French Designing® projects follow a smooth, hassle-free process, executed in three seamless steps. These steps begin with a free consultation, offered to all prospective clients.
Step One: Free Consultation
We offer a free* consultation on our first meeting to discuss your project. Together, we will explore various avenues to execute your decoration project, taking into consideration your home's configuration, your taste, the design scheme that you have in mind, and your budget. We will advise you on what we consider the wisest choice to make, bearing in mind issues of practicality, endurance and investment. In the case of a staging consultation, since it is an occasional service, the consultation will be over the telephone or the Internet. In this manner, we can exchange basic information including your ideas for your project, and arrange an optimal follow-up staging visit. During follow-up staging visits, we charge at our regular rate.
* If you do not live in a close radius of the Washington DC metropolitan area, we charge a minimal fee to cover travel and related expenses.
Step Two: Prototype Design
For design services or decorative painting projects, following a satisfactory first consultation, we will make a design prototype or a sample, at a fee. The design prototype will describe the newly conceived decor, complete with colors, fabrics, and possibly furniture or new accessories. For a faux painting execution, we will provide a sample of the faux finish to be seen in situ, to insure that it is the desired shade or faux technique. For a mural, a study or watercolor to scale will be prepared; it will depict the envisioned painted decor, and will serve also as a basis upon which to add or correct elements.
The images to the left present sample prototypes provided to clients in the past.
Step Three: Execution
We bring all supplies needed for the realization of a painting project; in some cases, however, we may need to arrange the delivery of scaffolding. For a design project, we bring our artisans, unless you prefer using your own sources, and we take charge of gathering all accessories required to complete the project. We accept projects outside of the DC area, including outside of the United States; in these cases, the customer assumes all travel-related costs.
Payment for each project is usually made in three installments: one payment upfront upon agreement of the proposed work; one payment marking the execution of the first half of the project; and a final payment upon completion of the project.
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