Any Interior Design project (large or small) is a complex chain of details that should produce a balanced and harmonious end vision – both beautiful and functional. If it is done with skill, talent and professionalism, it is also durable.
Follow-up comes in many forms: there is the positive kind and the negative kind! Usually, it’s a mix. Protecting your Interior design’s financial investment means also investing the time it takes, over time, for appropriate monitoring of all elements relevant to the specific project. All elements recommended, chosen and provided contain expectations for qualitative durability. It’s just simply smart to know and correctly understand those expectations.
When your professional Interior designer takes on the quite serious responsibility of advising, recommending, and then providing treatments, materials, equipment and furnishings, etc., it involves specific knowledge and insights concerning those elements. For you, the client, it includes trust!
Manufacturers and suppliers provide promises and guarantees (and sometimes simple assurances based on previous experiences) for what they and your Interior designer recommend. Elements are interrelated for balance (connectivity, color values, textures, quality, function and durability rhythms, etc.) that is reasonable for the expected life of the installation.
That’s why “follow-up” is such an important chapter of your Interior design project. Theoretically, your project should not end with installation, delivery of the final elements, your final payments – or the grand opening! That’s when “monitoring the performance” of all coordinated elements begins as an important aspect for both you and your Interior designer; and, because the long-range integrity of the project is important to both of us.
Things to consider would be, for example, how is that floor covering holding up? Is maintenance and wear factors fulfilling the promises? Is equipment functioning as guaranteed? Are the furniture selections performing well under the expected patterns of use? If it’s good news – please share it! Follow-up is not only for problems! Remember that your Interior designer’s future recommendations are influenced by both negative AND positive feedback!
There’s your part of follow-up, and there’s your Interior designer’s part! You are the ones on the front lines of the use-and-beauty setting; you are having the direct experience. Your Interior designer may finally be offsite after installation, but has (or should have) clear records of all specifications of your project, and is (or should be) willing to regularly follow-up with you, and to monitor the life of the project.
On your part, there may be maintenance questions, and sometimes (to be fair) a concern or complaint or a need for some technical advice. You might have second thoughts about some factor, and want a “re-do.” Maybe there was a recommendation about which you were reluctant – but later realized it was spot-on! (Your Interior designer would really like to know that!)
Follow-up is just about keeping in touch after a project is completed. It’s making sure that the vision you envisioned was fulfilled — and is sustaining. If it’s good news, it is definitely okay to let your Interior designer know that expectations are being fulfilled! That feels great! If there’s a problem, don’t stew on it and let it ride… the sooner the report, the easier the fix.
For this Interior designer (and I hope others), the follow-up monitoring process is free of charge – and worth its weight in greenbacks!
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer (CID) 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.
