Furniture Packages, Do It Yourself Edition
Morena!
We’ve just completed several furniture packages recently, so I thought now might be the perfect time to offload a couple of tips should you be interested in organising your own. Here’s five to keep in mind:
Priorities. What are you looking to achieve with your space? What is each room used for and how do you imagine it being used by the occupants? What colours do you want to commit to? Do you want to showcase a particular artist? What will this space be used for? Is this space predominantly warm or chilly throughout the year? What’s the lighting like here throughout the day? Make a list of your thoughtful intentions.
Spatial awareness. Grab a pen and paper and map out what you’d like where. E.g. beds, sofas, chairs - the works.
Measure!! Grab a measuring tape and make sure you collect the measurements for the furniture you’ve laid out in your spatial plan as this will come in handy when looking at products online or in store. This is important so you don’t overcrowd your room or accidentally purchase any items that end up looking bitsy in a larger room.
Budget. Make sure you budget your furniture item for item so that you know how much you’re willing to part with and if you find a cheaper product in one area, make sure to note that you can spend a little more in another area and vice versa. We find that lead time and the availability of products can affect pricing slightly if we need to go back to our plans and change them a little. Make sure you grab delivery costs in your quotes and to add GST if the product doesn’t already include both. This can be an unpleasant surprise otherwise. Expert tip - use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of each item, the cost and when it is arriving and mark it off as it does.
Lead time and availability. Before making your purchases make sure you’ve hustled an accurate lead time for when your products will arrive, or become available again. Now more than ever, it’s important to confirm all of this with your providers because a lot of services are taking longer than usual to hone products down (an ongoing issue because of Covid-19). Aside from that, it’s just generally good etiquette to make sure you’ve got correct information, as communication systems differ from company to company. Ask several people at the same company if you’re feeling uncertain about what one person has said.
There’s heaps of information for you to get started with, but please, don’t tell my boss I gave away our secrets. ;)