The Experts you need when making your home - My recent article in Deccan Herald

The article below was published in Deccan Herald last Friday. The free text is pasted below. Happy reading

Cheers
Nandita

The role of an Interior Designer & tips to get the best out of your Interior designer for your home design project.

If you have a house getting ready for possession in the next one year or are looking to do major remodeling in your current home you are sure to have spent ample hours already Googling for an Interior Designer.

A quick Google search for “Interior Designer in Bangalore” yields 3.39 million search results (in 0.47 seconds). This is not surprising because everyone from an Architect, Civil Engineer, Carpenter to a Plumber nowadays informally calls him/herself an Interior designer and sometimes vice-versa, so let’s first start with what is the role of an Interior Designer and how is it different from that an Architect and a Civil Engineer.

The Architect: He is the one responsible to plan the overall internal layout & exterior elevation of the building. This is based on the (1) law of the land - the offsets, Floor area ratio etc. demanded by the authorities (read BBMP, BDA etc.) (2) The needs of the owner such as the room sizes, direction, external elevation etc. and (3) the physical, and design constraints such as the slope of the land, the bathrooms being next to the plumbing lines, the columns need to be straight etc. etc. The Architect is also qualified and expected to do a sanity check on what s/he has designed can be constructed and will be livable.

As an analogy - if one were to be making a human being -  the Architect’s role would be to define that the head will be on the top, hands on the side and the feet at the bottom with a body in the middle  so that the human can function in the best way possible

The Civil Engineer: He is the person who will take the Architect’s designs and construct the building based on hardcore principles of engineering such as the load on the walls, the thickness of the columns & beams to take the load, the type and amount of material to be used etc. Your Architect and the Engineer hence need to be in constant touch to ensure what has been designed 1. Can be constructed, 2. Is being constructed and 3. Any construction constraints that come in are discussed and changes factored into the Architect’s plans based on your agreement

In our human analogy the Civil Engineer will be fitting out the different organs within the body and determining the material that each part will be made of

The Interior Designer: Now that your home is constructed and ready comes in the interior designer. S/he will take the space available and make it livable in line with the needs, lifestyle and the outlook of the owner and the “feel” that one would like to give to the space. This would include the space planning , colour schemes, lighting, furniture, furnishings, woodwork including build versus buy decisions for the furniture etc.

Again – in the human analogy the Interior designer will determine how the person will look, talk and behave….and that better be good

In a continuum extending from Science on the left to Art on the right, the Civil Engineer will mostly stand on the Science side, the Architect in the middle and the Interior Designer on the right. That however does not necessarily mean that anyone with a good sense of art can do an interior designers job since there are technical aspects within interior design that one needs to know and be good at… more on that later.

The Value of Interior Design and why you may need an Interior Designer

A well designed home is EXACTLY like a well designed car – you just know that’s its well done when you drive/ walk into one, you may not be able to pin point specifically what the difference is but while the car feels great when you drive it, the home just feels "nice" when you enter. I remember this interesting episode of a home owner  who commented “you know whenever the neighbors come in they say that my home somehow feels different and more balanced” – in that project the interior designer had changed the position of the fans in the drawing room to go with the symmetry of the overall interiors of the room. And it does not stop there - things like deciding whether the shutter flap will be a pull up or a pull down, the drawers will be to the right of the kitchen hob, the left or right under based on whether the user is left handed or right, the material to be used in case the home is self managed or maid run are key things that the Interior Designer will plan for while designing.

Colours & Lighting add an interesting dimension to interior design and is perhaps the most under-rated & under thought design element and one that Interior Designers spend considerable time and effort on. An extremely well designed home can look ordinary if the colour selection & lighting is not done properly and a fairly simple home can look extraordinary with the right colour selection & lighting.

