“Keeping an open mind was important… once we had set our brief and budget, our job, as clients, was to limit the changes we made”
While I am slightly more comfortable with the design process than many might be, I took the decision to become an ordinary client for our third (and final) Border Oak house. I wanted to explore the typical process rather than exerting my own design feelings at the exclusion of all others.
We worked alongside the design team and architects at Border Oak for around nine months to create a bespoke plan after giving them a fairly vague initial brief. We really wanted to get the architect’s professional input, to hear fresh suggestions and to make sure it was a collaborative endeavour.
Our brief was loose — we tried to leave it with the architects so they didn’t feel restricted. Keeping an open mind was important. We didn’t give them a fixed layout or a number of bedrooms and we didn’t set a size or material palette, but we did ask for a large kitchen and vaulted, high ceilings.
I’d already put together a quick sketch and had an extensive Pinterest page with specific houses and features that I liked, and we did discuss an overall look – ‘modern vernacular’ – but this was more of a guide than a rule. When the drawings came back we were blown away with how much better and more exciting the result was.
Overall we didn’t make many amendments. The temptation to keep changing the scheme was difficult to resist, especially as I am surrounded by new house designs every week, but we knew that lots of little changes would dilute the strength of the original and so we put our faith in the proposal.
My main advice would be to chose an architectural team that understands your aims and has the flexibility to offer a variety of styles. I think a collaborative approach works well if everyone can communicate and articulate their ideas.
Once we set our brief, our job as clients was to limit the changes we made — or at least adapt our budget to include them. It was important to listen and absorb their guidance on what would be difficult and where to push boundaries.