Last week I shared a blog post letting you all know that I would be participating in the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge again (YAY!) by making over my own ugly, neglected bedroom. If you missed it, click here to give it a read!
The difference between these year and lasts Week One blog posts is that I didn't include a visual aid about the vibe I'm going for. In that post I shared a mood board that put a visual to the vision and even gave a brief description on how I use mood boards in projects. Nor did I tell you guys much about what I'm planing for in there. Well, this blog post is going to showcase the renders I developed to really finalize the concept, space planning and type of items I’ll be including in the final look - I already know the vibe I want to achieve in there so I don't need to use a mood board to nail that down.
A mood board is:
A collage of items, other rooms, objects and so on that create a visual vibe to help me get right into the clients style. Most of the time, objects in a mood board ARE NOT SHOPPABLE, they are grabbed on the fly from google, pinterest and so on. This is really the first or second step I go through with clients when they hire me. Here's the one I made last year for the dining room:
Soooo, what is a render you ask?
A render is a deliverable that designers use to show clients what the room will look like with all the proposed changes. It’s basically a digital photograph of the concept for your future space.
Renders take a long time to develop because every single aspect of a physical space has to be built into it... yup, even the baseboards. Packages that include renders tend to be the top tier option for eDesign packages because of the amount of hours that go into making them realistic. And, they are a standard visual aid used in in-person design projects - which are more intense projects often involving renovations of some sort.
There are many different ways that designers use renders and also at different points in a project that they might be delivered to the client.
In Virtual projects, we use them after the mood board, before specific shoppable items are selected. Because we never actually meet our virtual clients, this helps us ensure we are totally aligned with their vision. In this instance, the items in the render are not necessarily shoppable. They are more of a representation of what the designer will look for once you approve the look.
But in In-Person projects, we source all the items that will go in a room, then when building the renders. We're able to do it this way because we have gotten to personally know our clients - we have spent a lot of time discovering their style during a meeting after the paperwork is signed and we get started working with them.
Every project is different and there are key differences between how In-Person projects work and how Virtual projects work. We assess the project's needs and will adjust our process if necessary. But here's how it looks on the back end of things:
First, the floor plan is built. Using this, I then plan the space to match how the clients will use it, see what items will fit in the room and the best size of each in conjunction to each other. This is a more technical part of the design process, where the little things that we don’t necessarily consider in our day-to-day lives are planned. Like, how you walk through a space to get to different rooms or areas, the scale and balance between different items in the room, lighting and so on. When something is off about these things, you will definitely notice while you are using the space, so it's a super important step.
Next, I move on to sourcing some of the big pieces that will be in the room. Sectionals, tables, chairs, beds, dressers, desks and so on. Once I have options in place for those pieces I start building the renders and putting an actual look together in both the renders and a concept board. (We'll go over what concept boards are in an upcoming post so don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already!)
Then it's time to submit for approval. When I present the renders to a client, if they are not totally in love and muttering wow under their breath, it's time to figure out why? Is there something missing they might like to see but perhaps we never discussed? Is there something they want to change now that they can actually see the look in a tangible form? Maybe they have changed their mind about something we did discuss.
Now that you’ve had a brief intro to renders, let’s take a look at the conceptual ones I put together for my bedroom:
Tell me the truth, would you have thought those were photographs if I hadn't told you it wasn't?
That's because the program that I use renders in 4K, it also offers interactive panoramic views of the space like below:
Cool Right?!?!
OH AND, we provide a totally interactive Virtual Tour of the space!!!
(Click the hotspots to move through the apartment!)
If the embedded tour above didn't open on your device,
These Panoramic views and virtual tours are a standard deliverable for clients who hire us for their project - whether it's Virtual or In-Person.
You can book a free Discovery Call to find out which type of service works best for your project HERE!
Remember, the items in renders are totally conceptual at this point, this means that the exact items you are seeing are not always shoppable, but it’s almost always possible to find the exact or a very similar item. If the item can’t be found or when it is, or it doesn’t fit the project credentials (budget, size, colour, etc.) then the search will be expanded to find an item that does the same thing. (ie. a chair for a chair, a vase for a sculpture, a painting for a mirror, and so on.)
For my bedroom, I'm still deciding on what to put on the right hand side (when facing the bed) - but I think it will be either a cube shelf or a chest of drawers!
If you liked this blog post, scroll on down, hit the like button and drop me a comment - I love hearing from you guys and I always respond.
PLUS, we had to change the app that housed all of our blog comments...
so, unfortunately we lost them all!!!!
Want to see the previous post in this series?
And, don't forget to take a look at what the other fab designer are doing for their ORC by clicking the link below!
