posted by: Heather Harkovich & Emily Hernando

We usually always show you the glamorous ‘Before & After’ photos from our projects, but never show you all the work that goes on behind the scenes to get ready for our client installs. 

If you have ever thought about hiring a designer to decorate and furnish your home, you’ve probably thought, “Oh, this project can’t take that much time at all.” 

Well, you would be surprised!  Emily, our Operations Manager, is going to share with you how she, Sarah, Raquel and I have been spending a lot of time over the past few weeks, and this is just on one project!

The new home exterior

This activity is all in addition to the actual ‘designing’ part of the project.  Don’t forget: the execution is as important as the design concept!!

From Emily:

The past couple of weeks have been extremely busy for the design team! The prep that goes into the installation process of a project can be extensive, time consuming and rather hot with the Texas summer heat!

For the past 6 months, we have been working towards fully furnishing a brand new home in the Mueller development off of Airport & I-35.

The home exterior/front door.

One of our service goals for our clients is to handle all of a project’s details, so the client does not have to worry about a thing.  I am confident that no one outside our field has any idea of the amount of work and the number of people are required to design and install a home.  We work closely with tradespeople all over Austin to make sure our process runs seamlessly. 

At the end of the day, we do not want to the client to feel any of the pressure and stress we feel when it comes to completing an install. In this case, our clients live in Massachusetts and won’t be back until August, so we had some time to spread out all of the installations, giving ourselves a little breather, too.

Our first install task started with a little custom paint and wallpaper. We scheduled this to be done the first week the clients closed on the home and it was officially ‘theirs’.

A dark palette for the media room.

A dining room with a fabulous accent wall.

A truly unique powder room.

Our next step was to  have the light fixtures & window treatments installed.   This home was a builder home, meaning our client did not have the option to select individual light fixtures.  A lighting package was provided by the builder and we planned from the beginning to swap a number of those out to better reflect the home owners’ personalities.

For the products we order for our clients, we need to open every single box to make sure the items are the ones we wanted and that nothing is broken.

 Light fixtures ready for pick up!

The nursery with black out shades and drapery panels. 

We still need to steam the drapery fabric by hand to get the wrinkles out before we can show the home to the client!

We receive and inspect all the smaller items like lamps, accessories and end tables at our office.  That way we can make sure nothing is broken or dented.  Then we have to re-wrap them for transport to the clients’ home.  Eventually we load them into our cars to take to the install. 

Thanks to our electrician, he let us fill up his U-Haul with the decor items we had been storing in our offices, like these pillows!

We were fortunate that the family room rug we had been waiting on arrived just in time! Thanks to our local rep from Fiber Seal, she was willing to treat it for stain protection at our very hot (heat hot) receiving warehouse.

Then, as you can see here, we help the movers unload everything and get it into the right rooms.   We try to  make the move-in as efficient as possible.  Posting a floor plan with the corresponding items helps the process go a little faster.

But, it will still usually take all day for a project with more than 3-4 rooms.  Mostly because a lot of furniture needs ‘assembly’, like this bed.

Our last step was the next day when we had the art installed and placed the accessories.  Best to do this after everyone else has finished!

We hope you enjoyed a little ‘look behind the scenes’ on what it takes to make a 30 minute TV reveal more realistic for you!  Undoubtedly, we will be providing a full photo tour of this home when it is complete!  We would love to help take a stress out of your life by helping you to furnish and decorate your home!  Simply fill out our form here for more information on how our process works.