Old Furniture May Not Fit New Home

The bed is too tall to fit under the window. The dining table doesn’t look right centered under the lighting fixture. These are common complaints heard from owners of new homes.

Although the furnished models looked perfect, buyers can encounter quite a few glitches when moving in their own furniture. That’s because interior designers buy the furniture for a model home based on the builder’s floor plan, altering size and fabrics to make rooms feel plush and spacious.

Most people don’t have the luxury of buying all new furniture to fit a home. So builders are now bringing interior designers in at the outset to work with architects and shape the floor plan based on what home features the neighbors like and what furniture they’re buying.

“We want to make sure buyers can furnish these homes,” said Julie Ann Stark, creative director for Creative Design Consultants, an interior design firm in Costa Mesa, which often meets with builders up to a year in advance to critique their plans.

Stark might suggest higher windows to accommodate that dresser or headboard, or recessed lighting in the dining room so a table doesn’t have to be centered under a chandelier, or even reshaping a living room to get more seating around an entertainment center or television.

To know what buyers will want, Stark and her staff comb the area where the new community will be built, looking at where people shop and what furniture they buy. She takes pictures of other new-home communities and asks people touring them what they like or don’t like.

“It’s very important to make sure we are identifying with the buyer in terms of style, design and specifications,” Stark said.

In Orange County, Creative Design has used this new approach in The Masters, a new project by Laing Homes in Buena Park.