Step by step guide to being a designer on a ground up construction project.
This is Step 1- Choosing the color palette
Once the architecture is pretty much through design development, the first step depends greatly on whether or not the home is in a subdivision with homeowner association guidelines. The ground up construction I have chosen for this series is in a gated subdivision with extensive rules as to palette, size, height, setbacks and more, and we have to pick our exterior colors for everything on the home (stucco, metal, windows, pavers, even the roofing material) before submitting plans to the HOA (Home Owner Association) review committee. There is often one local architect hired to guide the association, and then a few neighbors to offer thoughts.
Exterior Color Palette: There is a generally approved palette and in the case of this Santa Fe subdivision, like so many, it just about has to be brown, beige, or some very close “natural” color. It is true that my favorites to work on are those where I have much freer rein. For example, this subdivision encourages interesting colors, but it is a rare one. And a treat.
A local exterior palette in a subdivision that allows color.
But today we are here to create a harmonious palette pleasing to the owner, and acceptable to the association. We’re at the building site on a northside Santa Fe subdivision, and the owner wants a color that will blend well into the landscape, rather than stand out. I’ve always found the really light shades stand out much more in the landscape, and always recommend the medium to darker shades. So that is what we proposed here, the one in my right hand, and it was accepted. Along with similar hues for concrete, and exposed steel beams with a natural patina.
Blending Interior and Exterior Palettes: At the same time, because the integral colored concrete floors will usually spill out the doors onto all the portal patios, we are choosing concrete colors that complement the exterior stucco walls. As in this home.
An interior palette flooring that flows through to the exterior.
Designer and owner are in agreement! It’s been a good warm sunny winter afternoon looking at the mountain through the lens of exterior stucco and concrete “Santa Fe” colors.
Check in next week for Step 2. Although steps 1 and 2 will be posted one after the other, this series “How to be a designer for the ground up construction projects” will be an intermittent series due to it taking place in real time, right now. Thank you for your patience.
I like to be in interesting spaces, all the time. When I find myself somewhere plain, I am too distracted by the different renovations and remodels (which I am designing in my head to utilize the unrealized potential) to get comfortable. When I don’t feel well, or am nervous about a procedure, it’s even more important. This is why I want to do more renovations, remodels, and commercial design for medical offices, creating atmosphere that is friendly and supportive.
Having the opportunity to completely remodel a busy dental practice was a wonderful surprise. But also having a great dentist to work with who was funny, warm, open and willing, with a super cooperative staff? That made it just about perfect.
Scope and Schedule. Everything had to go, but we had to keep the practice open. Commercial remodeling can be like that. Besides needing to explore the best color palettes and design, source the finishes, and also select a complete array of furnishings, art and accessories that we could get on time and budget, we also needed to schedule the best, most cost effective and valuable contractors. And in the case of keeping the practice open, we worked especially hard to find contractors who would do the hard work at nights, on long weekends. With perfect clean-up as they went. We had a double ground up challenge.
Painting. That was all done on weekends. Packing and prepping by the office staff, who could not have been more helpful, happened at the end of their busy days, or on weekends. Flooring – out with the old, ripping it all out, removing it to the right recycling facility – once again on weekends. Same with installing the new floor tiles and carpet. All dovetailing with the other workers involved, staging the steps in a way to keep each from interrupting each other’s workflow.
Furniture. All new furnishings, for the offices and lobbies, plus art and accessories. Task chairs for the offices that were adjustable enough for each person to be comfortable and productive, ergonomic computer stations. Re-furnishing a lunch room so it can do double duty as a conference or training space. All had to be staged and ready to be put in place.
Product. The mood we aimed for was serene, pretty, peaceful and interesting for patients. Work stations that were comfortable, storage that was adequate and covered, for staff. Treatment rooms that were well lit, safe and functional for doctors and hygienists. The ultimate goal — adding value to a business by making customers, and staff feel supported and nourished by their surroundings. We think we got it.
Edy Keeler was invaluable in helping transform my dental office. She was very organized and paid attention to detail. Caught a lot of things that I would never have thought of. And, her sense of style and scale was matched by her understanding of the functional aspects of my practice. The icing on the cake is that we had so much fun in the process!
-Dr. P
I want to design more commercial spaces. Not huge office buildings although I had a great custom office building to do last year, and it was fun. But space where people go to be healed or pampered.
Timeliness: A commercial design project, so different in terms of clients and client needs, needs to move quickly in most cases. Unlike the Apple stores which took years of planning, including when the meticulous Steve Jobs scrapped all his plans after seeing a better way. But there is no denying that the Apple Store layout and finishes show both efficiency and beauty in a crowded and popular destination shopping spot.
