How Interior Design Can Help Your Clients Reinvent Their Lives
Think about the many reasons why you or someone else may move. A marriage. A divorce. A new job. A growing family. An empty nest. All of these life milestones can mean a new home, but they can also mean a new chapter in life, a place to reevaluate who you are.
As an interior designer, you have a unique opportunity to help your clients assimilate two corresponding life events. Take a look at some of the ways that helping someone redesign the perfect house or apartment can also help the redesign the life they want to be living.
Starting over
Plenty of milestones in life require a kind of starting over. When you get married, you create a new, combined life with someone else. When you get divorced, you have to create a new, separate life that isn’t quite the same as the life you had before marriage. And of course, when you move to a new city, such as for a new job, it requires a bit of soul searching to discover how you fit into this new place.
Although starting over can be daunting or even scary, it’s also an opportunity for creation. We often associate our space with ourselves, and it’s not a one-way road. Most of us want to design our spaces to reflect who we are. But over time, a space can also shape our mood and personality, especially if it’s not a right fit.
Think about a room you’ve been in that was dark and cluttered. A room like that can make you feel anxious or make it difficult to concentrate or unwind. In contrast, a room that’s organized, bright, and has ample lighting can light up your mood and ignite focus and creativity.
Helping your client find the right angle
In some cases, the new space is not quite what your client would have wanted, or it’s just a big change from their previous home and their previous life. This can be a wonderful challenge for an interior designer to bring joy to the new space. Here are some ideas for coping with specific issues with a client’s new home.
Less space than they’re used to
One of the best ways to deal with moving from a larger space to a smaller space is to find plenty of storage solutions. It’s especially helpful if the storage solutions can pull double-duty as other furniture. Anything with drawers or hollow interiors works for storing away the extra items you bring from a larger home.
Of course, when it comes to furniture, you may not have the option of fitting into the new space. That can be difficult, especially if it means your client has to get rid of beloved pieces. One way to cope with the transition is to help them design custom furniture pieces that evoke a similar look or feeling to the old piece. Or, if they need to move on from the feelings they associate with their previous home, you can help them to create a piece of furniture with an entirely new feel.
That’s part of what we do at Louis Interiors, is bring the client’s unique personality and needs into each piece of designer furniture.
They need to buy a lot of new furniture
Even if the space is not smaller, your client may have a reason to need several new furniture pieces. This could be because they had to split their previous possessions with an ex-spouse, or it may be because they are welcoming a new family member. Needing several new pieces at once is its own source of anxiety.
That’s where you can save the day by pulling together a look that allows them to make the decision making process easier when it comes to selecting multiple pieces of furniture. Custom furniture can make the choice even simpler, as they can get several items in the same style that they may not find as a set in a pre-made furniture showroom.
They don’t know who they are anymore
Some milestones can leave us feeling stranded, such as when the children all leave home or when moving to a new city. In this case, a combination of two tactics is probably best. First, help the client to create some kind of space where they can be alone to tackle the job of finding their own interests. Since they may not know exactly what that is, this space should be somewhat open and not filled with too many items.
The second thing to do is create a wonderful entertainment area where they can invite friends. Even if they feel like they have no one to invite, they will be happier for a room full of quality furniture that gives them a place to invite new people as they become more comfortable in their new stage of life.
Let us help you reinvent your clients. Check out our catalogue of designer furniture from Toronto that you can use as a starting point for your own designs.