In addition to the above when designing the furniture the Interior Designer would incorporate the limitations of both the material, hardware and the workman to get the desired output. While the limitations of the workman can be managed with over-communication or by getting someone better, it is extremely important to know the material & hardware that will bring the designs to life. With the huge Hardware range that’s available in the market today & the Hettich & Hafele Hardware Manuals running into some 1560 pages, this is one area of technical expertise that the Interior designer has to be conversant with to do a good job … remember, our science versus art discussion earlier.

Due to the above reasons having an Interior designer by your side is helpful especially when doing “Home” Interiors because a Home needs not just to look good but also be built specific to a lifestyle & need and has to be live-able for years to come.

Finding the right interior designer:

This one is never easy. Even with the most thorough search, going through profiles and past projects etc. I have seen client - designer relationship go bad & the project bearing the brunt of it. Finding the right designer is much like an arranged marriage, beyond how the person appeals to you in the first meeting and the matching of the wavelengths there is not much that can be determined which will have real bearing on the success rate. The only other thing you may want to check while looking for a designer is whether he has been around for some time and has some grounded experience, whether he will be personally available to you and be directly involved in your specific project and whether he can get the job done within your time and budget constraints.

Getting the best out of your Interior Designer:

While every client, project and designer is different there are some core do’s and don’ts to ensure a healthy relationship so that the project gets the best treatment from all concerned.

1. Have the detailed scope, payment terms and overall timeline clearly defined and stick to these as the project proceeds
2. Once you have provided your inputs and documented the scope & budgets trust your designer to deliver and do a good job. The Type X Management style may work with the local carpenter but with the designer it’s got to be Type Y
3. Don’t visit the project site every day and unannounced. … Imagine how you would feel if your manager peeps into your desk 3 times a day and the kind of respect such a manager will command. Set up work inspection days in advance with mutual agreement of your designer. This will create a general atmosphere of positive management.
4. Avoid mid work design changes. Think through all your needs and discuss these with your designer before finalizing the designs. Last minute and on the fly changes are always messy. Sometimes these lead to scope creeps resulting in time and budget creep and heart burn. At the same time if there are key changes that HAVE TO be incorporated then ensure that these are discussed and any accompanying budget and timeline changes are agreed and documented
5. Due to the unorganized and unprofessional nature of the labour market in India your designer may not be able to give you a project plan with weekly timelines. However you should expect that the general pace of work is nippy and there is visibility of the work being completed in time. If not then raise this during your scheduled site visits.

The above should mostly see you through, warm and happy, in a fully furnished home built without any mishaps and within your budget and timelines

Happy Home making

Nandita Manwani is a designer & founder of The Studio, Bengalooru.

Preserving our natural resources through art

As we have been sharing through our social media, 911 Home Design & Construction, LLC is currently exhibiting handmade artwork for sale at our showroom at the Mesa Market Place Swap Meet. The purpose of this new line of products is to take advantage of the materials that we already have and transform them into a piece of artwork that can easily become part of anyone's home. The rustic style also serves this purpose, since we're currently thinking of ways to make every single one of these works as unique as possible. 

By creating this type of artwork, we are actually preserving our natural resources and environment through art, and the best part of it is that it is extremely simple and fun to make. As I previously mentioned, working with natural resources obligates you to be original with every single piece, since you cannot control the shapes of your materials. However, this is also an excellent way to open your mind and imagination, since as artists, we also need to think of the composition and how the irregularity of the wood sticks and the rocks can work together towards the same goal (or project). 

Don't forget to come and check these out this weekend at the Mesa Market Place Swap Meet. Let's share, learn and create according to what Mother Nature provides us every single day of our lives!

"Atomic Ranch: Midcentury Interiors" by Michelle Gringeri-Brown and Jim Brown

Today’s discussion is around Michelle Gringeri-Brown’s book “Atomic Ranch: Midcentury Interiors”, and I have to say that I found this last one truly fascinating, since although I am not a fan of the midcentury design itself, I must admit that its elegance is doubtlessly present throughout every space along the same lines. 


