First, let’s get the housekeeping out of the way. I was asked if I wanted to review a copy of Design Rules – The Insider’s Guide to Becoming Your Own Decorator by Elaine Griffin, which hit the book stores this week. I am not receiving any compensation to review this book - all opinions are my own.

Design Rules – The Author

Some background: Elaine Griffin is a New York interior designer, a contributing editor to Elle Decor, and ranked in House Beautiful’s list of the Top 100 American Designers. She has countless articles and magazine credits, which you can find on her website here.

Design Rules – The Book

As the introduction says, “This is the secret stuff your decorator would have told you were hiring one.”  Perfect summation – and it’s true.

         The good:

In an epiphany that will shock no one -- Elaine has very extensive knowledge and experience and it shows. I give bonus points for the simple explanations everyone can understand.

Design Rules discusses everything from how much space you need in the laundry room design to fold your clothes to letting your bathroom footage determine the sink style. It continually talks about size, scale, and proportion, while giving you numbers you can work with: “Why do people put tiny little lamps on their bedside tables is beyond me! Standard–size (22 to 27 inches tall, with shade) table lamps look so much better!”

My designer mother and I poured over the book, nodding at almost every other page. It’s a nice easy-to-read layout, with pretty illustrations throughout. I loved the section on window trims and wall decoration – not something I get into, yet my clients ask all the time. It’s explained far better than I could.

Also? The tips on the laundry room are worth the price of the book – there’s so little out on laundry rooms and the advice is very good.  (The only scratch-my-head moment I have is on page 180 where it’s stated that most washer/dryers are about 37” wide. I’ve never had a washer/wider than 30” – is this a commercial washer/dryer or perhaps a misprint?)

It’s all here, everything from bedrooms to foyers to bathrooms to basements. Two separate chapters are on the window treatments and color, with a few “break the rules” advice.

 The amusing:

• The regional differences – the foyer as a separate entity. She would cry if she saw the foyers of an average home on the West Coast. Big, separate entities they are not.
• She can level with us: she's never specified laminate counters in her life.*grin*
• Her bio says she’s from Georgia - is that why she keeps addressing us readers as “sugar”? I’ve only met three people from Georgia my entire life. Love the spoken drawl but it feels a tad over the top in print. (I can just hear all the people from Georgia reading this, “Seems normal to us, sugar. What’s your problem?”)

 The could-be-better parts: 

Design Rules feels to me like it’s trying a bit too hard to be all things to all people. Elaine’s not only a high-end designer, she’s a regional big-city designer and some of the tips reflect that.

For instance, page 109: engineered quartz is only half the price of granites. Er, sure - when one is dealing with the exotics and  higher-end specialty granites; otherwise, there is not much difference cost-wise between common granites and quartz counters (assuming same thickness and counter edges).

Her design tip on page 92 - “let a big box store become your bestest friend the very minute your first new kitchen thoughts occur…” and “…if you’re not on a budget (sigh), you can also work with a kitchen specialist” – is…well. She’s clearly never heard you readers in the forums, nor heard us say there’s not much difference in cost between the box stores and many design studios or firms. Again, regional. Your mileage may vary.

You know I was going to focus on the kitchen and bath, didn’t you?

• “Sitting the range next to a tall cupboard…is another don’t—if you can’t spread your arms from side to side while standing at the stove, you’ll feel like the kitchen is closing in on you.” Amen.
• To be fair, she’s covering a lot – but there are a few areas where she didn’t go far enough, which could lead someone to making a mistake. There’s a design tip for using 42” high wall cabinets in a 96” high ceiling. No good if the ceiling is not level, or there’s can lighting trim in the way – a frameless door will bind or scrape across the ceiling – not to mention we’ll run into code issues with a gas range unless the width of the hood fan is wider.  
• “When considering your layout, the first thing to know is the work triangle…is the kitchen’s golden fleece.”  Um, we need to talk. 

The final verdict?

The minor diversions aside, this is a good book to add to your shelf, especially if you’re a beginner. If you’re more advanced, it’s still good -- I’ll bet you’ll find a tip or two that will more than pay for the cost of the book. If you want details on how to order, click on the photo above which will take you to Elaine’s website.  But wait! There's more! (I've always wanted to say that...)

