How Can your Building Designer Help you Better

Generally, the first time a client meets their building designer they have hundreds of ideas of what they want. Now, it’s the designer’s job to work with your ideas and the realms of what’s possible to get you your desired outcome, but we do not mind readers and we need your help.How can you help us? If the first time we meet you have answers to the below questions you will make our jobs easier and in turn help us get you a design you are happy with quicker and easier.
  1. What is your budget? (Pretty important, we don’t want to design something you can’t afford)
  2. Approx. size of the house you want? (Now this gives us an idea but is not set in stone. quite often I will get a client who says they want a 30sq house and then we go through the process of designing with their requirements in mind (ie. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, etc.) and the resulting size is actually 24sq. Now, some people might prioritise facilities, and others may prioritise space. So it’s good to keep this in mind and think about the type of building you want)
  3. Preferred style? (Do you like modern, French provincial, gothic etc? It is normally best to come in with some images so we are all on the same page)
  4. External materials? (Brick, weatherboard, tile, steel etc.)
  5. No. of Storeys? (Do you want a single storey, double storey, triple storey, a basement?)
  6. No. of Bedrooms?
  7. No. of Bathrooms? (including ensuites)
  8. No. of Living areas? (It’s very common to have 2 or more living areas now)
  9. Which bedrooms are to have a walk-in-robe and which are to have a standard wardrobe?
  10. Which bedrooms are to have an Ensuite?
  11. Do you want any built external spaces? (Deck, alfresco, pergola?)
  12. Type of parking? (Garage, carport, parking space? Council tends to have a bit to say on what is and isn’t allowed, but It’ good to know your preference)
  13. Ceiling heights? (2.4m, 2.7m, 3.0m are the standard heights)
  14. Any specific dimension of areas? (A standard bedroom is approx. 3m x 3m but maybe you want something bigger? Maybe you need a really large wardrobe for all your clothes? This is very import information for us to be able to design for you and leads to the next question……)
  15. What is most important to you? (Without knowing what the most important things to you are we can’t make the house yours. It just becomes another volume house with none of your signature on it)
  16. Anything else we should know (Want a butler pantry if possible? were you thinking of a fireplace? Anything else that you would like, let us know) 
If you come prepared with answers to these questions, we can then do our best to get you what you actually want instead of what we think you might want.