Embrace Your Home as a Blank Canvas

You possess a distinct sense of style, and you’re selective about your preferences. Control often feels comfortable, especially when you’re not entirely familiar with the interior design process. The fear of disliking the final result is entirely valid. These concerns often lead clients to question the idea of granting full creative freedom to interior designers. As an interior designer, I view myself as a creative artist. Think about this: if you commissioned an artist to create a painting, would you attempt to wield their brush? This analogy is why it’s time to view your home as a blank canvas and entrust us as the artists.

The Collaborative Process with Creative Freedom

Today, I’d like to shed light on why, once you’ve done your research and chosen a designer whose style aligns with your vision, allowing them the creative freedom they deserve is the next step you should take. Often, too many cooks spoil the broth, and the same principle applies to designing your home. The best results are achieved when the design concept resides primarily within one person’s vision, typically the interior designer. Attempting to design separately from the designer creates conflict, confusion, and, most importantly, a lack of synergy in the final outcome. This dual-design approach can become costly, consuming both time and money.

Balancing Freedom with Collaboration

Encouraging clients to refrain from excessive involvement in the design process doesn’t mean excluding them entirely. Our collaboration with clients is at the heart of our projects. Your input regarding lifestyle, preferences, unique tastes, and style forms the foundation of our creations. Allowing an interior designer to take full creative control permits them to envision your home as a mental model. Here, they can contemplate various finishes, material placements, and more simultaneously. This approach is about empowering designers to work creatively from the outset.

The Art and Science of Interior Design: A Creative Lens at Play

Interior design is an intricate blend of art and science. Many clients may not be aware of the nuanced decisions and deliberate choices that underlie the creation of a harmonious living space. When you allow us creative freedom, you enable us to view your project through the unique creative lens that defines our work, merging the science of functionality with the art of aesthetics to craft a space that transcends your expectations.

Expertise and Furnishings for a Seamless Design

Designing your home is one of the most significant and expensive investments you’ll make. Engaging an expert interior designer with knowledge and experience is essential for guiding you toward a space that may exceed your imagination.

Furniture, Fittings, and Fixtures Excellence

In the interior design world, FF&E (furniture, fittings, and fixtures) play a crucial role in the design process. All elements, starting at the front door, and every other element flowing throughout your entire home, are seamlessly coordinated. Offering creative freedom to your interior designer ensures consistency in style, a hallmark of our projects.

Unlocking a World of Possibilities with Our Network

One of the most significant advantages of working with our interior design team is the extensive network of relationships we’ve cultivated with suppliers and tradespeople, both locally and internationally. When you choose to grant us creative freedom, you’re not just tapping into our design expertise but also accessing our vast array of contacts, opening doors to unique and exceptional solutions for your project.

Confidence in Handing Over Creative Control

While I can’t speak for all interior designers, I can confidently speak for myself and our exceptional team. Here are several reasons why entrusting the entire design process to us is a wise choice.

1. A Decade of Expertise: With over 10 years of experience, I bring unparalleled knowledge of scale and proportion, aesthetics, and a genuine appreciation for colour and textures.
2. Streamlined Project: Allowing us creative freedom can significantly expedite and enhance the flow of your project, ultimately saving you time and money.
3. Communication and Transparency: Full collaboration is endorsed throughout our projects. Granting creative freedom doesn’t mean keeping you in the dark. Communication and transparency are vital for ensuring success.

In conclusion, embracing an open mind and granting your interior designer the creative freedom they deserve will make your design project more efficient and successful. If you’re interested in working with our team, please reach out here.

Plan for perfection. Consider what you have by way of clothes and accessories, what you intend to accumulate, and what else the robe will be used to store. Plan for both single and double hanging rails for dresses as well as shirts and skirts and ensure the rail is positioned high enough to avoid longer items puddling on the floor: the optimal height is 1500 – 1600mm. Think depth too: the standard is 650mm – any shallower, and you risk squashing wider items when you close the wardrobe doors. If you’re starved for space, choose sliding or bi-fold doors over hinged, or look for doors that retract into the cupboard when opened; these are available when you work with a custom cabinet maker. Also consider how high you want your robes to go. The answer to limited storage is often taking shelves to the ceiling, and top racks can be used to store rarely used items such as travel cases and sleeping bags. You can invest in set of fold out library steps to access these hard to reach places.

Shelf life. Opting for shelves rather than drawers in your wardrobe will not only save you money – shelves allow you to see stored items instantly and if you go for built ins, you can close the doors on less-than tidy stacks of clothes. Choose adjustable shelves to cater to your changing storage needs, and make sure they’re shallow so that items don’t get lost up the back. If your wardrobe has deep shelves, maintain order with baskets or fabric covered boxes for hats and knitwear. If you’re starting from scratch, be sure to include purpose-built compartments for different sized items.

Drawer and order. Planning early allows you to accommodate specialist items such as jewellery in ‘secret’ drawers, or shallow trays for items like underwear, ties and socks. However, the adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is never more true than when it comes to the wardrobe. It is a good idea to allocate two drawers per person – anymore and items get forgotten. If  you don’t want everything on display, keeps drawers tidy by installing internal dividers to separate small items. Check out all of the wonderful Howard Storage World drawer organisers available.

Off the rack. Whether you have a wardrobe custom-fitted to your needs, or opt for pre-fabricated model depends largely on your budget. With PAX fitted wardrobe systems, available from Ikea, you simply pick a door material, choose hinge or sliding, then buy as many wardrobe compartments, drawers and shelves as you need and assemble at home; for a unit measuring 250omm wide with hinged doors containing a mix of hanging, shelves and drawers is priced from $1300.  If you have built-ins already in place, but lack the system to make it work efficiently for your needs, you can buy ready-made kits with adjustable hangers and racks, these can be found at Howard Storage World, their elfa Custom Wardrobe Solution is great product to explore, the shelving is engineered to hang from a single fixed top rack. It can therefore be reconfigured at any time – quickly and simply. For a system measuring 1510mm you’ll be looking at $1269.

Walk right in. If you have the budget and the space. a custom-designed walk-in wardrobe will forever eliminate the stress of having nothing to wear. Try re-creating your favourite boutique with open shelving and ample hanging space, wide drawers, full length mirrors, LED lighting and central island. Expect to pay $15,000 plus for a wardrobe with the works, depending the design and materials used.

If you’re a shoe gazer.

• Store shoes in an easily accessible stack with pull out pantry style shelves the width of your shoe box. Store shoes in their original boxes, or transparent ones, which you can stack.
• A length of dowelling glued along tilted shoe shelves will help prevent heels slipping.
• Invest in shoe trees for your most precious pairs; or stuff the toes with tissue paper. And save these usually come packaged with your shoes on purchase.

If you share with a partner.

• I suggest a two-thirds to one-third woman-to-man ratio. Women always need more space!
• A second rail installed below a full height one will double your hanging space for shirts, skirts and pants.
• Install tie hangers, belt racks and gliding pants racks to keep his belongings tidy.
• Solve space issues by packing out-of-season clothing and storing it in a handsome trunk or ottoman.
• Think about installing LED lighting in the wardrobe do you don’t have to turn on the bedroom light to get dressed – great for for couples who rise at different times. You’ll even find LEDS that can be installed within the hanging rail, on the side of the carcass or as an illuminated back panel.

I’ve included some wonderful ideas that should help you with designing a beautiful, fully functional wardrobe that you will love “shopping in” every morning. But if you still need assistance with designing custom storage solutions tailored to your needs, get in touch here.

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