Our homes are our base camps, the place where we begin and end our daily routine. It is a place where we feel safe and where we take ownership of our environment. It is for this reason Interior Design goes beyond aesthetics and in fact reaches much deeper into our lives.
Everything from sculpting the interior architecture of a property, to introducing a colour scheme can affect how we experience our surroundings. A good Interior Designer will learn and observe our patterns and interactions to ensure lifestyle enhancement, tranquillity and ease. The brief and the way the end user lives is crucial for the interior designer, taking the time to understand the client’s way of life, aspirations and preferences is very important and should be the starting point for any project.
An Example
The kitchen needs to be a practical and functional place before it can boast its aesthetics. It is the nerve centre of the home, the meeting point. It is where we prepare meals and sit together to eat them. It is the soul and the beating heart of many homes.
There are basic guidance and principles to plan a kitchen, i.e. minimum distances, walkways, the “work triangle”, proportions, ergonomics, storage, electrics, safety…etc.
However, practicality often depends on the individual and how they use the space. Lighting preferences, cooking preferences and type of cuisine, appliances used, number of people cooking at the same time, storage required and unloading of groceries are but a few examples.
We all have different priorities, some may eat out most nights, and prefer their storage space to be allocated to showcasing their wine collection. Another, who may regularly whip up a storm for breakfast, lunch and supper, would rather have vast marble work tops for chopping and hot pans.
An Interior Designer who has technical architectural knowledge and experience, who also has a lucrative ‘black book’ of contractors, architects and suppliers, will have the ability and understanding to mould your kitchen to your specific movements, needs and preferences. Furthermore having a trusted Interior Designer that can create timeless, effortless design with integrated practicality and exceptional craftsmanship is rare, owned by few and desired by many.
The idea of practicality feeds into our general wellbeing. It is common for people to move home because their current residence is not fit for purpose. Perhaps a new addition to the family is on the way or the beginning of a new business venture means the home must double as a workspace. A home that cannot accommodate our day-to-day lives is often exchanged for another, however, due to the recent stamp duty reforms upsizing has become a difficult acquisition. It is now more than ever that we are turning to interior designers to maximise our use of space. Interior Design means adapting the home to your lifestyle. Interior Design is you taking control of the environment around you so that it works for you, whether that may be extending down, up or backwards, a successful floor plan is the foundation to a successful design.
The Office Example
It’s easy to dismiss how the impracticalities of one’s home can get in the way of our lives, but many of us are vaguely familiar with the extensive research that has been performed on a similar place in which we spend an overwhelming amount of our lives: the office. The age-old debate surrounding open-plan offices is one that feeds directly into workforce productivity and there’s little challenge to the idea of that environment impacting on our working lives.
Living in an impractical environment means we can’t always do what we want to do and as such we make tradeoffs. There are only so many tradeoffs we can make before we become unhappy. If your home isn’t making you happy, it’s time for change.
