The ink on the purchase contract for your new build home is barely dry when the post arrives from the contractor. A list of optional extras: five pages full of terms like two-way switching, empty conduits, extra socket outlets and light point relocation, with a deadline underneath. You thought you had time, that you could first think calmly about what the living room should look like, which sofa fits and where the dining table goes. But now you have to decide about sockets when you don’t yet know where your furniture will stand.
This is the moment when many people get stuck and when the question comes up: when do you actually hire an interior designer for a new build?
Why does a new build feel so overwhelming?
With an existing home you can see straight away what works and what doesn’t. You walk through the rooms, feel how big they are, see where the light falls. With a new build you have no such frame of reference. You’re looking at floor plans, at technical drawings, at renders that always look better than reality.
Meanwhile the deadlines keep ticking. The shell deadline falls in six weeks. In those same weeks the kitchen has to be chosen, the bathroom decided, the tiles selected and that list of extras filled in.
The problem isn’t that you have no taste. The problem is that you have to make decisions about things you won’t see for another year, based on knowledge you don’t have.
Why do so few people know when to start?
That, we think, is the heart of it, and it isn’t your fault. Interior work covers a great many disciplines. Within each one, somebody offers a form of help. The furniture shop gives you advice. You can hire a stylist to finish the room. The builder thinks along about the layout. Plenty of architects say they throw in interior advice as well.
So there’s no shortage of help. What’s missing is someone to tell you who to approach for what. That also leaves it unclear what an interior designer actually adds to a new build process, and most people only notice once the shell is already standing.
What goes wrong when you start too late
If an interior designer only joins after the shell is up, the walls are there, the light points sit where they sit and the sockets have been installed. The structure is finished.
And only then does it become clear what isn’t right. The spots in the living room sit too close to the window, so a curtain rail no longer fits. There’s no socket behind the television. The light switch is on the wrong side of the door. The study has too few sockets because it was first drawn as a guest room.
Adjusting is still possible at that stage, hiding it is not. You end up with a visible cable across the ceiling, a cover plate against the wall, a solution that works but isn’t beautiful. And it costs you double what it would have cost if it had been done properly the first time.
The right moment to start on your new build interior
As early as possible, and in any case before the shell deadline. The shell is the tipping point. Up to that deadline you can still move walls, add light points, run conduits and plan sockets. Everything is then neatly concealed within the structure.
An interior designer who thinks along at this stage asks the questions you don’t ask yourself. Where will your television hang and which cables does it need? Do you want paintings on the wall and should there be a spot trained on them? Will you use the guest room as a study later on and does it then need separate circuits for your equipment?
We draw everything in 3D. Always.
That sounds like a technical detail, but it’s the reason things become possible in a new build project that otherwise simply don’t happen.
It regularly happens that we suggest putting the kitchen somewhere else, or moving a wall. The builder’s first reaction is often some resistance. That’s why the client doesn’t immediately realise it genuinely can be done. As soon as we show the design in 3D that conversation is usually over quickly: everyone can see what the change delivers and then it gets carried out.
At Utrecht, where Nathalie and Dimitri bought a new build home, the gain was in the bespoke cabinetry. Because the design let us show how much value and function the made-to-measure work would add, a great deal of it was eventually built. For the construction that mainly meant a few extra cables and conduits. That is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be known before the shell deadline. “Normally a building project is stressful, but we didn’t feel that at all,” they say. “It turned out more beautiful than we’d dreamed, in an utterly relaxed way.”
What if you’re already further along?
Perhaps you’re reading this with the shell already standing. It isn’t too late. There’s still a lot to achieve with the finishes, the materials, the colours, the furniture and the lighting, and even then a 3D design shows exactly what can still be done.
You have lost a few possibilities: the wall that can no longer be moved, the extra light point that can’t be added without visible wiring, the switch that now sits on the wrong side. Those aren’t disasters, but you won’t get those possibilities back.
How does Choc Studio work on new build projects?
We start with the question of where you are now. Are the drawings final, or is there still room to think along? What do you want, and how will you use the rooms day to day?
We then translate that into a concrete plan, which you get to see in 3D before anything has been built: where the sofa stands, how large the dining table can be and how the lighting works out.
During construction we safeguard the design. We coordinate with the contractor, make sure the right information is passed on at the right moment and we’re there when questions come up. Have a look at our services to see what we do in each phase of a new build project.
Have you just bought a new build home?
Get in touch for a no-obligation introductory meeting. We’ll discuss where you are in the process and what we can do for you.
About Choc Studio
At Choc Studio we combine expertise with personal attention. Since 2007 we’ve guided interior projects from concept to completion, working from our studio in Bennebroek near Haarlem. We think along, look ahead and ensure our clients get an interior that truly suits them.