Did You Know?--Three Reasons to Choose E-Design

E-Design marries our design expertise with our clients’ inner creativity 

It’s rare that we don’t end up explaining the E-Design process to people when we talk about what we do. We love sharing our passion for design and a glimpse into our world through our blog, but the real bread and butter of our work seems to be somewhat of a gray area to some.

So we decided to lay out some of the basics. Maybe you’ll decide E-Design is for you. Or maybe it isn’t, but when you have a friend struggling to put together a space in his or her home, maybe you can suggest and explain E-Design and its benefits!

Here they are:

1.     It’s the most affordable way to receive design expertise.

Well…unless you have a close friend or relative that’s a designer and willing to do it for practically nothing. But I can tell you from experience—it doesn’t happen that way! ;)

Here’s how E-design is so affordable:

• we don’t have a retail or commercial office space for overhead expense
• we don’t mark-up furnishings or fixtures or finishes
• because we don’t typically make site visits, we don’t have the travel or time expenses of coming to a project site multiple times before it’s finished
• turn around time for our end product is two or three weeks on average--compare this to the months on average that traditional interior design projects take--less time = less money 

So basically, you’re paying for time and expertise to put together a cohesive and beautiful room plan that suits you and your needs, all in a very short time frame—fewer hours for us, and less wait time for you. Win-win.

image via 3A Design Studio

2.     You are in control. 

Most people are afraid of hiring a professional because of the large financial undertaking--not only because of the hourly rates but the cost of the materials and furnishings as well. Unfortunately people see $$$ when they see beautiful rooms. We want you to know it doesn't have to be that way!! With E-Design, your only up-front expense is the cost of the E-Design package. Once it’s in your hands, YOU decide when and how everything is purchased to incorporate our package into your space.

On this project, we left the wall-hangings to the control of the client by allowing her to choose which photos will go in her gallery wall. Not only does this leave the very personal aspects in the hands of the client, but it also saves us from having to investigate every photo in their household worth hanging! You can also see that the dining table is part of an option--sometimes we think more than one piece may work in a room for different reasons. We leave those reasons to be decided upon by the client as it works best for their home.

On top of that, E-Design doesn't use custom and/or private high-end vendors that most designers do. While we love and appreciate that area of design (as much as I could curl up with and marry a Scalamandre wallcovering or an Eames lounge chair), we understand that the general public wants easy access to design. That’s why we choose the elements of your design package from well-known, easily-accessible, quality retailers where YOU can go and visit and see in person before you make a purchase. 

And for those large purchases --the ones we know will not only take up the biggest portion of your budget, but also determine the design direction of the rest of the room--we typically send options. On the same project as the dining room featured above, we followed the client along with her sofa purchase to ensure we were selecting items for the rest of the room accordingly. We love that she was able to take her family along on the buying experience and purchase something that was uniquely fitting for them--not necessarily just something that works in our design. Everybody wins!

3.     You can still live out your DIY dreams.

We get that this is the time of DIY. Not only because people like to get creative, but they are in love with the idea of being able to put a little elbow grease into something and—at a fraction of the cost—have a result that they can be proud of, knowing that they completed it themselves. It’s a great sense of accomplishment!

But hey! Guess what? We love those things too! We are total fans of DIY. We DIY in our own homes, and we see no reason you can’t do the same—under professional guidance, of course (because, let's face it: not all DIY turns out to be good DIY). 

If we know you’ve got a tight budget (and often times our clients do), we may suggest you “ikea hack” a piece, go thrifting or antique market hunting, or re-purpose a piece in your home that needs a facelift. 

Here's an example of a media console makeover we suggested for a client. The piece was perfectly functional. Just a few small changes would help it become a more cohesive element to the space--there was just no need for her to spend the hundreds of dollars on a new console.

We also know most people interested in design have the ability to put together a great-looking room, and most of the time, they’re just looking for pointers. A road map to where they want to go.  And that’s exactly what E-Design offers. E-Design marries our design expertise with our clients’ inner creative drive.

Based on the photos of her home, we knew this client had great taste to begin with. We knew that we could give her loose instructions and that she would be able to execute them well. And all those mirrors--they were ones she already had in her home. She just needed to know how to arrange them!

We truly believe there is no one "right" way to put together a room--we know this based on the fact that all three of us can look at a space and each envision something slightly different, but equally beautiful. We like to empower our clients to do the same. We've yet to meet a client that we don't trust to implement our advice in their space in a way that they feel works best. 

 ***

The most common comment we get when telling people we are designers (overwhelmingly!) is:

“Oh! Then will you please come and tell me what to do in my house?!”

Of course we can! That’s why there’s E-Design. We value our expertise and through this blog and us sharing a peek into our design world, we hope you can see why!

 ***

What questions do you have for us? What room can we take a look at in your home so we can help you improve it? If you want to know more about the process, drop us a line! We would love to help.