"When & Why" to engage an Interior Architect

Hello again! It's been a while since I posted anything as I have been really busy lately (thankfully of course), but I am back to give some observations which have been troubling me.

It seems to me that generally individuals who are building houses want to have more say in the finished product of their home and this is why I would put forward that there has been an increase in the amount of direct labour house building occuring in Ireland as opposed to main contractor appointments. In my opinion there are advantages and disadvantages to both scenarios.

In the first instance on the direct labour side of the fence, the individual feels they have achieved something almost primal in building a home for the family and saving themselves money to boot. The costs can be enormous on your mental health if you are not familiar with the construction industry and managing or co-ordinating alot of trades especially if you are working at the same time is almost impossible as you need to be there to supervise what is happening and sign off on the work being done. I am not saying that building a home is a black art, not at all everything can be learned all be it the hard way in alot of cases...

My point is, if you are relatively inexperienced in construction then it can be a mine field unless you know exactly what you are building. You will need to know in advance how you want each room completely finished and this needs to be decided before you turn a sod..."Impossible" I hear you say...no it is not, there is no earthly reason why you cannot select and design the interior details for your entire house before you begin the build...Imagine deciding what your needs were and building your house around it, its a no brainer really...There-in lies the problem for most clients, they actually dont know what they want or more likely they dont know what their wife/partner/children want...

When you engage a main contractor to build your home, again he/she will need to know exactly what you want to build and the finish level required, how else are they going to acurately tender for the build. I feel the main gap in client understanding is not realising that most contractors are pricing for a builders finish with standard services design/location and a few PC sums thrown in to cover fireplaces/kitchen/sanitary ware which are usually painfully inadequate, which keeps the pricing low to get the project...Beware of unusually low tenders....You see the home owners needs and tastes have become much more sophisticated, through the medium of tv and glossy design magazines nearly everyones idea of home has morphed into a spa like hotel style, luxury imagining of some sort...

I have found that both selfbuilders and contract clients alike think that there is such a thing as "ELASTIC PRICING" This is the term I use when the client assumes there is some grey area for changes in the price they get for whats indicated on the tender drawings...this is especially critical to keep in mind when examining tenders, clients often assume that they will get the finish that is in their head from the price on the page...Guess what? there is no such thing as "ELASTIC PRICING" the builders contingency sum covers his omissions/mistakes NOT YOURS!!! Here-in lies the priciple of "EXTRAS" which all trades/contractors love...when you make a change outside your original drawings you must pay for the change...EVERYTIME!!!

This phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that the trades/contractor is usually pricing off a set of planning drawings (with limited finishing detail and little or no interior/architectural specifications) unless you have engaged an Architect to produce construction drawings/specifications of course, which I might add usually contain very sketchy standard services layouts, furniture layouts which have no client input with often miss scaled furniture/generic kitchens & bathrooms/storage which are less than adequate for a families needs and little or no detail on the design features you may have in your head...usually because you haven't thought of them yet....

Here is the "GOLDEN RULE" if its not on a drawing or in a specification document it is not included in the price....

This is why I am writting this blog I am frustrated at the shear volume of people I talk to who do not realise that there are design professionals like myself available to help you in this area. You are spending alot of money on something you will hopefully live in for along time, dont you think a little extra planning might help you to develop the space you can really live in, instead of adjusting to a space which you feel is inadequate for you or your families needs.

I recently met up with some previous clients of mine with whom I worked for 4 months prior to tendering their project. In that 4 months together, we put down on paper all the things they wanted from their home into a set of technical drawings, room by room. They knew exactly what each space would look like, most importantly that the furniture they required would fit and that their family would be able to get the best from their new home. As with most of my clients, in the begining of course they did not have a clear idea of what they wanted and (not wanting to be sexist, just stating the facts as I have encountered them) often the male comes with the planning drawings in hand and the female comes with a million magazine clippings of all the wonderful spaces their new home will provide for them...

You will forgive this gender typecasting as there is science behind it, the function of 3D visualisation is highly likely in the male brain and less likely in the female brain, so in many instances the husband can read the plan easily and see the space in 3D or have a good idea of what it will look like but the wife may not be able to read the plan in this way, and will have no idea what that space looks like or the volume of it. Therefore the couple end up speaking two completely different lanuages and understand the space in very different ways and their expectations of the spaces are usually very different....

Really in many instances it is only when the house frame is up, that the couple slowly realise that the fabulous kitchen in the picture does not fit into the room they have built for it (and it always makes me sad to see the long faces when the couple realise they have made a boo boo) or that they cannot have the island in their heads. At this stage it can be too late, the space exists and to make changes without drawing extra costs upon yourself is impossible and here-in lies the secret of engaging an Interior Architect.

What if there was someone who could speak both languages and extract what was in the wife/husbands head and make sure your drawings contained the correct information/room sizes before you went for planning and before you had signed any binding contracts which may prevent you from making changes to YOUR new home during the build. It is too late to make changes when you are on site, changes are cheap on paper and with the correct detailed drawings, exact costs can be acheived for the finish you require before you start and at least have the design and services sorted so provisions can be made to install at a later date if you cannot afford to finish it all at once....

I cannot stress enough that the time costs you incur with an Interior Architect (which is usually a very small percentage of your build cost or flat a Sq Ft rate) will produce detailed drawings on every feature and service you require in your new home and most importantly clear away any doubt during the build. You could price for a set of drawing only or take a package which gives you site supervision and a professional to liaise with your main finishes suppliers/contractor on the critical areas such as services/bathrooms/kitchens/tiling/architectural elements etc.

I had one client who came to me very late in her project and it was because she had finished two bathrooms and then did'nt like them, unfortunately she had also spent €12,000 on tiles which she did not like when they arrived on site, the suppliers would not give her the money back but exchanged the tiles for timber flooring which she was now again not sure about....It was the fear of costing herself another €12,000 that brought her to me, you know the sad part about it is, this particular client admitted that she had been given my card by the tile suppliers before she started building and did'nt see the value in my service...she does now!

The above client opted for a late design package and supervision....

The couple I mentioned earlier in the blog opted for an early design package only and were delighted they did because they feel they are having a "stress free build" and in their words "because we know where everything was going, what it looks like and that it will fit" this couple were pregnant when we were planning their home and the new arrival is nearly a year old now but mommy was delighted not to be stressed as she was managing two other siblings "we dont get any urgent phone calls from site as everyone knows what needs to be done and I know I made all my informed decisions early"

Getting back to the core reason for this blog entry, so WHEN do you need to speak to an interior Architect. Ideally during the design process before the planning application is submitted, in this case you have more freedom to tweak window/door positions and room sizes without having the planning authorities after you.

If you already have planning permission, changes to the exterior are a no, no but you can still achieve so much internally with the right help and you will still want the services and room designs clarified...

For further information contact details for Geraldine O' Brien are available on her website: www.designsense.ie