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 WIN A COPY -- THE “DESIGN RULES” GIVEAWAY

The nice publicist for the book said there was a copy of Design Rules: The Insider’s Guide to Becoming Your Own Decorator for one of you lucky readers. (Unfortunately, the offer is limited to the U.S. and Canada only, sorry.)

• Finish the following sentence “I really wish I knew the design rule for …” with your name in the comments below. (Don’t worry if someone has already said it.)

All comments will go into the fishbowl and one lucky name will be drawn on lucky 12 noon (PST) Friday, November 13th, 2009. Good luck!

What I want to share with you today is one of the biggest enthusiasm-killers to any project, the shock you get when what you had in your mind doesn’t match up with the actual costs. I’m not talking about when you first start your research, although many of you have emailed with your disappointments. I hear you.

What I’m talking about is additions either during the selection process or during the project. You know the type – you decide to add can lighting to your kitchen. You went online to a box store, added the cost of 4 can lights, 4x $ 20.00 per can (and you weren’t in California where you needed fluorescents at 4 times the cost.)  You’re thinking $ 80.00, maybe $ 100.00.

You get the bill or change order for $ 900.00.

“What?!?” you say. “Wait a minute, I’m not paying for this! It should have cost 1/8th of that.” Now you’re steaming mad, refuse to pay, hop on the internets and blast your contractor for being a crook.

Hold on. Yes, your contractor was wrong, but not for the reason you think.

One of the biggest common failings in our industry is that we have a tendancy to assume you all automatically know what we do AND how we do it. *scratch head*  I don’t know why, but we figure just by talking to us, you have somehow absorbed every aspect of our business. Silly, isn’t it? Then we end up all shocked that you would be shocked, because we actually gave you a discount even though we had to drop everything else to accommodate this last minute change and it put us a day behind at another job and now our other client is upset.

Hurt feelings all around, but really?  That’s our fault. We need to step it up and recognize no, you don’t know:

• the cans you saw online – that $ 20.00 is just for the trim. They need housing and assembly which costs extra. The bulbs are also on top of this. New price: $ 38.00
• the housing looks like this:
• 
• the sheetrock and/or plaster has to be cut for 4 boxes. The ceiling joists weren’t in the right spot and the contractor had to add some framing in the ceiling so that the lights would line up exactly where you want them
• the sheetrock also had to be cut out on the wall for the light switch
• somebody had to go pick up the lights (and Murphy’s Law being what it is, the store was out of stock and there was an extra 1/2 hour drive to another store for pickup. You probably weren’t charged for the extra trip, but when you ask why it’s taking so long, that’s one of the time-killers on any job.)
• you forgot to add in the 2 hours of electrician’s time
• the electrician found a wiring mess buried in the insulation and had to repair it
• someone had to repair the sheetrock
• someone else had to paint the ceiling. If it’s done properly, the entire ceiling was painted, not just 4 small patches(Sometimes it’s more labor taping around a patch then spraying the entire ceiling)
• the mess of sheetrock, insulation bits, and wiring had to be cleaned up

Knowing what’s involved is a big step towards understanding.  Repeat after me: Failed expectations are the sole cause of anger. Ommm.  *grin*

The last few years, I’ve taken time to explain where the costs come from and if I can, in the early stages, so that the adjustments for both budget and expectations can be made. Sure, I still have clients say: “I had no idea there was so much to this”, but at least they didn’t have any surprises.

And that’s my 2 cents for the day.

~*~

Thank you for your kind words, Kathy –  we’re always up for sharing and fun, which is good because my virtual coffee’s horrible….

I’m convinced your email is my final sign from the universe for me to blog this because you’re not the first reader to email, and I just had the exact same discussion with a former client.

First of all, I sympathize – it would be nice to have an architect who’s also a kitchen specialist, but since you don’t, here are some thoughts and options.

I remember reading a poll this year on remodeling and it went something like this -- if people had to redo their kitchen all over, a good percentage of them would have spend more money on their cabinets. For some reason (major marketing dollars), appliances are perceived as having more glamour, but it’s the cabinets and counters that are the workhorse of the kitchen. Do you have to spend the ultimate on your cabinets? Of course not – there are many decent solid cabinets out there.

So here’s a big insider tip for you:

There are many, many companies that you could go to that are smaller studios, possibly even designing with the same cabinets, who have very experienced/trained kitchen designers and/or Certified Kitchen Designers who will design your kitchen for either the same price or not much different than what you’ll pay at a big store.

