You have the plans through from the architect and are starting to get excited about the build of your new home. But have you missed a step in the process? Is the outside of your home beautifully considered, but you’re not sure how the kitchen will work for you in your everyday life, where you'll put your coats when you walk through your beautiful front door or whether you'll truly be able to relax in your snug unless you have the perfectly proportioned TV-to-sofa position.

It’s time to Spatial Plan! As Interior Designers we take the wonderful works of your architectural team and develop the layouts from boxes on a plan into fully functional spaces to suit your lifestyle. A living room, kitchen, utility room, bedrooms and bathrooms will have been allowed for and marked in the overall square footage, but the positioning and workings of these spaces will not have been worked through.

Our role as Interior Designers is to fully consider living in the space, how do we make sure your home is easy to live in, simple to tidy, how do we make the day to day easy - for you. During our Spatial Planning phase we consider everything from which room to use to maximise the natural light and aspect for the time of day you'll use the space; essential storage to keep your home looking effortlessly tidy and working as seamlessly as a Swiss watch; your preference of a sink to the left not the right of the dishwasher and the overall flow of the spaces to suit the day to day running of your house

In short, we make your home work, beautifully.

MUST HAVE FEATURE #1: A PLAN FOR PRACTICAL AMENITIES

I need to start here by saying Studio Dean always works 100% function first. We are obsessed with making every part of your home practical, and usable before we then sprinkle the design dust and make it beautiful too with oodles of quiet luxury.

Do you really need Bi-folding doors?

Hands up if you simply cannot imagine your home without wall to wall bi- fold doors opening to let the outside in?

We see this desire realised time and time again, and from the outside, this looks great.....but let's be real here, we are based in the UK not California and we have around 362 days of drizzle. Giving up an entire wall of space to glazing limits placement of furniture and cabinetry. Don't get us wrong, we LOVE natural light, glazing, roof lights, sun pipes, curtain wall systems, sliding doors, french doors and everything in between, but we want your room to be both beautiful and functional.

If you opt for those bi-folds you are going to end up with a huge amount of frame just for the one day of sunshine where you can open up the entire wall, and you are missing the opportunity to have a beautifully functional space. Instead of the bi-fold why not opt for a striking picture window with a storage bench seat below for lounging on reading a good book whilst gazing out of said window from your cosy warm home. We know which one we'd prefer!

Fresh laundry idea:

How often have you decided to get dressed and undressed in the kitchen? Never, right? So why have your laundry near there?

You use your bedrooms and bathrooms for dressing and undressing, and I bet you are currently lugging your dirty clothes down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the utility, only to then launder, fold and return them. Ever wondered why? Or have you always just accepted that is how it is? Honestly, the one and only reason a laundry / utility is located close to the kitchen is to make it easier for the plumber and builder. They only have to run the pipes a meter or so further if you have it there and so it is easier for the trade teams. But it is not easier for you and your everyday life (and millions of laundry loads). Our job is to make your home work - for you.

We really consider the day to day running of your life. Often handing over far more space to the functional than you may typically see; laundry rooms are high use spaces, and they matter! If you have a family like mine (we do 3 loads per day most days) - that's a lot of walking around carrying clothes / bed linens / towels from one part of the house to the next! So stop, let's rethink this and make the space work for you every single day.

Studio Dean’s laundry rooms incorporate folding areas, laundry sorting baskets, built-in clothing airers, pull out basket shelves, ironing fold outs and so much more. They truly enhance your day to day and even more importantly keep the laundry contained, no more clothes drying all over the house, folded piles crumpled on the stairs and an overflowing laundry basket you have to lug around your home day in day out - bliss!

MUST HAVE FEATURE #2: A STRATEGY FOR FUNCTIONAL STORAGE

Do you dream of a home where you can walk into the hallway freely without tripping over shoes and fighting with overflowing coat hooks?

Do you find yourself frustrated that you have to dig out the hoover from the back of the under-stairs cupboard every time you see crumbs on the floor?

Us too! These things matter. Having everything organised and to hand when you need it makes life that little bit easier, every single day, the homes we create have this at their heart, they are easy to live in. Something as simple as a well considered cleaning cupboard / zone is a must have; a socket to charge the cordless vacuum, a tall section to store the ironing board, a plethora of hooks for cleaning cloths, dustpan and brush and the feather duster, a deep sectioned drawer to sort and organise cleaning products by type and room.....all of these things are considered by us in our designs.

At Studio Dean, we live for these kinds of solutions. Our promise to any client is that we will always consider function first, never will we create a picture perfect space you cannot easily use day to day. To do this we are forever imagining new storage solutions. Pull outs, vertical spaces, drawers in staircases, a simple wall of multiple height hooks - we love to solve the day to day storage issues in your home. These smart solutions mean the beautiful designs we create remain beautiful because they do not get filled with overflow and clutter from a lack of functional space.

Perhaps this functional and realistic thinking is not what you thought an Interior Designer would bring to the party? Many people believe we are only aesthetic, advising on the colours and the curtains and leaving the rest to the client, builder or architect. We simply could not work that way, we are not in the business of creating a great photo, we work with our clients to make every day living perfect.

MUST HAVE FEATURE #3: A LAYOUT FOR LIGHTING

Now that we have the storage and practicalities under control, let's turn our thoughts to lighting.

This often overlooked feature can make or break a space, a grid of spotlights thrown into your ceiling will make even the most beautiful of spaces feel like an operating theatre. That wash of overbearing overhead light is perfect for intricate scalpel work but less so for an intimate dinner party.

Just as we'd layer texture and tone in soft furnishing, in lighting design we introduce varied levels and types of lighting. Central pendants, though incorporated in every single home, are often the more ornamental in our schemes and they are certainly never a stand alone source of light. Consider them a really wonderful piece of jewellery that should look as beautiful turned off as they do turned on. We support these central features with a plethora of lighting types and styles.

Task lighting: Think downlighters (please never the cheap chrome ones from your local DIY store, there are so so many other options!), can lights, directional ceiling lights, LED strip light, track lights - any 'non feature' lighting would go into this category. They are not the star of the show but work to either highlight the stars or help you perform a function.

Lamp lighting: Never forget their power. Table lamps with shades for a soft warm diffused light, arched floor lamps for a statement feature over a sofa or armchair, sculptural lamps for pockets of glow and interest and even drop a pendant very low over a side table to make a ceiling light double as a lamp.

Wall Lighting: Perhaps it reminds you of the 90s where we all had matching sconces to the central pendant but trust me this lighting category has moved on and it is an essential! Bar lights throwing a soft glow onto a textured paper wall, armed wall lights creating the perfect reading light, wall lights by the bedside saving essential space, loft rooms and low ceiling height spaces love a wall light - they save a lot of bashed heads. Convinced?

Accent Lighting: These are the little pockets of joy you see when the stair tread lights up every other step (I love this!), the handrail has an LED glow behind it, a plant has an uplighter in it drawing your eye to the corner, they are not needed but my do they add a sense of purpose.

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to plan everything before you start, consider it, and work with your professional team long before you start your project. The earlier you have your interior design team involved and communicating with one another the better the result will be; bringing the expertises together is really where the magic happens. We all add our very own essential pieces to the puzzle of your home renovation.

My other, mantra is: Change is the enemy! Plan it, decide it and stick to it. The building itself will force some change as it evolves but with a clear plan of where you are heading, coping with the unexpected is a whole heap simpler!

If you would like some support designing your perfect home in Newcastle, Northumberland or Scotland, Studio Dean would love to help. Reach out and let's get to know each other.

Until next time,