Understanding the ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘who for’ of our practice.
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DESIGN CONSULTATION
WHAT WE DO
Our Practice, Your Project
- We ‘design and supply’ for domestic space. We are specialists in kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, wardrobes, utility and cloakrooms.
What Does Design & Supply mean?
‘Design’: we look at the space available, take account of the environment in which it is situated, who will be using it and for what purposes. We assess the possibilities for maximising potential, develop ideas, and draw up a blueprint for a beautiful, functional, human-centred space.
‘Supply’: integral to our service is that we also specify and supply the furniture, finishes, appliances, etc through which the design will be realised.
How is Day True different from other kitchen and bathroom retailers?
- We have special expertise in rethinking space – we look beyond the boundaries of the existing to imagine new possibilities.
- We consider each room in the context of a bigger picture ‘home’ – no room is an island unmoored from its surroundings, and every environment gifts some unique direction for how to engage with it.
- Our style choices can blend and adapt materials and ideas to accommodate and enhance how you live now and in anticipation of the future.
- Every Day True design is individual – every project is uniquely personalised in its vision and purpose.
Is a Day True aesthetic compatible with my style of house?
- Our designs are necessarily informed by where you live, and our design practice is as sensitive to architectural styles and history as it is attuned to living in a present tense. We don’t replicate one design for another or adopt passing trends or clichés that will inevitably date quickly. We reference tradition and refine it: our designs can sit as comfortably in a Victorian terrace or a Georgian manor as they can in a modernist masterpiece or a new build.
WHO WE DO IT FOR
Your Interests are Our Priority
You are Embarking on a First Design Project
- We are here to hold your hand through the process and to lend you the confidence of our experience – we can help clarify your style intentions, give guidance on the practicalities and possibilities of your space, help you choose and mix materials appropriately and plan your project through to completion – no hidden costs, no upselling, no agenda beyond making your space one that will enhance your enjoyment of living in it. Our designs are created to give you lasting pleasure, and nothing gives us more pleasure than helping you to make good decisions.
This is not Your First Rodeo
- We offer all the above along with our curiosity to understand that which has worked well for you in the past, and our desire to improve on anything that has been less successful. Our process is transparent, design literate, personal and careful.
You are a small-scale developer, architect, or interior design professional
- We know that you are spinning a lot of plates – we can relieve you of some technical burdens, and/or redesign and supply internally for an entire project if your focus is ‘bigger picture’.
- We may surprise you in the value we can bring to a project. Our portfolio page provides examples of our professional collaborations, and we would be pleased to have a more detailed conversation about how we can tailor our professional service to collaborate with yours.
A complete apartment as a tonally coherent design for a boutique developer
BRAND PARTNERS
Furniture, Products, Accessories
Inherent in our ethos as a creative and progressive design studio is that we engage with brand partners rather than as manufacturers of furniture – to maintain a freedom to choose from a wide spectrum of ideas, furniture, and products and to realise designs without limits on style. We are always open to new ideas and new ways of engaging with design – as a discipline, craft, and art form.
Limits to our creativity and imagination will never be of our own making.
Kitchen Cabinetry
Kitchen furniture divides into two furniture families:
TRUE
- fully bespoke, made-to-measure, and manufactured in the UK. Bespoke cabinets feature solid wood internal finishes, dove-tailed joints, and an almost infinite palette of materials, colours, and finishes.
DAY
- available either as a simplified British made offering or a European made version. These provide a wide range of high quality styles, colours, and finishes and, can provide for a wider range of budgets than the True bespoke.
Appliance Brands
- Appliance brands cross a spectrum from the entry level to the aspirational. Regardless of price, we only work with the best in class to provide the best choice for your project – and our advice is always based on ‘best for you’.
Bathrooms
- Bathrooms are created using products sourced from a curated spectrum of suppliers, providing a wide range of sophisticated style choices, and covering budgets from the mid-level upwards.
Surfaces
- choices for both kitchens and bathrooms are myriad and include options for the natural and hand crafted, and the technical or engineered – we advise and guide on aesthetic choices, matters of sustainability, application, and on implications for use, maintenance, and budget.
Accessories, Lighting, and Hardware
- add to the personal touches that enhance visual appeal, tactility, practicality, and bring a variety of instinctively human connections to a design.
We believe in a baseline of quality and choose our brand partners carefully to cover a range of preferences and budgets.
PRICING & VALUE
- Our process leads with our design expertise, incorporates a high level of detail, and concludes with the quality of the products we specify – clever design, technically complete drawings and well-curated product choices underpin the value we bring to all our projects.
