Design Items
DESIGN ITEMS
There are many aspects that require design which I am listing here. These are
the places where the interior designer can help you the most, especially with
getting certain points about functionality and aesthetics right. It is difficult
to do this right the first time around as a layman. For example, I designed the
furniture at our flat and I got it right for the rest of the bedrooms after
having messed up a little bit with the first bedroom :).
- Tiles: The tile layout for flooring and the bathrooms has to
be given to the mason. A good tile layout can save some tile wastage, but
more importantly, it will look good if done well. For example, you want whole
tiles in more visible areas and pieces can be cut in less-used areas. It
will also help you to decide how many tiles to order, along with additional tiles
to account for breakages during transport and laying. If you have a staircase,
especially a winding one like ours, tile layout there can be tricky. We had
ordered a special artificial marble sheet for it from which the step tiles
had to be cut so that required some fitting and adjusting. See a sample floor tile
layout here
and a sample bathroom tile layout
here.
- Bathroom piping:
It is very important to get the piping right. Bathroom
accessories are installed at the end and they cannot be installed where there
are pipes to avoid leakages. So the piping locations should be minimized or at
least optimized to account for future installation of bathroom accessories.
If you have small-size tiles, the fittings should be installed at tile edges
to look nicer (but not at the cost of changing location such that it affects
usage as done by our designer!). Also it is good to take photos of the plumbing
pipes before the tiles are laid over it to keep for future maintenance. I do not
have a sample bathroom plumbing design as our designer did not give our final
plumbing drawings to us.
- Electrical:
Electrical design is intricately tied to lighting and furniture location. And
it just cannot be changed later on! So its best to freeze your furniture locations
very early on and decide accordingly what lighting you want. Otherwise you have to
make exposed wiring or redo the whole piping/plastering which can cause a lot of mess
later on. Keep the electrical design simple - minimize switch boards, and allow access
to all switches on the main switch board near a room door so you can switch off
everything in one go while leaving the room. See a sample electrical design
here.
- False Ceiling:
False ceilings are becoming increasingly common in new houses to account for dual
lighting and aesthetics. This is less critical than some of the other design items
but again one where experience is required. It goes hand-in-hand with the electrical
design to decide mood lighting, brightness in a room, general appearance, etc. See
a sample false ceiling layout
here.
- Furniture layout and details:
Two aspects to furniture layout - 1. Layout and dimensions, and 2. Actual details
of each piece. This is easier to design and will be dictated by you in any case. I did most
of this designing myself for our flat. I think you can do a better job here than a designer
because you know your exact requirements and can adjust the design accordingly.
You can get a lot of good design ideas online (Houzz,
Google image search), and standard dimensions can be gotten from online
furniture shops (Urban Ladder,
Ikea). See a sample furniture layout
here.
- Kitchen:
See the detailed kitchen page where I give a lot of details
for the kitchen design. Here again, I think you can do a reasonable job on your own.
Even steel-trolley vendors such as Ebco and EverShine, can also give you a reasonable
design if you are specific about your requirements. External kitchen agencies will do an
even better job with detailed CAD/CM designs and 3D mock ups. And there is
really only so much you can do with a kitchen design, especially with the small kitchens
in most flats nowadays. See a sample kitchen design
here.
- Miscellaneous:
There will be miscellaneous design items. For example, we had a swing in the hall so
deciding its exact location and installing the brackets in the false ceiling accordingly.
Similarly, I got niches made in my staircase walls. Small things like this can even be
suggested by a good designer and she will facilitate the process, and decide which things
are really feasible and which should be let go as wild fantasies ;).I am sure there are a
few things here that I am missing since I am only focusing on the things that we got
done in our flat.