functional elements that exist within each phase and aspect of your project, and are strategized by your design team at the front end of the project.  Also built into the plan are allowances for flexibility in situations not entirely predictable at the start.

​They come up in both perspectives of your design project:  Client and Contractor.  Large or small (real or imagined!) all are important because they have an effect on your project path.
 
Again, good communication tools and comfortable, open, comfortable relationships are the key to managing your concerns.  There is no concern too small to bring to the attention of your professional design team.  And, likewise, your designer will not hesitate to bring clarifications, questions and “mysteries” to your attention.
 
Large concerns are usually obvious to all the players and probably will quickly bring cooperative attention to bear for solutions.  Very small concerns (questions or momentary mysteries) might just be handled as they arise, where they occur, and not even cause a blip.
 
While the terminology “concerns” may seem vague or obtuse, most of us could quickly come up with examples!  In the course of a project there is often sudden concern for something all assumed was handled – usually by someone else!  And assumption is a concern in itself!

​ Some can drive your design team stark raving nutz!
 
The serious side of this problem is no laughing matter, and nutz or not, time is money and that invoice in the mail is the bottom line clincher.  It is vital to know all the facts about how it got to that number.
 
We all like to think we are efficient – and prudent.  But, too often, little stuff adds up and disputes that assumption.
 
How efficient is it, for instance, to take four five- minute phone calls with your designer waiting each time (on the clock) to continue your meeting?  Do you think your professional should “give you” that quarter hour?   Or, when your designer arrives on time for your appointment and you keep them waiting thirty minutes – do you think they should clock off?  (You would not want your designer taking phone calls or texting while you were paying them to be focused on you!)

​Transform:  to change completely or essentially in composition or structure; to change the outward form or appearance of;  (Webster/Chambers/Oxford).
 
Professional Interior Design is a professional service that an expert drives and a client navigates.  The success or shortfall depends almost entirely on communication!   The “where to begin” and the “arrival at desired outcome” depend heavily on one component – client – imprinting another component – Interior designer or team – with the desired vision.  Easy?  Well, not always!
 
In “transformative” Interior design, the challenge antes-up considerably, and the journey is quite different when compared with Interior design that springs from existing patterns and tastes, refreshment Interior design that maintains and corrects, or remodeling Interior design that grows an environment with upgrades but preserves the known and obvious preferences.

​Contemporary Interior Design has grown bolder and more creative in the use of humor and fun when designing Interior clinical space for the very young.   Dental and Medical Interior environments must be sensitive to the anxieties of youngsters – as well as to their wonderful abilities for imagination, whimsy and comedy!
 
Today, when confronted with the very enjoyable challenge of designing Interior medical or dental environments with kids in mind, Interior design teams are less confined by the somber, traditional approaches to clinical Interior space of past decades.  That severe, stark, no-nonsense approach was often self-defeating when it came to management of apprehensive or frightened children anticipating medical or dental discomfort.  The necessary instrumentation alone, presented on trays within their sight, could be enough to make young patient management difficult – or even impossible.

​In dreaming then planning for your Interior Design project, almost the main driver of the Vision is Color.   Yes, of course function, site, finances, and other basics are of prime importance!   But that image you have in mind takes shape in one’s imagination and projections, and you definitely see it in living color!
 
The pragmatic disciplines of knowing how color interacts with other colors, light and textures is in the hands of your Interior design expert team.   However, you, the client, know the theme color category you have in mind.   The color category you communicate to your Interior design team starts a consideration chain reaction concerning all the other relevant elements that will be serious players in accurately delivering your Interior design project.

​You are putting your Interior Design team together, and are ready to begin your Interior design project.   Perhaps it’s a long-anticipated residential remodel or the build-out for a new home on that beautiful lot you purchased!   Or, your project may be commercial space for a new retail business, professional services facility or a corporate complex.  
 
Whatever your project, think of it as a series of layered accomplishments!  Anyone knows how a new construction happens – kids like to line up and watch everything from the sub-excavation right up to the roofing.  From foundation to rooftop Solar panels, layer-by-layer, it happens!
 
When it comes to the Interior design aspect, there is more in the strategies than might immediately be apparent.  Your Interior designer works with a very specialized team – each player is key to the integrity of a specific layer of application.   Remember the school days jingle about the head bone being connected to the neck bone, and down the whole skeleton?  Same principle here!

​Paying for professional services is perceived as a blessing or a curse, depending on who is speaking and who is listening.
 
Choosing to use professional services, and paying the price, is a big decision.
 
One of the first questions service professionals are asked is:  How much do you charge?  Right on the heels of that question is:  What will my project cost?   More often than not, neither of those questions can be reliably answered in the very first conversations!   It all depends.  It is a rare situation when a professional would gamble on quoting costs before the proposed project is carefully studied, then carefully documented.

A whole lot more.   Your Interior Design team is good at what they do – or you would not have chosen them to help you realize your interior environment design vision.   But, having the credentials, training, experience and expertise only goes as far as it goes!   On the other side of the coin, your team may be intrigued by your proposed project, but over and above that, you need mutual respect, and you need to want to work together!

​To make your Interior Design project successful in all aspect and for all concerned there must be compatibility and comfortable, balanced relationships throughout. The ability to work comfortably with your talented team makes all the difference! The process of first understanding the design concept - the vision - and then, interpreting it into the site in question requires good communication, compatible perceptions and a commitment to positive clarification.