Design Is Fun!

[egwa 1]

Hi ALL,

Designing your dream house is fun. But why make it sound so stressful? Why do defects happen?

I hope my post does not offend anyone who is still pursuing his or her ideal place. We do not mean harm and we sincerely offers our advance apologies if we upset anyone.

We can tell you our perspectives and i shall name IDs as DESIGNERS [cause we can all design, and YES we can] and contractors as BUILDERS [cause they simply build according to our visions]

Homeowners often approaches designers like us who has a lot of "rough" ideas and tend to express their own creativities. Or rather trying to speak to contractors who may appear to look like they know a lot but actually they do have limitation to your creative makings. Down the road, you would experience miscommunications and at times, the renovation works tend to go unsmooth and defects starts to surface. And by human nature, contractors and IDs are the ones who take the blames.

I hate to say the harsh truth. Homeowners should also admit their faults too.

Let’s decipher down to bits of knowing your professionals

A lot of posts tackle one common issue? Which IDs are good and which are not good? The truth is, everyone is GOOD. They are players with their own styles. And each has its own design flairs. i do not think it is fair to judge them based on their faults at work, and also those slight delays that incurred. Homeowners must understand that each clientele’s project is different and it’s never a “one size fit all” policy. Each houses designed and built has its own problems. Some problems may be due to budget allocations set by each homeowners, and/or the different configurations of a house; layouts. [Even though HDB flats all look the same to you. But in the eye of designers, they are not quite the same].

Homeowners should listen to professional players in the industry, cause they know a lot more than you do, which is why the whole idea of engaging designers. Always listen to the professionals. When they say your design can’t be feasible, so be it. Designers are always there to help you solve your mental blockages. Designers are there to have fun with you. No one in this industry should be judged by his or her own faults or miscommunications. Just picture this, everyone always have a bad day at his or her workplaces or homes. For IDs and contractors, it is perhaps one of the bad days that do not go smoothly. And the one comment from your forum posts could accumulate to them losing their confidences in the field.

You may also find that designers behave like salesman. Here’s the thing: you make us do that! And then we behave like one! [Lol] Home owners always approaches me and my design partners one common favor, “ show me your portfolio and your past projects, and also how much you offering for your services and we discuss if we want to engage u”

Professional designers will never reply to your questions like these. We will feel offended, seriously.

In my case, how do I react to the favor: “Show me your floor plan layout and then Let's have fun designing ” [And we then smile with joy J] and also that is how my design partners reacts too.

We draw ideas on first meetings. We stitched your ideas and trying to see if we can help to combine your interests. Of course if we are reliable enough, we propose our design intent and our inputs to your months of troubleshooting and also your months of researching tons of ID websites and design platforms. And if you don’t like our design, there are always others out there who can accommodate your requests.

A master architect once spoke: “Architects are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can turn down some clients, but we've both got to say yes to someone if we want to stay in business.”

And we admit we are your whores and I always told my partners and friends in the industry, “Designing an interior is like experiencing a fling with a random girl next door, it ended a short while and it is fun!”

Stop being so stressed and lets have fun together. No worries. Problems are always there but with common understandings, we can overcome.

When talking to builders, be confident that you know your own stuffs. Many of my clients approach me to say they have their own builders. That is good news for us but worrying at the same time. Can you both talk the same frequencies? Engage your own builders if you really know your stuffs, seriously. If you are not confident, leave it to designers to do the talking.

We would like to encourage homeowners to have fun! Cause to me, designing is fun! Don’t make things complicated, even though it is much to our human nature.

We will hopefully be back in the second part of this post... ...

Your sincerely,

EGWA