Special-ness: Apple stores offer a Genius Bar for technical support, and free product workshops for the public. The Apple Stores have, according to an article in The New York Times, been responsible for “[turning] the boring computer sales floor into a sleek playroom filled with gadgets.” These stores have a standardised appearance with white or light wood tables and a minimal design. The sales folks walk around with tablets and there is not much wait time to buy and go.
Special-ness and your business: Why not? Why be pedestrian when it costs no more, with good design, to be special. For example, my personal services business design highest gripe is ugly manicure salons. At risk of getting into big trouble, I won’t go around town taking phone snaps of ugly salons, or heaven forbid, unclean workstations. But wouldn’t you, and your customers, prefer to be here, at the salon in the photo? It does not cost more to be tasteful. It can take some guidance to get to where you want to be. And can cost less.
Looks Expensive! You may be looking at this and thinking “wow, this looks expensive!” I guarantee that it could easily be less than the grotesque pedicure all-in-one-soak-your-feet-and give-you-a-brutal-back-massage contraptions we encounter in pedicure stations. Yes, this has custom upholstery (a good thing) but the little sinks are pretty standard small sinks, as are the gooseneck faucets. This is the classic case of doing more with less and making it look great.
Yes, it needs to be designed by a professional, or many things large and small could and will go wrong. Small service business owners, let’s talk design, for function and beauty, and increasing customers and their happiness and satisfaction.
Take a look at the image above. Can you sense the story? The story in this room is that of a retired couple, who once lived in Asia for many years, love the art and culture of Japan, and lead active casual social lives. The kitchen, so often the heart of the home, supports quiet meals as well as entertaining. The bathroom is roomy, beautiful, but very useful and safe as well.
The home was purchased as a step toward downsizing, although it is not small, and required a complete and total renovation to bring it in line with this couple’s world in the Americas, after many years of living abroad.
So the design fits a lifestyle that is casual-elegant. Handsome momentoes of a large scale, and priceless art from life in Asia were the cornerstones to set up for this style. Entertaining without fuss is important here. Commodious kitchens and baths. Durable materials, low maintenance — befitting retirement but not inactivity — flow of spaces, and of course comfort, warmth and safety. And adds great value to the property.
Is your home a reflection of your best story?
Why a story? As a literature major, with a personal interest in design of all types, as I engaged with a story, I always wanted to know “What does this room look like? How does it feel? What does it feel like? How does it smell?”’ Great writers impart that directly with description, or in moody scenes. When I morphed many years later into design, the story aspect of a dwelling stuck with me.
The big question: What does your home say about you? Is it really your story, or some idea you saw somewhere that may or may not be you. Here are the questions I like to answer just from being in and around a home. They are the basic questions about the life being lived in the home.
About these questions: If I answer some of these questions correctly, without in depth interviews, the engagement is of one sort. If I can’t answer these questions correctly, it is another type of work entirely. Both are rewarding — interesting and fun.
Who lives here?
What do they do? And not exactly literally, but in a general sense.
What are their ages?
IF it’s a couple…who is she? Who is he? Who are they?
What do they do?
Do they entertain?
IF there are kids….what are their ages? Are they girls or boys?
Why does it matter? One of the most important things about my job is to figure out the best of the home’s story, and help the owners tell it in a comfortable way. This means to find and create whatever helps them feel they are living in their own best story, or even their own fantasy, and not someone else’s fantasy.
I don’t design “magazine” homes, although some have been published. I build support for their story.
VIVID: It’s always been there for me. Always in interiors. I never had a little girl room or a teenage one or a wall in a dorm (that caused trouble) or in a first apartment, or a series of houses, that did not have at least one vivid bedroom wall. And ultimately that brought me to my first serious color job. It was not even picking colors.
THEY ALL NEED NAMES: I worked in San Francisco in clothing design, my first design training. And after one season of loving the work, fabrics, colors, shapes and everything about it, and although I was not yet allowed to pick colors of the season, that having been dictated by some larger-than-life entity, I was assigned to name the colors. This was an era when there were just not so many colors on the racks. So imagine, every spring, creatively naming pale pink, baby blue, and yellow.
This is why I was so eager to attend a new color launch by my favorite paint company, Dunn-Edwards. And I am not paid to write this.
THE PROJECT: It was led by Sara McClean who spent five years with them on a $10 million dollar project to create and launch a palette of 300 new colors. Names like “Wine Goblet” and “Bourbon Truffle,” ranging from historic to ‘trending now,’ in a collection called “Then, Now and Forever.” How happy I was to learn that she too had a hard time…. “with names like Pewter Patter, Eat Your Peas, Outlawed Orange. She admitted with whites and creams in particular, ‘there’re only so many words you can use.’” (Hemispheres Magazine Dec. 2015)
Color in paint really is the hardest thing to pick successfully. . . requires testing, etc. That’s why I have a lot of work doing it.
