Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Design Faux- Pas

I was asked my Mike Landry, the radio show host of Purchase Like Pros KPRC 950 AM to be on this show last Saturday, August 14th from 2 PM -3 PM. What did we discuss? Design Faux- Pas - all the things people do wrong when they decide that they can design their home by themselves. When anyone wants to add a shelf to their home, they very carefully measure the space where they wish to install the shelf, before purchasing the $20 shelf. Yet people will go out to a store and on impulse, purchase an entire bedroom suite, or an entire room full of furniture without ever measuring their space and only call me when it doesn't fit. At that point, there is little that I can do about that mistake, I can't stretch their room and I can't shrink their furniture! We have to purchase all new furniture which is both expensive and wasteful! Better to call in a good designer FIRST, and not make that mistake! I have a story for you. I had a client who wanted to purchase a sofa for a small study. I found her a sofa that fit and gave her the dimensions, saying that the sofa shouldn't be any bigger than 76". She called me a few days after I gave her the tear sheet with the sofa photo and dimensions, and said that she had found a similar sofa on the internet and she wanted to purchase that sofa instead, because it was available quicker than mine was and because it was a bit less expensive. I asked her how big the sofa that she had found was, and she said it was "A little bit bigger" than mine. I asked her "How much bigger" and she said that she didn't know, but she thought it would be "OK". When the sofa arrived, the "little bigger" difference in size meant that my sofa would have fit on the wall in her room, while hers did not and stuck out about 8" into the doorway preventing egress into and out of the room. She was mortified and had no choice but to get rid of that sofa - ultimately paying for both it AND the sofa that I had given her the tear sheet for. She learned a lesson, and promised not to purchase something on her own and especially without measuring, again! How many of you have purchased something without measuring and regretted it?

1 Comments:

Blogger Beverly Vosko said...

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August 17, 2010 at 7:32 AM  

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