How to get started with furnishing your home?

You are ready to embark on one of the most exciting experiences of your life: furnishing your home. You have decided against doing it alone, instead preferring to hire professional help. But where can you find the right company or person for you and your home?

Before you rush out to get quotes, it is worth doing a bit of groundwork.

Here are some points to consider and take notes on before you start looking at service providers.

Now, once you have completed your homework, it is time to a find a suitable furnishing service provider.

Here are some points to consider and take notes on before you start looking at service providers.

1. Budget
   Before anything else, it is a good idea to figure out how much money you are willing to invest in your new home. Be honest with yourself and try to stay realistic in setting your budget, as it will be the backbone of the entire furnishing process.
2. Time
   Another major point of consideration is your time, because you probably place a value on that too. Try to figure out how extensive a project you want to undertake and how much time you can devote to it. For example, in the final stage of the furnishing process, where installation work begins, it can happen that if the project is very extensive, and you may need to find another place to live for a while.
3. Style
   How do you envision your future home? If you have yet to decide on the style, try collecting some examples for inspiration from magazines and newspapers. This will help your furnishing provider get a better understanding of what you are after.
4. Ideas
   Now it is time to put your ideas together. Save all your favorite styles, colour schemes, finishes, and pieces of furniture in one place. For example, Pinterest is a great place to aggregate your ideas. There you can create a separate album for each room, e.g., the living room, wardrobe, bedroom, etc., and fill it with samples of your favourite styles.

Now, once you have completed your homework, it is time to a find a suitable furnishing service provider.

Before hiring any company or person, however, it is worth asking them some key questions so you can be sure that you have made the right decision.

1. Previous projects and referrals
Make sure the service provider you want to hire has a portfolio that really gets you excited about what your own home can be like. Previously completed projects can be an excellent example of suitable styles and a business card that can tell you who you can trust to get the job done. OCCO’s portfolio, for example, can be found here.

2. Which services are you interested in?
Do you just want to lightly touch up a single room or are you looking for a complete solution for your entire home?

Find out if your preferred furnishing service provider can actually deliver what you need. Here are some services you might want to explore in more detail:
• personal consultation,
• moodboard creation,
• 3D drawings,
• concept creation,
• measuring work,
• installation.

Read about OCCO’s method here.

3.  What is the plan for the project?
The way your service provider manages their project can soon give you a good idea of what the process will be like. Therefore, before you make your final decision, we recommend meeting the provider or designer in person to enquire about how they normally plan their work, how long each task might take, and how the final price will be determined.

4.  How are the service charges calculated?
Service charges are directly related to your budget. As such, it pays to find out how they are calculated and what kind of unexpected costs you could run into. Service charges are often calculated either based on the content of the project, on an hourly basis, or as a certain percentage of the total cost of the project.

Schedule your appointment with OCCO’s designer today!

5.  Do your styles match?
While, ideally, furnishing service providers should be able to cater to all types of clients, the results may not always speak for themselves. That is why it is best to find a provider that has extensive experience in implementing different styles as well as the means to work with a variety of brands.

Now that you know what groundwork you need to do and what questions to ask your future service provider, you are one step closer to your dream home! OCCO’s designers are just a few clicks away and happy to help you in any way they can, because furnishing is what we do and love!