- In the interests of providing a simplified experience and minimising costs to you, we don’t charge for our design – either by the hour or by stealth– instead we build it in as our foundation stone on which everything else depends. We expect to put our knowledge, expertise, and professional relationships to use in achieving careful pricing on your behalf – to suit your needs and budget – and we work hard to ensure that budget need not compromise the integrity of the design
Our Entry Level
- While we cover a range of budgets, we do not aim to compete on price with the cheapest, the fastest, or those who substitute software or bulk supply chains for design knowhow. We do promise, however, that you will never pay more than recommended retail prices, and that we are able to offer better terms than strict RRP on most mid to large scale projects.
- Our minimum spend for a project is in the region of £20,000. An average entry level price for a bathroom is £15,000 and for a kitchen is £35,000. By way of example for how this works in practice: for those looking to refurbish a bathroom, a project might include a bathroom combined with a smaller space, such as a cloakroom.
Try Before You Buy
- We invest in displaying products from brands that we trust as a curated selection of items that we enjoy using. Our choices are based on years of experience, enduring relationships, and our practice of building on the progressive and the innovative.
- Our design ethos is reflected in our showroom displays, in the projects we have completed, and in our choice of brand partners – we invite you to visit our showroom, our website and our social media pages to experience this in more detail. Our working kitchen and bathroom displays demonstrate both the technology and products we believe in and the value we can bring to your home.
SCHEDULES: for Design, Payment and Ordering
- Initial consultations and our first design meeting – in which we present conceptual and layout ideas, with realistic costings – are free of charge and without obligation on your part. These meetings provide an opportunity for us to demonstrate our design expertise, and for you to assess if we are the right fit for your project. Each of these meetings takes about an hour and are usually a week or two apart from each other.
- Once you are ready to engage in a detailed design phase, a 10% non-refundable deposit is payable. This is calculated using an estimated project cost and is also a first part-payment against the (actual) final project cost. The estimated cost is individual to your project and realistic but will always be subject to some change (up or down) depending on your final choices.
- Once the deposit is paid, work starts on the detailed design phase – a process that is dependent on your schedule but that, on average, takes between 4 and 8 weeks.
- During the detailed design phase your designer will arrange a first site visit, to assess the surrounding environment, the orientation of your space and to understand the style of your home, and to note any practical issues for access with any implications for specification or logistics.
- A second survey visit may be organised once a design is finalised for a detailed check measure against the final plan.
- Orders are ready to be placed when the design is finalised and agreed – including material, colour, and product choices. A further 40% of the (total) cost becomes payable at this stage, and orders are placed on receipt of this payment.
- Dates for delivery and installation are scheduled once we have confirmations of orders and delivery dates from our suppliers.
- Final payment of the (actual) cost is due 14 days before delivery.
Installation
Installation is listed as a separate service and cost. We can provide guidance on installation planning appropriate for kitchens, joinery, wardrobes or bathrooms as part of our planning process.
DESIGN WORK
INITIAL CONSULTATION
What We Need From You
- Floorplans/existing layouts – these can be estate agent sketches, architect drawings, or hand-drawn ideas with basic dimensions
- Photos and/or videos are helpful to our understanding of the (existing) space.
- Any shareable ideas you are already gathering – eg links to Pinterest boards.
- Ideas of timescales, planning hurdles, permissions etc still needed
- A budget for us to work within – this can be precise or a best guestimate.
- We will also start to gather information about how you live now, who you live with, if you require installation services, and any other relevant information.
FIRST DESIGN MEETING
What We Give You
- We always start with layout options. There is often more than one way to see a space, and we will normally suggest more than one option for layout so that we can assess the relative merits of each option with you. Laying out space intelligently is crucial to making the space look good, feel right, and flow well.
- Form now follows function. To look good and feel comfortable, a design must be attuned to our behaviour and communicate with our senses.
- Our concept proposals include visuals and mood boards – these are used to illustrate and clarify ideas, colours, materials and textures.
- Once a design is agreed, we normally arrange a full check measure of the existing site to be sure of accurate measurements and any other important details before working on drawings to a fine-detail stage. We also finalise material, colour, and product choices.
- Once choices are final, a detailed specification of the order is provided.
- As orders are placed and confirmed, a master contract is created, and logistics and installation are planned out.
- A Final Drawing Pack – including Mechanical & Engineering (M&E) drawings, fitters lists, design drawings, tile layouts (including grout thicknesses and colour) etc – will be provided in good time for installation purposes.
DELIVERY
- We will arrange delivery to you: we have warehouse facilities that enable us to consolidate deliveries so that they can coincide appropriately with installation schedules.
