I am excited to begin the re-launch of our blog here at Denise McGaha Interiors, titled, “Designed with a Deadline”. As many of you may know, I have owned my design firm for over 11 years now and have had quite a bit of time to make mistakes and learn the best ways to deal with certain time-sensitive projects. I thought it would be great to rename our blog that focuses on those challenges, gives you great tips and inspiration for overcoming them and hopefully has you smiling along the way.
Today I have a great question from a reader; “My designer recently contacted me to re-select a fabric for the sofa we ordered and I am so concerned about making our deadline. We selected that fabric together over 3 weeks ago….why am I just finding out now?”
We often get this question when we call the client back in for a reselection. Unfortunately, the economy has left many fabric mills without large amounts of stock. Also, several large mills went out of business during the recession and this has left the supply much lower than during pre-recession times. The best job a designer can do is to check stock on a fabric, even before showing it to a client. Once prepared to present, I often put the fabric on reserve. I can hold it for 3-5 working days so the client can decide. Then, once the selection is approved, we can order it from our reserve. Some fabric companies allow this while others don’t. If you are designing on a deadline, I ask that question upfront and always try to make sure we are selecting from guaranteed stock from the supplier.
As for why you are just finding out now...your designer probably turned your order in 1-2 days after receiving your payment and the manufacturer took about 5-6 days to input it into their queue for production. Often, during that time, fabric disappears…it only takes one order from another designer to take the fabric you were hoping to use on a sofa. So when your designer calls for a reselection, they have most likely spent several days trying to find just the perfect alternative to show you. It needs to work with everything else in the room and painstaking work has gone into finding an alternative that was as good as the original. The best you can do is to make a quick decision to get the order moving. Often, a reselect can delay a job by a week…if you take longer to meet with your designer, it can be longer.
The answer to this Design Dilemma: If you are contacted by your designer for a reselection, be prompt in approving the other option, be understanding and know that your designer is hating this almost as much as you are. I have many instances when the reselection turned out to be even more beautiful than we imagined and the client forgot there was even a challenge.
Please send me your questions about Designed With a Deadline and I will answer them here. Tomorrow I will be posting about my top tips when choosing paint colors on a deadline.
*Images: Fabrics by
Kravet Sofa Image from Pinterest