This will be a short post, but I think so very useful, especially if you’ve been thinking about shopping mostly online for your home.
We recently wrapped up one of our eDesign projects, and out of the blue, our client messaged us through our online client portal (we use Mydoma Studio) her own takeaways from their virtual interior design project.
eDesign—sometimes also called virtual interior design or online interior design service—is when we create an interior design plan for someone’s space, and recommend actual items they can purchase on their own.
For this particular client, we had worked initially on their condo living and dining areas, and later on, they contracted us again to help them with their bedroom and home office. (We talked about this project in this blog post!)
We helped them work on getting their empty living room from looking like this:
To this:
Can eDesign help with shopping online for my home?
Yes, definitely. In fact, when we create plans for your home, we already assume all the items that could fit into the actual size of your space, and the look that you’re going for.
We select from our or our clients’ go-to retailers online, or recommend designs that our favorite tradespeople can fabricate for you. So yes, availing an eDesign package will help make your home shopping online experience much much easier…and less overwhelming.
I loved that our clients willingly shared with us their own takeaways from our eDesign project, because this is crucial information for anyone who might be considering purchasing most of their home items from online retailers.
eDesign is completely different from an actual, full-service interior design project. Apart from everything being virtually done and delivered, the gathering of information and the execution of designs will be accomplished entirely by the client.
We provide guides (such as a room measuring guide, photo-taking guide) and as many consultations needed (our services include unlimited messaging through our client portal, and up to four video calls), but still, our designs are highly dependent on the information our clients provide us.
So there is a *bit* of work needed on the client’s side upfront (and afterwards). That said, eDesign provides you much-needed design direction that you weren’t sure of when you started furnishing or working on your space. You won’t feel overwhelmed by the fact that you will need to scour the internet for the right pieces; the shopping list we give you is already curated to fill your functional and aesthetic needs.
Our eDesign client's tips for home shopping online
Hopefully getting a peek into our client’s own experiences from shopping for furniture and decor for their home (with lots of help from Gal at Home!) will aid you in gauging if eDesign is for you.
“Hi Camyl!
Warning: long post ahead.
We’d like to THANK YOU and your team for the excellent work that you did on the design of our interiors. It was our first time to hire a designer so we were a little nervous in the beginning. But you made the entire process so easy and comfortable, pandemic notwithstanding.
We’re really impressed by the professionalism you’ve consistently demonstrated—the quality of the designs, the presentations (pictures and vids), the linked shopping list, the mail updates… you were so organized and efficient that it puts to shame some corporate projects I can remember.😅
Sometimes we were tempted to stray from your recommendations, but after sitting on the impulse for a few days and comparing our choice of furniture with yours, we always saw that you were right and ended up getting what you originally proposed.
Some lessons we learned:
1. Trust your designer.
She has better taste and has done her research, that’s why you asked for her help after all.
So that chair that you saw in some obscure supplier’s IG account that you *think* would look better than the half-dozen she recommended? Yep, she’s probably seen that, and if she skipped it, best you did, too.
2. Whenever possible, visit the furniture supplier, see and test the item first before buying.
If you can’t, then live without the item and WAIT, no matter how long it takes, until you can. Don’t trade taste for expediency.
This one’s a bit of a challenge considering the pandemic. While some items are exactly as you see them and are difficult to “prettify” for IG purposes, there are others that need live inspection, particularly those that are hand-crafted or need assembly.
3. Show your designer everything that needs to be kept so that she can account for additional storage.
We were conscious of this, but it was hard to do considering that while we imagined the volume of stuff we knew we had to throw away, finding time to sort through them and verifying that mental space was another matter.
By the time the design was ready, we still had excess stuff we didn’t know where to put away.
All's well that ends well...
“We’ll still be in touch, updating you on our progress in [our] projects, so this isn’t goodbye. Just a ‘thank you for a job well done.’ 🙂
We only wish we had hundreds of friends who are looking to design their interiors so that we can recommend you to them.”
I’m not going to lie; her well-thought-out message (especially that last bit) made me tear up a bit. Sometimes, when you’re busy and stressed, you forget to remind yourself that what you’re doing is worth something to someone.
So in case you’re wondering whether you should shop completely online for your home, we hope that what our client said will help you decide!
eDesign is definitely not a sit-and-wait-for-our-home-to-take-shape kind of thing, but it’s still a few steps closer to getting you a home you know you truly love.
Want to learn more about our eDesign services?
Everything you need to know about our eDesign services—inclusions, deliverables, tools, rates—are on our website. Just click the button below to find out more!