Backstory - The Color-Selection Appointment

We had our color-selection appointment in early November and it consisted of two parts, the electrical appointment and "the rest".  The Rest involves selection of everything from bricks, roof-tiles, facias, doors, door-handles, kitchen cabinets, plus paint colors, architraves, skirts and tap-ware.

The whole process takes the better part of a whole day and the consultants guide you through the process.

How the 'Consultant' Works
The role of the consultant in the process is to guide you through a series decisions in a fixed amount of time, with the outcome being that you don't hate what you've chosen once the house is built.  You will find that they never actually give advice per se, and carefully avoid being questioned for their opinion or expertise.  Their role is  to guide you to your conclusion.



A few of the choices we made...

Here is an example of how this process works.  Our consultant was a pleasant young woman - she clearly had some experience and qualification in interior design or something similar.  However, her process for guiding us to a decision was be a steady elimination of alternatives.  When choosing something (let's say laminate designs for kitchen benchtops) she would typically start with a selection of 5 different alternatives.  I noticed this pattern emerged during the course of the day.  Of the five alternatives, two would be almost identical, and one would be completely wrong.  We would quickly eliminate the one that was completely wrong, leaving four alternatives.  But really, with two very similar ones, it was effectively three alternatives.  When compared with other choices we had already made, we found that we could eliminate at least one of the remaining choices.  So we inevitably found ourselves selecting between two or three options or each decision we were making.


More Choices...

The bottom line is this - if you are expecting your colour selection appointment to be in any way a collaborative or creative session with an experienced interior designer, you will probably be disappointed.  As I said, the role of the consultant is not to be creative or give interior design advice.  They are there to help walk you through a decision-making process that requires you to make a large number of decisions in just a few hours.

Advice

And yet more choices...

Check it out prior to the appointment - Most builders allow you to have a look around prior to your actual appointment (I know that Simonds do and Porter Davis certainly allow you to have a look around on weekends without an appointment).  It is a really good idea to do this, as, if you know what you want, you can make notes of any number of choices really quickly prior to the appointment.

Block out the whole day - Don't really plan on getting anything else done during the day of the appointment - it really does take a long time and it is mentally exhausting.

Read through everything carefully - Even though the process is exhausting, you will be asked to sign off the forms at the end of the session.  It pays it summon up the energy to carefully read and review what you are signing.  Marina is way better at this than me and she was able to spot several errors.