First in - last out
AUGUST 12TH, 2024
Written by Nick Nichols
Rebekah and I talk a lot about how we began our career in the restaurant business, and so many aspects of that business influence our approach today. We’ve even seen phrases such as “back of house” and “front of house” find their way into architectural drawing sets. In a great restaurant or hotel, from the moment you make a reservation or walk in the door to the minute you leave, your experience is curated, you feel taken care of. We view Imparfait Design (and KitchenLab) as hospitality businesses to this day, and a big part of the business, is education and managing expectations.
Our first goal in every client conversation is to talk about expectations, this process is even larger in planning and executing a new home - for us this works best when a potential client reaches out early in the process, even as early as looking at neighborhoods, lots, or even cities. We love helping put together the team, and that makes for the most successful projects since we’re all on the same page from the minute we start conceptualizing. The teams on new construction projects are bigger, timelines are generally longer, the earlier the project is discussed and the team pulled together, the better. Even hiring the landscape designer early on makes a difference in the cohesiveness of a project.
Project Valley Lo, Building the Foundation
How does this relate to building a new home? When we engage with potential clients, our first job is to set expectations that are real - to educate about the process - to create a relationship that is based on reality, from the beginning. We start with expectations, timeline, method, and budget. Budget and timeline are intrinsically linked, time is the biggest driver of cost, and running an efficient project means that timeline is, and our clients have a big part to play - if you take a long time over a menu, like I do, it does affect how long dinner will last.
Project Valley Lo, Stages of Construction
We began our interior design career renovating old buildings with all of their inherent charm and problems: space planning, the magic fairy dust of design, is dictated by the space that already exists, the home that already exists. Space planning is inherently a problem solving exercise. Rebekah, by the way, is a space planning savant, she absolutely loves getting her head into drawings and solving problems, this is the foundation of the project. You, as a client, come to us with an existing home and a set of problems that need to be solved - in many cases the center of this nest of problems is a lack of space and modern needs - a mudroom, a laundry on the second floor, a kitchen that is open to the rest of the house, rather than closed off and dark, walls that need to be moved, systems that need to be improved or replaced.
Creating a home from scratch is a whole new ballpark, similar problem solving, different ballpark. To return to the hospitality metaphor, a new construction project is a “big top” or a large table, with many guests, that will be with you for the whole evening as a waitperson. New construction projects have larger teams, we could not work on these projects without our partners, architects, structural engineers, general contractors, landscape architects; we are one of the players on this team, much the same as working in a restaurant. Smaller renovations are like having a bunch of 2 tops - you’re running back and forth all night serving the same amount of people, but with different needs.
We are fortunate to have had clients over the years trust us as to lead the team on their behalf for these projects. Frequently we head the project and bring our resources to bear, bringing the entire team together, we have the resources and relationships that create a seamless experience. That being said, we are also brought into teams that have been formed already, which is where many of our relationships with other professionals began. Experience really counts, having had prior experience with a team is a multiplier. Ironically, our ultimate goal in new construction is to create new homes with character, character which already exists in many “vintage” homes, particularly, in our opinion, homes built prior to the “modern” era. Character is an elusive concept, but I think most of us know it when we see it. The amazing part of new homes, however, is that building new homes eliminates so many of the issues we fix in older homes that have character already, the trick is to add the layers and character that vintage homes have. New homes have fantastic modern systems and benefit from all of the technology that has transformed the industry, energy efficient, draft and creak free. The benefits are many.
In general, the process is the same for us, new or old, and it begins with a conversation about expectations, one where we are able to share our experience over 20 years with potential clients, this conversation will become a place for our clients where their stories will be told.
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