Monday
Making a conscious effort to be environmentally aware, I leave for an early site meeting by Public Transport. I arrive late. The builder I have come to see is unhappy. The object of our meeting is to position in the main bathroom of the house that Egerton Designs is doing up, the shower valve and the shower rose; the floating loo and the stunning Belfast sink that my Client loves.
The builder, who is not accustomed to working with interior designers, finds very many reasons why the plumbing cannot be laid out to accommodate Egerton Designs’ design and layout. However we toil together over the rough parts and position the shower valves - and the remainder falls into place. The builder makes an effort to conceal his disdain for my Client’s beloved sink. He and I eventually achieve some kind of modus vivendi and part as friends.
I leave at a canter and take 6 trains in order my reach my office in Clerkenwell.
My assistant is frantic as we have a Client meeting later in Victoria, and sample of the marble that we need to take along to show her has arrived but in the wrong colour. The marble is a vital component in our design scheme. It is too late to do anything about changing the sample before our meeting. Extraordinary to think that two different stone galleries in London can stock a marble of the same name but in significantly differing looks and colour.
Spend two hours trying to find a special shade of a historic cool khaki green paint, which I want to specify for the entire ground floor of a house we are currently gutting and re-building in Battersea. This green will set the design mood for the entire design scheme and I am determined to get it right. Luckily an architect who works in the same building as us, recognises the colour which he had used before. We check the colour. Sadly, is wrong. And we have to get it right. Part of our training !
A Day in the life of a busy interior designer - 2 - September 2009
At 6.45 I switch off my computer and set off to walk two miles in the direction of home. My mobile phone rings. A colleague on site where we laid out the plumbing this morning reports that the piping has been run for the shower, but the diverter and valves now sit proudly on the wall, all in the wrong place.
I realise that I have missed the Archers yet again. I quicken my pace and decide to persevere with buses and reflect on my minor contribution to the environment and, just as importantly, to the money I have saved getting about today.
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