Why is it that dingy basement laundry room designs are the norm?

Ever since families started doing their own laundry in their own home instead of taking it out to commercial laundries, laundry day chores have been relegated to out of the way places like the basement or the garage. I think that good laundry room designs would at least require that the laundry center in the home would be placed close to where the laundry is produced! The last time I did laundry none of it came from the garage!

Laundry coordinators in every home (you know who you are) have been lugging piles of laundry to the basement or the garage for decades and I think it is time to start planning for laundry room designs that are user friendly for the entire family. The average North American family does anywhere from 7-10 loads of laundry a week so it is a chore that takes up considerable time in family life. It is time to take a look at sensible laundry room designs.

Let’s face it if you have to do laundry, you will want it to be as pleasant a chore as possible. At the very least good planning should remove some of the unpleasantness that currently goes along with laundry day. Read the rest of this entry »

Interior designers are often asked about the origins of the profession – especially in the context of quality of life versus product. Has our modern quality of life driven our craving for high-quality design, or has design really been more of a primary impactor in defining how we enjoy wellness? In this article, I will draw on my experience in London’s prestigious interior design community to reflect on how the design process works from this perspective.

When interior designers begin engaging with a potential client, they will often ask about function. What is the desired purpose and use of the room or residence? The answer to this question has a profound impact on everything we do. If a client is desperate for luxury high-end London extravagance in the form of a damask settee, we may recommend a synthetic damask fabric instead of cotton or satin for a household that includes young kids and a pet dog. Breathtaking interior designs are always the goal, but only in the context of compatibility with our clients’ unique London lifestyles.

Interior designers will work hard to understand client requirements from the outset. Some professional London Interior Design consultancies will even have a series of highly structured interview questions that they routinely use. The interior designer will offer a free consultation at the client’s home – whether inside or outside London – to discover exactly what the client loves and hates about their current residence. Budget should be a conversation point from the very beginning. It is important to clarify whether the client prefers to be given fifteen different interior design options from which to choose, or just two or three.

One area that can be really challenging for the interior designer is when a husband and wife have different ideas about the desired outcome. This can happen regardless of whether the individuals are happily married or considering an impending separation. The interior designer sometimes gets “caught in the middle,” which can cause real tension.

In recent years, the London interior design community has seen a real upwelling in terms of social media and internet-enabled design opportunities. One of the most positive results is that would-be clients are now much better informed regarding interior design themes and concepts. Londoners read articles just like this one and start to get a sense of the interior design process even before we reach their front door or exchange our first set of emails!