Affordability, Good Design and Throwaway Culture – Part Two
By: Anna Popov
Affordability, Good Design and Throwaway Culture – Part Two
By: Anna Popov
I have a simple notebook. It is beautifully made. The paper is thick and soft to touch. The binding is exquisitely crafted. I use it every day. I like the feel of the paper as my pen glides over it. It is valuable to me. I like it more than any other notebook I have ever had. I am not indifferent to how I use it and how it works for me and makes me feel. I don’t need a stockpile of random notebooks; I want this one. I will use it until it is full and then I will replace it. Treasured items can be incredibly simple in nature.
This basic idea forms the foundation of how we approach our work here at IBP. We are not here to just select pretty things for our clients, we want to have an impact on their day and way of life. It is the essence of our work and who we are as a design firm.
Keep this in mind as we go straight into Part Two of our blog about affordability of good design and a shift we have been observing in the design industry. If you want to refresh your memory, click here to read Part One and get up to date. We left off with the question of what has contributed to this shift and how we advise you charter the waters of a construction project with a desire to keep good design in mind without breaking the bank.
In construction projects of all sizes from small updates to full-scale new construction, we are seeing astronomical increases in costs that from the outset, can make a project not even get off the ground. Covid brought challenges in the supply chain and labor shortages that drove costs up in all areas. We value the idea of good design as a method of improving your life, so our goal is to help our clients to ensure that if you are going to spend this money, every dollar should make sense. The pandemic shone a light on this in a very real way. Being home and using our homes in a new way, we were forced to concentrate on what is important to have around us and evaluate how our physical environment can make us feel. More of us began to realize and appreciate good design as we were forced to slow down and develop a deeper opinion of our spaces. This created a huge increase in demand for products and services that improve comfort and quality of life.
Comfort Meets Formal Living – Interiors by Popov
If you are going to renovate your home, you are going to spend money – that is a fact! You will spend it with or without a designer on board so how do you make that investment worthwhile. We consider it a huge part of our job to help you spend that money wisely. Your home is your place to rest and be your true self and this is impossible to maintain during a remodel. Simple decisions like what the grout color should be, what the profile of the baseboards should be, what paint sheen you should choose, these details are the things that make a difference and let’s face it, if you are busy, have a life and a job and a family, you need the support of a designer to act on your behalf and maintain the quality and design intent that was set at the very beginning. Imagine trying to balance all this during construction! That is the job of the designer, your back-up and support system to be there for the hundreds and thousands of decisions that get made so that at the end of the day, can fit into one cohesive puzzle.
This takes me back to my first point about the notebook above. Small things can make you feel good. Any item that is superbly made, like a cashmere throw as compared to a printed polyester one for example, given the choice, no one will reach for the polyester one when they are cold, so if you are going to buy the $500 cashmere one, then that decision should be considered. And when all is said and done and the family gathers around the kitchen table on a Saturday morning, it should be their favorite place to be because each decision along the way lead to the perfect place. Not just the jaw-dropping homes we see in a glossy magazine, but the homes we live in every day and adore. Feeling the emotional response of gratitude for the choices made along the way to the end result is the essence of the shift we are seeing and will have a profound effect on your life, let us help you.
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