- Delivery is necessarily co-ordinated using a variety of sources, depending on whether the order is for a kitchen or a bathroom, and/or according to the protocols of individual manufacturers.
- We will create and agree a schedule for deliveries for and with you, to ensure that you are aware of what is being delivered, when, and by who – and so that you are ready to receive and store products in anticipation of their installation.
- Receipt of delivery requires dedicated space on site for short-term storage and someone on site to receive the delivery – receipt is often handled by the contractor, who will be experienced in handling items in readiness for installation.
Sequencing
- The sequencing of delivery is normally phased to suit the schedule agreed as logistics are being planned.
Kitchens
- In general, appliances, sinks, taps, hardware (handles etc) will be scheduled as a separate delivery from cabinets and furniture.
- Countertops and other bespoke elements that require a degree of late-stage tailoring are covered later.
Bathrooms
- First fix* delivery items (typically, all the concealed parts of a bathroom) will be delivered to site in advance of installation.
- Tiles may be delivered direct to site from the suppliers – to avoid secondary handling of a potentially fragile item.
- Second fix* items (eg, washbasins, vanity units, mirrors, shower screens, bathtubs, brassware, flush-plates, switch-plates, light fittings, etc) will be delivered to site once the site is ready for the final installation.
*scroll to end for appendix of terms
We collaborate with you to create a home that is individual to you.
Come in and see us, or call us to book a design appointment
INSTALLATION
Carefully planned and accurately realised installation is an essential part of any successful design. Working with an experienced professional installation team (including relevant trades – electrical, plumbing and gas) is the key to transferring a finished design drawing from: ‘on paper’ to: ‘as promised in your home’.
Project Management & Co-ordination
- We co-ordinate all projects through to completion, and we provide all the necessary information and support for a successful installation to be carried out by a contractor and a team of supporting specialist tradespersons.
- For the majority of projects, a separate project manager is not required – unless the project is on a grand scale, when you may require some independent input for professional project management.
Final Drawing Pack
- The Final Drawing Pack will be provided between ordering and delivery and includes:
- A fitters list – this itemises all products due for delivery, and functions both as a check list for receipt of delivery and for installation.
- Technical drawings, including Mechanical & Electrical drawings
- This Pack will be sent to you – it is for you to share with the contractor in charge of your installation – it also serves as a checklist for success.
- At this stage we recommend you arrange a handover meeting between your designer and your chosen contractor, to ensure that the processes and details are both clearly communicated and understood.
- Our design team is also available for guidance should your contractors require further assistance or advice as the installation progresses and for any unforeseen questions that may arise.
Kitchens
- We normally provide a Dry Fit service for our kitchens and any joinery projects – this is a service that is agreed and invoiced separately from the product order (see Appendix for what a dry fit includes, excludes, and all attendant service requirements).
Bathrooms
- We don’t employ bathroom installers, but we do provide all the detailed information and plans to ensure a perfect fit from your chosen installation team. We also have a trusted network of contractors for installation that we can share as part of our service. We would normally recommend sourcing more than one quote, a site visit to meet the candidates in person, and to check their availability against the anticipated schedule before committing to your team.
Stone, Worktops, Cladding and Other Bespoke Surfaces
- Bespoke surfaces – including mirrors, shower screens, worktops, cladding and vanity units – require specialist templating and installation.
- Associated costs for this service are included in the overall cost of the project.
- Timescales for the work vary according to the material, the intricacy of the work, and the fabricator.
- We will provide a care pack, which includes information on how to clean and maintain your beautiful new products.
FINAL STAGES & COMPLETION
Snagging
- Snagging is a normal part of the last stage of most construction projects. We want to ensure that your project is completed as imagined, and so we run through the detail of the project as it nears completion to ensure that all elements either are, or soon will be, present, correct, and in good working order.
Care Package
- Once your project is completed, we create a document with details for warranty registration, where to find the manuals, care instructions, and customer care connections for service and spare parts. This document is specific to your project and enables you to have a handy reference guide that covers everything you might need.
Photography and Customer Review
- We take pride in what we do, and we love taking photographs of our finished projects so that we can share them. With your permission, we will arrange a date for your new space to have a professional photographer spend a few hours in it, considering all its best angles and committing them to film.
- We always hope you will be happy with the projects we create, and the good opinion of our clients is important to us. If you can spare us a moment of your time to write us a review, it makes our day to hear that we have done a good job or how you are enjoying your new space. Feedback on anything that has been less than perfect is also gratefully received – we learn from the occasional misstep and aim to do whatever we can to put things right – for each client, and for the next time … !