It all starts with a phone call, an email, or a walk-in from a new client!
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at LJ? When we get a design proposal, a member of the LJ design team will then follow up with the new client to walk them through our design process. Are they looking for remodeling, a new kitchen, a bathroom makeover, or do they just want some help accessorizing and selecting some new furniture? As the dialogue continues, we are focused on getting a clear picture of the unique needs of this client, as well as communicating how our services work on this end. From there, their consultation appointment is booked!
The day of the consultation appointment, the design team arrives ready to rock and roll. You can always expect to meet Janet and Danielle, and possibly Sydney (our drafter) if your project consists of remodeling or needing measurements for our design program. At this point, we re-visit everything we chatted about on the phone in more detail and depth. We talk through what we envision for their space, what could be changed, and what could stay. We talk budget, style, and logistics of how we operate once the project starts. This consists of demo, install, delivery, scheduling of subcontractors, and the final details of accessorizing. We love scheming and dreaming with our clients!
We schedule a follow-up appointment for them to come back to the office and see what we designed. We love our design software program called Chief, which is what we use to present their design mock-up. Chief allows us to draw up the floor plan, room, or exterior in 3D. This really helps bring the vision to reality! From there we can tweak away. With Chief, we can add furniture, paint colors, cabinets, countertops, flooring, etc. into the program, based on the actual samples we plan to present to clients in our meeting. This way, you can see a sample of a floor or a paint color visualized in your actual space, before you make a serious commitment. In the follow-up meeting, we will show you all the possible samples we can. This would be flooring, paint, cabinet doors, countertops, hardware, bedding, window treatments, rugs, pillows, furniture swatches and more! The more visual and hands-on we can make it for the client, the better!
After presenting the design, the client has time to process what they think. Is there anything they want to change, add more of, take away, or redo? The design team can process these changes either on the spot, or if the client needs time, we can schedule another appointment to revise the plans. We want to make sure you LOVE your design, so we won’t stop editing or revising it until it’s exactly what you want! From there we will write up a detailed scope of work for the client, the contractors, and for ourselves. This scope of work will be reviewed with the client before any agreement is signed. Once the contract is signed, the hammers can get swinging.
As far as contractors go, our go-to contractor is of course our in-house LJ Build Team. Having a contractor team that works within Louisa Jane gives us so much more control over communication, over the small (but mighty) details, and over all the scheduling that takes place. The design team sits down once a week to walk through the job process of each project to make sure we are all in the loop for ordering materials, scheduling of install and demo, knowing when product is arriving, and more! Having LJ Design and Build all together makes your project go 10 times more smoothly. That is not to say we won’t work with other contractors, because we absolutely will. We know that you may know a family friend, maybe an electrician or a plumber, that you would love to use on your job, and that is perfectly okay! All this will be worked out when the scope of work is talked through to be able to divide out who is doing what at the end of the day, whether it’s us, that family friend, or maybe even yourself if you’re feeling adventurous!
We will see you through your project from start to finish. It is so rewarding for us to play a role in the process, from that first point of contact, to seeing your home become the place of your dreams. In the end, the client becomes a fast friend, and this is all part of why we love what we do.
