Interior Design has a glamorous ring to it. Even though I do this for a living (and know what’s involved), if you ask me to imagine an interior designer, the image that springs to mind is someone in lovely clothes gesturing at a wall with a perfectly manicured hand and making an imperious statement about Teal.
So, how does the reality stack up? Certainly, there’s a lot of looking at lovely things and making homes beautiful – but some of the most interesting aspects of the job involve solving problems that are distinctly un-glamorous (condensation, anyone?). Here’s the APM run down.
Not Glamorous
Unheated houses. An important part of our job involves letting deliveries and specialists into empty houses… and while we try to get as much done as possible while builders are on site, from time to time a member of team APM will join the morning meeting huddling in a corner of an empty house. This happened a during those phases of the pandemic when we couldn’t hang out in a nearby cafe. A personal non-glam moment was turning off my camera during a BIID committee meeting so I could do a few star jumps to warm up.
Snagging. If you want to create a really glamorous home, an imperious sweep of the hand here and there won’t cut it. Between choosing the colour scheme and the finished result there is an awful lot of attention to detail (bordering on nit-picking) and persistence. This is particularly the case when it comes to snagging – doggedly following up with contractors and specialists to work through a list of details to improve.
Safety equipment. We’re very much pro-safety, but for all that we have tried, it’s really very hard to argue that a hard hat is glamorous – especially when you’ve just put one on and tipped a whole load of site dust over yourself… Generally, being glam & site appropriate is a challenge. Washable utilitarian chic (think boiler suits or mid-length dresses with leggings with flat shoes) works. That lovely wafty dress and new sandals? Not ideal for scaling scaffolding.
Dust; Renovation is very dusty work, and we end up with a lot of dust on our clothes. We recently spent a morning holding tender meetings at a flat where the ceiling had been stripped out, and part of my kit for the morning included a picnic blanket so Zoe & I could create a little dust free island to sit on between meetings. I promptly put all my belongings down outside the island and still ended up covered in dust.
Pest Control; Silverfish and Rats. It’s not our job to get rid of them, but we do contact the specialists who do.
Soil pipes. Part of designing a beautiful home involves thinking about all the things you don’t want to see. Things like soil pipes – the ones that run from your WC to the sewer. Explaining to clients why we really, really don’t advise getting a macerator is possibly the antithesis of glam.
Glamorous
Getting to say you’re an Interior Designer. My tutor at UAL got us to practice saying ‘I am an Interior Designer’ so that we could deliver the line with sufficient unapologetic confidence when the moment came. Saying it in real life, and it being true, continues to be a thrill.
Going to Design Shows. This is actually rather exhausting. Traipsing round an expo centre with an ever-growing bundle of leaflets, desperately trying to focus enough to retain some useful information. However – I couldn’t honestly look you in the eye and say ‘I’m off to Paris for the day to be inspired by weird and wonderful cutting edge design from across Europe … but it won’t be even slightly glamorous’. Of course it is. It’s hard work, and it’s fabulous. See also, product launches.
Sourcing beautiful things. This is a delight. Perusing catalogues, visiting showrooms and cooing over tile samples are all legitimately part of the job – and then we get the vicarious pleasure of seeing the beautiful things in place in our clients’ homes.
Team APM Xmas party & secret Santa; It is literally our job to have exquisite taste (as well as an eye for a bargain), so the APM secret santa is always a glamorous treat.
Photoshoot day; The product of all our hard work, photoshoot day is both deeply satisfying and pretty glam. Working with our wonderful photographer to carefully stage the beautiful spaces we’ve created, and then getting a pack of lovely photos through to share on our website and Instagram – total glamour!
Do you need help with your renovation in London or Brighton? Contact us now!