NOW FOR THE QUALITY: But paint quality is something many clients do not understand. And they sometimes ask “Why shouldn’t we just get cheaper paint at a big box store?” Because it will disappoint.
I am not paid by any paint company to say this, but there are great reasons:
Here they are simplified for us, excerpted from metafilter.com:
“Most contractor-grade paints are vastly superior, in that people who do it for a living tend to buy the coatings that go on easily, cover, and last. I have never used Brand X from the big box store, but have used Benjamin Moore and Dunn Edwards. I like Dunn Edwards a lot.”
“All of the professional painters I know hate (Brand X at the big box store) and refuse to use it, because it doesn’t go on as smoothly. They are not just being conservative, with this product it takes them more time to get an even coat, and time is money.”
This from a homeowner: I have 6 doors painted with (Brand X from the big box store) that are pretty much not salvageable. They peel like crazy. When I decide to fix the problem, I’m going to just buy new doors.
And this from a paint store manager who sells Benjamin Moore and another brand, C2, I don’t know of in our area:
“If we’re just talking about the makeup of the paint before tinting, the #1 factor in a good paint is the amount of solids the paint contains, i.e. the resins and other components that are left on the wall when the solvents evaporate. Paints like from big box stores tend to have pretty low solids, so they tend to cover poorly and leave behind a thinner film (although their higher end lines are better). They’re also often not 100% acrylic latex, and will be termed ‘vinyl acrylic’ paints. Paints like Ben Moore and C2 have higher solids, so they tend to have a greater film build, greater adhesion, and better coverage.
The colorant that goes into each can, and the color that you choose also have a great deal to do with quality. As an example, C2 in particular uses pigments that are higher strength and more finely ground than many other companies (Ben Moore included) and their colors will often be made up of three or more pigments. Whereas a Big Box store brand blue tone might be made up of some concentration of a single blue colorant, a C2 blue tone might be created with a mixture of four different pigments, and sometimes won’t even include any blue colorant at all!”
And an industry rep explains it to a class of design students:
“A Dunn Edwards rep actually came and spoke to my class the other day, and he described it this way: The same things go into every can of paint, regardless of brand. This is stuff like resins/adhesives, colorant (the liquid pigment), etc. The thing with more expensive brands is the quality of those ingredients–just like any other product I guess. Brand X has always worked fine for me in terms of application, but I think the difference comes down to the long-term: How long before it fades? How is the water-resistance? If you try to clean it, will you end up with a faded spot? How soon will you need to repaint? Will it chip? Will it crumble? Think of a designer dress versus its knock-off counterpart. They may look exactly the same next to each other, but the knock-off probably has crappier material (which will wear out sooner), thinner thread, cheaper buttons, etc.”
So check out professional brand paints, we are happy to guide you.
Creative Process: From Inspiration to Realization
Residential Libraries
Inspiration- One of my creative processes when I start a new design assignment–for example, to design a contemporary residential library–is to go out and find visuals that inspire creative approaches in line with my client’s hopes for the room or space. “Something cool and edgy but still my own private retreat space.”
For this special residential library, I wanted to propose a portion of one wall with a large mural of something sweet, soulful and inspirational, something that related to their love of reading, books and information, and solitude. So I offered, “How about something like this Borges poster/ quote for a tall wall beside a tall door, like a wing next to this French door?”
They loved the concept, and now I have to work: Find out if it is licensed and if so, where to license it for use, and how best to reproduce it 10 feet high by 4 feet wide. And of course, all importantly, how to install it so it is perfect and the execution does not take away from the image. All in a day’s work.
No color: A year or so ago, enterprising designers started shelving books backwards, edges of the paper out to the room, to give a uniform appearance, all shades of cream and white. It is pretty, but pretty useless if you actually like to find the book you want quickly.
And actually, in the 1500’s books were shelved this way (fore-edge out) to protect the rare and valuable spines. With many of the edges painted decoratively.
With color: Instead, many designers have always shelved books by color, and that can be okay, unless you are a stickler for either the Dewey decimal system, or your own categories of books: fiction, biography, history, etc. Unlikely as it sounds, when I was working abroad many years ago, the college library at the university shelved their books in English by color. It is pretty. One of my clients loves books in libraries by color, and did it on her own. Her historian husband has forgiven if not forgotten. Black and white do stand out; the grays and taupes sort of blend in.
The aesthetics are not the least of many considerations in designing for a library. The more practical concerns may not be as interesting to consider, but include figuring out how many linear feet of shelving we will need, the lighting, the value of appropriate seating, and more. In sum, one of the more interesting types of rooms to work with, for me, and one of the most personal.
