You know that phrase "the devil is in the details"? For our interior designers, those words are a mantra that get repeated again, again...and again.
From triple-measuring for window treatments and taping out a rug placement on the floor to drawing everything to scale and double-checking appliance sizes and door swings, pretty much every moment of a designer's life is consumed with making sure every little i is dotted and every little t is crossed.
"It sounds easy but actually confirming the most trivial minutae of a design project is absolutely critical to the success of the project," says Trudy Stump, our head of Huff Harrington Design. "Window treatments that hang an inch too long, not enough wallpaper ordered for an installation, a rug that is too small for the space...these are all avoidable mistakes that will end up costing the project (and client) if they're not perfectly calculated the very first time."
we hung this gallery wall for Home for Holidays in 2021.
Even with today's interior design software options (which definitely make it easier to measure and create floor plans and place furniture virtually before it's sourced, specified and ordered), nothing beats hands-on detail checking. Trouble-shooting potential mistakes remains an old-fashioned, analog process.
"We're big believers in painters' tape," says HHD's Emma Caroline Lee. "We'll use it to map out furniture placement in a room to ensure the scale and proportion are correct." Obviously, a designer's first weapon of defense is a long and strong tape measure. "No wimpy tape measures, please," adds Trudy. "We use the strongest and longest we can find."
The details don't stop with the behind-the-scenes planning, which is now usually technology-based. "When we're designing a project, we're thinking about all the details that will go into the project - and those can range from spec-ing the client's favorite coffee maker in the kitchen and ordering a certain soft, fluffy throw to grace the upholstery to carefully choosing cabinet hardware for the kitchen cabinets," she says.
"We might select two different complementary tiles for a bathroom and specify a specific pattern they should be laid in. We might want to see a graceful notch in a marble backsplash. Flooring, moulding, door styles, window styles - the designer's list goes on and on."
A concise mood board to work from is also frequently non-negotiable. "The mood board is the most important tool we have," says Trudy. "We create them after conversations with our clients and they become our visual bible throughout the process."
And don't even mention calculating and anticipating scale and proportion in a room. "Getting the proportion correct is one of the hardest aspects of interior design," says Trudy. We cross-check measurements against room dimensions about one hundred times - and then another fifty before anything is specified and ordered."
Huff Harrington Paris excuted a floor plan and furniture placement with perfect scale in this Seventh Arrondisement apartment.
We LOVE the details and can't get enough of them because we know that perfectly executed details are what make a project a success - and your space a place you're proud of and excited to spend time in.
Give us a shout right here if you've got some design details that need ironing out!
