Commissioning a bespoke item for your new home which you found through a Gloucester Estate Agents at links including www.tgres.co.uk, whether it’s furniture, clothing, food or jewellery, is a fascinating process. You’re engaging the services of an expert in their field and there’s the satisfaction in the perfect fit, or the exact colour, as well as knowing you have something unique and are supporting the craft industry at the same time. But in order to get it right, there are important things to consider.
Start with a clear brief
Once you’ve found the designer or crafts person you’re going to work with, the more specific you can be about what it is that you want, the better. Your designer, be it an architect, a furniture maker or tailor, should talk to you at length about your brief. They may have changes to suggest that will improve the end product, so do listen to their advice. For your first meeting, take as much source material as you can. Obviously, designing a house is going to require a much longer and more involved process than designing a wedding cake, but images from magazines, colour samples, dimensions, sketches and moodboards will all help the designer build a clearer picture of what you want from the outset.
Budget
It’s important to set the budget out from the beginning. Be realistic. Bespoke commercial desks are going to be considerably more expensive than an off the peg desk from a well-known Swedish retailer because of the time and effort that goes into it. You might have a team of people working on your desk, from the designer to the skilled crafts people who build it.
Again, good communication at the initial commissioning point will help you set an accurate budget, and stick to it, which is where the experience and expertise of companies really helps. Changes to the design after you’ve approved it can be very costly and disrupt the whole design and build process. This is why it’s so important to take time over the design itself as altering things at a later date will often incur extra costs to you, and delay the delivery of your item.
And finally, go and visit the workshop, most companies will welcome clients coming to see how it’s all coming together as it gives you a much better understanding of everything that goes into creating that perfect item.
