You’ve hired your Interior Design team, you have signed all the paper work, paid your retainer and are ready to embark on the project – at last! After a lot of careful consideration, you made the decision to stay put and not vacate your home or business site while the design project gets underway, then all the way to completion. You have planned to accommodate the various crews, area by area, by “moving over, exercising patience, trying to stay out of the way – and offering your help wherever it might save time or money.”
Oh, boy… Sometimes what looks like a white flag of truce and peace can turn into a big red flag signaling confusion and trouble ahead! So, let’s take a look at options.
In some cases, it’s not a matter of moving out when a project begins, but delaying moving in. Circumstances, funds, and timing do not always play out in harmony; often there may not be a choice. The project may have to go forward with everyone present and accounted for.
Assuming that best case is not possible, and the less desirable choice must be tolerated, it’s good to remember it can be managed! While not the most desirable of circumstances, it is possible to successfully conduct an interior design project while the business or family remains on site.
Whenever possible, it is best to develop the logistics and strategies ahead of time when it is clear that the project must go forward, working its process around the occupants. The participants also need to accept that if it is a commercial environment, it won’t function normally. You may be able to still do business – but it won’t be “business as usual!” As long as all concerned are willing to modify their patterns, be flexible about convenience, maintain a sense of humor and draw on their personal abilities to innovate, it could even be fun.
In a residential environment, remodeling, refurbishing, constructing an addition or just simply painting and carpeting still presents inconvenience and challenges to patience. It could be as simple as vacating specific areas in a sequence and doubling up as the cycle shifts. Ideally, if young children can camp out temporarily with relatives or friends for a few days, your design team and its various sub-contractors can proceed much more efficiently with only adults remaining onsite.
Your design professionals have no doubt experienced situations in the past where the project has had to work around the presence of business staff or home residents. Ask them for suggestions that would work well in your situation. With planning, sometimes vacations and project installation can be coordinated.
Cooperation, communication and mutual consideration are key to the decision to move your project forward with tenants, staffs or family members remaining in place and trying to behave in their normal patterns. In some situations, your design team and specific sub-contractors may not consent to implementing some phases of your project unless the relevant site is vacated. Such situations are most likely related to safety requirements or special regulatory mandates.
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
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