The photographs in this edition were taken by Jim Brown, who also shared several of his ideas throughout the different ranch houses presented in the book. An ideology of his that I still cannot find the words to express how true it is, it’s when Brown states that interior design is quite a personal subject, and that although it is built through history and the basic elements of any artistic composition, people are still capable to greatly vary among similar styles (Brown 9). I believe that this is particularly found in a style such as this one, while taking into consideration that midcentury design is a term involving many aspects of what can be considered contemporary and modern. 

The horizontal feel is constant in these residences, and if we look closely at the common details of these houses, we can admire a tremendous emphasis for natural resources utilized in the diverse designs. Although a style such as prairie could also provide us with this combination of metal, glass and wood, the midcentury style is definitely motivating the owners to live in a wood box, instead of the typical glass box that we see in more modern environments. Yes, wood and brick seem to be essential parts of this category of design, but the question here is if this is remotely crucial for its organization. To answer this, it is kind of curious that we must move forward in the book and, really, in time, to start identifying a different subsection of what it was once known as midcentury.

Brick vs. wood, tile vs. carpet, one-story vs. two-story…It is really all up to you.Let’s submerge ourselves into these “atomic” ranches, and purchase the newest edition of Michelle Gringeri-Brown’s book “Atomic Ranch: Midcentury Interiors”.

Erin Gates' "Elements of Style" - Review

For this new entry, I have decided to talk about an actual interior designer that I truly admire; she is also a blogger and author of the book “Elements of Style: Designing a Home & a Life”—which I have selected for today’s discussion—and this is Erin Gates! Erin’s blog “Elements of Style” has been around since 2007, and she has been providing outstanding advices for the world of design since then.

In her book, she separates each chapter by different sections of a typical home: The Entry, The Living Room, The Kitchen, The Dining Room, The Family Room, The Bedroom, The Bathroom, The Nursery, The Office, The Closet, The Sunroom & Outdoor Spaces. Now, you might think the same thing that I thought when my friend gave me this book last Christmas: “Oh, another Interior Design book of someone whose greatest aspiration is to become the next Frank Lloyd Wright of our civilization.” Well, this is not the case.

Erin Gates provides different aspects of her personal and professional life as a designer to literally build even the least significant detail of her diverse interior and exterior spaces with love and passion. She opens our eyes into the various styles that we can choose from when talking about every area of our homes, and personally, the one that caught my attention the most was the entry. Who would have thought that a space that is commonly seen, as she mentions, as “…a place to hang out a coat and toss a stack of mail.” (Gates 9), can get to be this relevant into someone’s life? 

With her chapter “The Entry”, Gates introduces us to what our actual entries are saying about the rest of our home. Because of her ideas, now I am actually able to see my home as a book, and the entry as its introduction. When an introduction of the book is just this endless piece of tedious and monotonous text, I just tend to leave it aside and wait until I finish other more interesting works than that one. This also applies for our house entry; if this last one is uniquely decorated by our keys and mail, the expectations of our guests become instantly lowered in drastic ways. This is when Erin Gates makes us wonder and think what the entry of our house is saying about the rest of our taste for our interior and exterior surroundings.

Furthermore, I personally loved the great diversity of styles that Gates provided us. She gives us the modern style along with its geometrical lines, the finished wood and its gleaming accents, but at the same time she also gives us a more country-like option, with the new country feel that simple characteristics such as a stripped rug and the utilization of leather wrapping can constitute it. If I can give my opinion on this one, I would say that the ideas around the glamorous style seemed to be the most appealing to me, since I consider myself totally classic, but my love for color also keeps pushing me towards a more contemporary interior style. Hence, this feminine and classical elegance is definitely what I would be looking for when decorating my first stable apartment or home.

If you guys are dying to know more about this stylish interior designer and blogger, or if you just need inspiration for your own home, I highly recommend Erin Gates’ book, “Elements of Style: Designing a Home & a Life”. Let her guide you with her own process of building that nest that everyone needs eventually. Gates is the perfect example of an open mind for visuals, and I know everyone can adopt at least one of her concepts for their own lives.