As a strong contender in the sea of home renovation companies in London, we are an architectural firm that constantly strives to continually provide amazing services to accommodate our clients’ needs. At Home Tales, we believe that maintaining a great line of communication with our clients contributes to a smooth and stress-free house renovation, as well as a beautiful finish. Therefore, we wanted to share how Architects and designers alike have adapted to the current climate, and how they can now carry these works out remotely. This will allow you, the client, to understand the reasoning behind certain choices that the designer might make.

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Initial consultation

For your first remote meeting with an Architect/architectural designer, you are required to share your full name and address. Your name will be used in all associated documentation, including the subsequent planning application. Your full address is useful for the designer as it allows them to perform an investigation on the history of your property and the neighbouring houses. They will also check if your property sits within a conservation area. If it is located within one of these boundaries, your application would require specific considerations before submission.

This investigation is incredibly helpful, as your architectural designer will be able to get a gauge of the local council’s views on a certain type of project i.e., loft conversion, ground extension, etc. If your neighbourhood has plenty of approvals, your application should go smoothly. However, if your street has seen many refusals, your designer may need to take particular care with the restrictions that your council have outlined. If they have worked with your local authority before, you will be in a good position as that experience will allow them to refer to constrictions previously discussed with the council.

Design process

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If you have a vision for your renovation, you’ll make the architectural designer’s job simpler as expressing your requirements will streamline your design process. This will inform the quote given to you, which can be done prior to a site visit. The designer can alter the layout to meet your expectations, avoiding any time wasted on layouts you would never approve of. For example, some of our clients have previously provided us with a brief summary of their expectations, images for inspiration, or a mood board. If you are intending on doing the works in a newly purchased property, there may also be an online estate agent listing that would be helpful as they tend to include a rough floor plan. This is particularly good for the initial telephone consultation as it can make discussions clearer. Something that will help you with managing your expectations is to set a realistic budget. This will help your designer to tweak your desired renovation to fit this budget.

All of this is to ensure you are not missing out in any way by having your initial consultation remotely.

Surveying

Surveying involves measuring the layout of your home, making it an unavoidable step that can’t be done remotely when renovating a property. It is a required task to allow the architectural designer to create an accurate plan of the existing layout. These documents will be used by the council, your builders, and any other accompanied bodies. It also makes sure you receive the most accurate design i.e., when fitting standard sized doors and windows, it may be crucial to know if a wall can accommodate this feature. Some Architects/designers will attempt to undertake this remotely by asking the client to take their own measurements and photographs. This can be tricky as clients are mostly not familiar with doing this, so measurements can be inaccurate.

At Home Tales, we prefer to send a member of our design team for this task, generally avoiding the need for our clients to do any work. We also take plenty of photographs and confer with maps to further inform our drawings. This visit is also a great opportunity for you to show us exactly what you would like for your renovation. Following the survey, we would have an in-depth design meeting in which we discuss everything you require i.e., an extra bathroom or bedroom.

Drawings

An architectural designer will produce a pack of drawings which usually includes a site plan, existing floor plans and proposed floor plans, along with other drawings that may be requested by the council. While developing the proposal, the designer will be in contact with you often to offer you multiple layout/design options for your prospective home improvement project. Once you are happy with a design, the application can proceed by submitting your planning application and obtaining structural drawings. Although not all architectural designers help you with these stages, Home Tales can help you to create and submit your planning application, as well as produce a building regulations pack amongst other things. For more details of all the stages that we are involved in please visit www.hometales.co.uk/process.

If you would like to discuss this process further with us, we would love to hear from you. Furthermore, if you have any prospective home improvement projects that you would like to share with us, please contact us on 02070432378 or via email at hello@hometales.co.uk. Alternatively, you can click here to book a telephone consultation for a time that best suits you.