January 2005 Pro to Pro

Have a question, and looking for feedback from industry peers? This month, K&BDN listens in on dialogue between industry professionals, as excerpted from the KitchenBathPros.com' online Designer Discussion Forum.

Have a question, and looking for feedback from industry peers? This month, K&BDN listens in on dialogue between industry professionals, as excerpted from the KitchenBathPros.com online Designer Discussion Forum.

Creative Ideas For Display Doors

Question
Does anyone have any creative ideas on displaying door samples? We have too many doors and not enough wall space.

Response 1
See if your manufacturer has a turntable to display your door samples. You can usually display eight doors in a turntable display. The turntable shouldn't take up more than 2-3 square feet of floor space.

Response 2
In our conference room, we have a wall-to-wall tall cabinet display with two 36"x96" glass panel door units flanking a deeper 48"x102" center unit. In addition to being a sample of the cabinetry for clients to inspect, we use them to store our smaller samples, doors, blocks etc.

The side units were fitted with vertical tray dividers in three equal height sections, which we now use to "file away" a lot of our door samples (without hardware) in an easily accessible way.

The center unit has drawers from floor to about counter top height and solid panel doors above. We keep most of our color sample blocks/chips, molding samples and other smaller items filed away in these drawers. It keeps them well organized and just a step or two from the conference table for client meetings.

Response 3
We have a large showroom, however, space for doors was a problem for us also. On one side of the showroom, we created a country display from lemonade cabinetry with a large custom "plate rack." It was a creative way of storing the doors and incorporating a new look for the showroom. Of course the easiest and most space efficient would be to order the display case from the cabinet company you sell.

When Clients 'Steal' Designs

Question
I'm sure that we all had this problem in the past and I would like to know how others would approach it. I'm in the New York area, there's cut throat competition here, and a lady comes to me with plans from another designer. She tells me she didn't pay for them, and would rather work with me, but there was one detail she liked about their layout. Should I look at it? What would you do? (I should also point out here that I don't charge design fees for my work)

Response 1
It does not have to do with honesty. It has to do with the complexity of the design process. The truth is: "Mrs. Jones, you know, there is not one simple answer to this question I can see at least several solutions to this one detail right away. I can also see other areas of the plan which could use some fine-tuning. We can only explore that if you become a client of ours."

Ultimately, you have no protection of your ideas if you do not charge design fees. So, if you do not do that, the question is moot you have to give it away then for free. There is not much protection for you.

Response 2
And that is why you should charge for your plans.
If Ms. Client does that to the first designer, what's to stop her from doing the same to you?
If the client is truly interested in working with you, ask for a cabinetry deposit or something to get going.

How much value do people place on something that is free? Nothing. Show them your professionalism, share with them that "of course, you wouldn't work for free either, would you?"

By the way, I used to work in an area where there were 17 design shops in a town of 70,000, and we were the only one to charge design fees. We thought we would go down the tube for doing it, but we got so sick of people "borrowing" our designs that frankly, we didn't care anymore. It weeded out the bottom feeders and attracted the clients we wanted to work with. No one in the business could understand how we were "getting away with it," but we left that aspect for them to mull over while the clients said how nice it was to work with professionals.