“Thank you for a fabulous educational and FUN week. I will be back!”
Juliettes Design School doesn’t just mean a journey through the fundamentals of the interior design process. New student Debbie travelled all the way from Texas for her Bespoke One-to-One Interior Design Course. She spent the week here in London, on her way to a villa in the South of France. This week we focus on Debbie and her five day interior design course, from quick sketches to finished design. We are also hoping to share pictures of the finished room in a future post so watch this space. If you feel inspired to unleash your inner designer, why not choose your dates and join us for a week of intensive tuition in the heart of Chelsea’s Design District?
Day One: The Basics
Arriving bright and early(ish) on Monday morning, Debbie had brought with her the measurements and photographs of her chosen room. In this case, a master bedroom, together with a huge amount of enthusiasm and her own inimitable sense of style. Every day, we looked forward to her quiet confidence, her beautifully individual dress sense, gorgeous shoes and luscious (decidedly covetable) handbags.
Interior Design To Scale
Tutor Rozan started the week by explaining how to draw plans to scale. This included doing exercises to get to grips with the scale rule and drawing board and equipment. Debbie needed to master these before starting work on the master bedroom itself. By the end of the day, we had accurate floor plans ready to start thinking about luxury furniture, colours and finishes.
Day Two: Interiors Inspiration
Day Two gave us the opportunity to wander along the Kings Road. We did a bit of window shopping and browsed some of the inspiring shops in Chelsea’s Design District. Back at the showroom, we then started pulling together various luxury furniture options. Of course, paying particular attention to fitting styles not only for the size and shape of the room, but the look Debbie wanted to achieve. Using the scale drawing skills from Day One, Debbie drew each item of furniture to scale on tracing paper. Once cut out, she could experiment with layouts to make the best use of the space and flow of the room.
Day Three: Samples Galore
Day Three was a full day at Chelsea Design Centre, collecting paint colours, fabric samples, ideas and inspiration for our intended room designs. Debbie already knew she was leaning towards something classic but colourful, with feminine, floral touches in shades of pink and green. To this she added some delightful accents of silver, beautiful mirrors and a dash of sparkle. She found herself particularly drawn to the idea of a beautiful, cascading crystal chandelier.
Day Four: Elevations
Day Four was all about narrowing down samples to refine the room, making sure that all pieces worked seamlessly together. Again, using the scale drawing skills, we worked on an elevation of a feature wall, showing how the various pieces of furniture would work in terms of height, relationship with windows and each other, etc. This really helps to visualise exactly how each piece will look in the finished room. This is the part that really crystallised Debbie’s ideas, making it easier to choose just the right items of luxury furniture, bringing her ideas together.
Day Five: Finishing Touches
Day Five was a flurry of fabrics and finishes, putting together Debbie’s final mood board and finalising each item of luxury furniture and its position in the master bedroom. The result is unashamedly opulent and fabulously feminine, with a wonderfully romantic bespoke bed, luxuriously tactile, textured fabrics and spectacular gloss and metallic finishes. With the mood board complete, all that was left to do was calculate quantities and costings of fabrics and wallcoverings. The final element of the interior design course was to learn how to budget for the entire project, including installation. Et voilà, one stunning master bedroom design, all ready for Debbie to get started – and a set of skills she can use for any future interior design project.
Interior Design Course Outcome
In fact, Debbie has wasted no time. By the next Monday morning, she was ordering her chosen luxury furniture, taking advantage of her 20% student discount off any items from Juliettes Interiors and any of the other retailers she visited during the design school course. We can’t wait to see the finished result!
Your Own Design School Journey
As well as Bespoke One-to-One Courses, we also offer Small Group Interior Design Courses with a maximum of 5 students. Simply choose your dates, pop along to our Chelsea showroom and unleash your inner designer!
