Monday again. The weeks seem to fly by. It’s quite scary how fast it goes and it’s Friday again. Another week gone and another target to have reached. This week I really need to get lighting under my belt in order to concentrate on the next big task, which is bespoke items. Along with lighting, this week I also need to get the wall-to-wall carpet for the two second floor rooms organised and the bespoke items that the builders are making.
There are 69 different lighting items to choose, of which there are sometimes more than one. The biggest pressure I feel on this is the immense cost this will be for my client. There is a need to balance: getting her what I think would be beautiful and efficient for that spot while keeping an eye on cost. There are many times when I present a section where I think “Oh God, she is going to blow” on the price tag, but then she accepts it really easily. There are good and bad things when working without a fixed budget. It is definitely easier to find items, but you’re also never quite sure when something will be too much.
Back to my 69 lighting items I have to find. In the first phase of the design process, I chose a lot of lighting. But now, after my session with Rebecca Weir from light.iq, I definitely think I should make some changes. The client also isn’t a 100% convinced about the lights that I had chosen at that point. There is definitely pressure on to find good fittings that will complement the design, and the fact this is a colourful house, means it needs extra good lighting.
Two little fires occurred today. One is in Room 16 – the shower mixer doesn’t fit in the wall. I hadn’t planned for the wall being so thin, so the wall needs to be thickened out 50mm where the bath is. It is not a huge problem, but it is one I hadn’t foreseen, which irks me. The other is that when choosing the fabrics last week, I made three changes to the fabric for one of the sofa beds. With all these changes and when making the last decision, I forgot to recalculate how much fabric is needed as it was patterned and not plain (always different). I ordered 20 different fabrics and made many changes; for all the curtains I had kept recalculating. I don’t know why I completely forgot this one. They will see if they need more now and let me know. On a better note, the cameras I had left on site have started filming and I will start having a visual record of how things are evolving, which is very exciting!