Yup. I know this because a) we did it for years with our family showroom and b) our company is doing it now.

There are only two reasons why a comparable price cabinet should be different:

• the company is using them as a “loss leader” – ie. selling next to cost to bring you into the store (in which case, this is a deal for you – go for it.)
• the designer is actually designing the kitchen for you and some of the choices may be more expensive. Let me explain what that means. We get designs from big stores all the time.  The first thing I notice is the 2-step crown molding is always left off the design. The reason?  It adds $ 800.00 – $ 1,300.00 to a mid-size kitchen (depending on amount and style.) Kitchen 101 in how to make a kitchen price "cheaper."

Okay, there might be 3 reasons: overhead might be hefty, yet even then, the cost isn’t going to be loaded all on the cabinets you invest in.

I can’t speak for all designers, but the kitchen designers I know design for the client’s lifestyle, not simply the bottom line. The reasons? Of course it’s our livelihood too, but there’s also professional pride at stake; our reputations make or break our career. Basic, cookie-cutter layouts aren’t our thing – we want to find out what your storage requirements are, where we need to position the small appliances, how we can get the kids making their after-school snacks out of the way so you can work in your kitchen.

Can the bottom line and the lifestyle mesh? Absolutely.

Now it’s not fair to lump all kitchen planners working in a box store – as with everything, it depends; they may be beginning designers, or experienced designer working because the hours fit in better, I don’t know. But I do know the focus of the store is more on getting the price out quickly than getting deep into design.

Also? There are two things that make my ears perk up:  Blind corners, while a cheaper alternative than a double corner unit and sometimes necessary for layouts, should be avoided in favor of something easier to reach, especially with the “many years to come” statement.

So here are some options:

1. See if you can’t arrange some interviews with smaller companies with the same cabinet lines or similar. If you can find family businesses, even better, but I’m prejudiced – a consumer never has to give you grief for something you did wrong, because your family will dish it out even worse. For years. (I’ve heard.) There is either no cost or minimal cost to have the designer work with you if you’re buying the cabinets from them.
2. If you really like Lowe’s, hire an independent kitchen designer. Pay them for their expertise. Get them to work with your architect for the best fit. A good designer will charge anywhere from $ 75.00 – $ 200.00 depending on experience. The more experience, the less hours it takes. (At least it did for me and my clients.) Get the design hammered out and THEN take it to Lowe’s.

You never want look back and say, “If only…”  and while it may feel wrong now to spend all this money on the architect and have to spend more for a kitchen design, you won’t feel that way at all if it doesn’t turn out the how you want. You’re not doing a home for a 2-year turnaround, or something that you won’t be living in as often because it’s a second home. This is it: figuring out your layout is crucial. Make sure the designer you choose is something you can mind-meld with – we only have one life – go for excited mode instead of dubious. Repeat after me: this should be fun!

But then, I’m prejudiced – I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now. Good luck, and keep us in the loop, please?  I’m sure all the other readers’ are like me, “I wonder what she’s going to do?” *grin*

And if any of you have a story to share, let’s hear it!

There’s two websites I thought you might have fun poking around in. One of them I’ve known for awhile; the other is one Paul from Kitchen and Residential Design urged me to see.

1) RetroRenovation

Do you have a mid-century home? In love with room design from the ‘40s - ‘60s? Want to talk to other fans of O’Keefe and Merritt stoves? Then you need to head over to see Pam at RetroRenovation. What I like about the site is that she’s a big fan of recycling, and she also cautions that it isn’t a DIY-site – more of a place to research for authenticity and meet with others to find retro items. She also cautions you about undertaking a remodel yourself, as a lot of the mid-century homes had their share of asbestos and lead paint (esp. the 1940s homes.)

What perhaps amuses me most is that several of the 1960s rooms look very much like the rooms the 20- and 30-year-old interior designers swoon over. Look at the picture above – that’s not 2009, that’s 1957, ladies and gentlemen.*sigh*  I grew up with it; still can’t get enthused with that style.

But I can about the rest and so might you; enjoy!

2) KitchenClarity

Sarah’s an interior designer specializing in interior design in my neck of the woods. She pokes fun at some of the design trends like the lettering above (which we all need to do occasionally), but she also discusses design in a very straightforward and easy-to-read way. She features many kitchens (some with very poor layouts, and she calls them on it once in awhile – yay!) All around, a nice blog.

Welcome, both of you.