Our Design Process

Our Design Process

When you partner with Maxwell Interior Designers, you’ll immediately find how passionate we are about helping you meeting your needs and vision. Together we’ll develop desirable living environments that exceed your expectations.

Our Design Process is the execution of three distinct, critical steps to bring your design project to completion; Discover, Design, and Install. We discover your personality, design aesthetic, family and entertainment needs, your wants and desires, then we custom design every aspect of your project and install each element.

Discover

Discovery is all about learning about you so we can create a space that is a reflection of your own unique style. It’s okay not to know what exactly you want or how to verbalize it – it is our job to bring your dream to reality. You’ll meet our team as we all work together to uncover a vision that will be meet your needs and excite your senses. For our team, discovering what makes you tick is extremely exciting to us. At the same time, we’re conscious and respectful of your personal space and your desire for privacy, making sure that while we help, we never intrude.

Design

After researching and discovering your individual needs, we hit our drawing boards and develop ideas and solutions that encompass all of your needs, wants and desires. Maxwell Interior Designer team creates a Concept Drawing that captures the essence of your new space, walking you through and helping you understand and modify the flow of the furniture arrangement. Creative ceiling details and flooring materials will delineate your space where walls are absent. Your space will glow with perfect illumination; highlighting art and accessories, while washing windows framed with texture. As the design develops, creative solutions are found, details discovered, and possibilities are unveiled!

 Introductory Conversation

First of all we develop a clear direction and scope for your project. We’ll meet to get to know you, your house/office, your needs, and your vision. We’ll ask questions. You’ll ask questions. Of course you will also have questions. We will thoroughly explain the remaining steps. We’ll discuss costs and timelines. With the information gathered thus far, we are now equipped to advise on the scope and budget of your unique project. When we complete this step, you will know what it will take to interpret your vision to fit your context and limitations.

Home Consultation

In this step, the designer visits your home to gather more detailed information. We take measurements of your space noting electrical outlets, registers, bulkheads, hearths, mantles, door swings, and so on. We walk a grid of your space while taking photos from every angle.

We determine the ‘non-negotiables’ and better understand the context – the architectural style and detail of the house, the flow of the space, the natural light, the interior style in other parts of the house. We’ll note the pieces you already have – forgotten, perhaps – that can be re-finished or re-purposed.

Of course the conversation will continue. Our questions will be more specific. You’ll help us to learn more about how you live and what is important to you. The photos, measurements, and information we gather in the Home Consultation prepare us for next step.

Plan View

In this step, the designer creates a scaled plan-view of your space – a drawing of your room as if looking down from above. We focus first on the practical considerations like size, proportion, and function. We determine the optimal objects for and layout of the room.

We’ll meet again to review these preliminary plans. It is important to understand that the Plan View is a proposal. At this stage, we can easily experiment with furniture placement just by moving the pieces around.

This exercise ensures that we design a space that truly supports how you live – a dining room that is cozy for four and welcoming for the whole gang, or a living room where you can sit comfortably with a book while the kids stretch out on the sofa for a movie. It is the designer’s job to suggest alternative ways to achieve an aesthetic objective within the limitations of a project, whether it be space, timeline, or budget. Good design is as much calculation as inspiration. Understanding what won’t work is as important as knowing what will.

Design Presentation

In this step we develop a cohesive palette of colours, materials, textures, build and finish details. We choose paint and stain colours, fabrics, rugs, and lamps. We source or custom design furniture that suits both the context of your space and the look you want to create – turned or tapered table legs? Smooth or hand-planed wood? Crisp white, or multi-layered antiqued painted finish? Iron, ceramic, wood, or glass lamps? Knowing now how the space will be used and by whom, we can choose wisely to suit your needs – perhaps a heavier rug to stay in place when the dog won’t, or sofa fabric milled to withstand spilled milk and wayward markers.

 Final Presentation

The Final Presentation is your plan – the result of the effort and hard work that began when you first told us about the room or home that you’d been dreaming about. This is your definitive guide to realizing that dream. Every item in your Final Presentation will be cross-referenced to a detailed description: the size, the wood or fabric, the finish, the knobs, the quantity, and the cost. Where necessary we will provide samples of the wood and the finish, fabric samples for upholstery and drapes, paint samples, and photographs.

We’ll discuss timeline, payment, installation details, and every particular to prepare us for the next step, Delivery & Setup. You may live far away, and everything may have to be shipped. Will you arrange the painter or will we? Will the quote for painting include the paint? Such details must be expected and not overlooked. We do not want any surprises! Whether you build out your Final Presentation piece by piece over time, or have us deliver and setup the entire room at once, you are guaranteed to be thrilled with the outcome.

Delivery & Setup

This is our final step, and certainly the most exciting! While you were waiting for the big day, we were planning, ordering and confirming, measuring, sewing, building, and finishing the various pieces designed just for you. With your Final Presentation in hand you will be equipped to verify that every item delivered is exactly as ordered – no surprises! We have witnessed many faces gradually change from a somewhat anxious concern, to a smile, to a big grin. As your room comes together, you’ll see that our diligence up until this step has really paid off – your room looks and feels even better than you had imagined.

 

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