Step 1: Make an appointment
Drop into 14 Moore Ave West Lindfield, or just ring 02 9415 8100, to make an appointment for one of Trend’s decorators to visit your home – usually your appointment will be within a week.

Step 2: Give some thought to what you would like done,
what you like, and your budget.
Prior to our appointment, if you take a moment to think through the following, it can make the decorating process a lot easier:

Think about the things you like and dislike.

It’s not essential, but it’s a great help if you can put bookmarks into magazines, or do some ‘tear-outs’ from newspapers and magazines illustrating things you really like. This will help us to get an idea of styles and colours that you are really drawn to. If you love the colours in a piece of china, or a painting, this may help us find colours for your room. Remember, this is a help, but it’s not essential, so if you don’t have time, don’t worry about it.

Think about how you want to use the room.

For example, if it’s your living room, you should ask yourself:

How many people need to sit down there every day?
Will everyone be watching television, reading, listening to music, or writing letters?
Are light colours going to be practical for my family?
Will the dog or cat be on the rug or on the lounge?

Work out your budget.

Think seriously about how much you can spend on the project, and also work out the time frame for spending. We ask you to be realistic with yourself, and honest with us on how much you want to spend.

Don’t be intimidated by a small budget…..tiny changes can sometimes make a big impact, and don’t feel that if you mention a large budget, that we’ll try to spend the lot. Your budget guides us on the range of fabrics you can consider.
Nothing makes a customer quite as happy as a stunning room where the cost comes in below budget, so we’ll actually be trying to save you money.
If your budget isn’t sufficient to do all the things you’d like, we’ll suggest modifications, or an extension to the time frame.

Step 3: The Appointment at your Home

We’ll come to your home for a brief meeting of about an hour, possibly a little less if you are just doing curtains or reupholstery.

Unlike many other decorators, we rarely bring fabrics to this meeting, unless you’ve already found fabrics you really love. We like to come with an open mind, to find out what you like.

We’ll concentrate on one, or at the most two rooms, but if you want, we’ll have a quick ‘look-see’ at your entire house to ensure a coordinated approach.

During this meeting, we’ll: talk to you about your likes and dislikes, and how you plan to use the room; make notes on existing furniture to incorporate into your scheme; we’ll look at any magazine ‘tear-outs’ you may have; look at wall, carpet and and fabric colours in the room, and we’ll measure the windows.

If we feel it is necessary, we may even take measurements of your room and existing furniture, and make rough floor plan sketches so that it’s easier for us to work out furniture placement.

Step 4: Selections

During the week after we’ve visited your home, we look for fabrics which we think you’ll like, that will coordinate in your home, and meet your budget requirements.

You might want to come in and search for fabrics in your own time as well, but a lot of customers like to leave the preliminary selections to us, as with thousands of fabrics to choose from, it can be a bit daunting.

If you want curtains or blinds, we look at various designs which would look great in your home, and then consider tracks, headings, tiebacks etc.

If you want lounges or occasional chairs, we search through the huge range which we can supply, and find those which would suit your home. We look for suitable fabrics and find or design fabulous scatter cushions which will really give your lounge and chairs what we call the ‘wow’ factor.

If you have some beautiful old chairs that you’d like to have reupholstered, we book one of our upholsterers to make an appointment with you, so that he can quote while we look for fabrics. We make a note of all of these selections, and their suggested uses, and keep this record on file.

Step 5: In Store Appointment

We ask you to come to our showroom for an appointment to see the suggested scheme. Fabrics are set out on display, with possible coordinates and accessories to help you visualize how your room will look. If you love the selections and ideas, we recommend that you take home samples or cuttings overnight to see how they work in the light of your home, both during the day and at night.

If you aren’t really excited about the selections, then we look again for fabrics and ask you to come in again. If after a couple of attempts, we still haven’t found fabrics you love (and this is very rare), we ask you to come in and have a ‘hunt’ for fabrics yourself, so that we can get a better idea of your likes and dislikes.

Step 6: Quotation
Once you’re happy with the choices, we prepare a written quote for you. You may decide to go ahead with all of the suggestions, or to have the work done in stages.

Step 7: Quotation Acceptance
If you decide to go ahead with a quote, we ask for a one third deposit with your order. At this point, we check and document all of the fabric choices for the job. Occasionally we may need to go back to your home for a check measure.

Step 8: Installation and/or delivery
If your purchases need to be delivered or installed, you have nothing more to worry about. We’ll contact you about a week prior to installation to book a time for either delivery or installation.
We ask you to have a cheque, credit card details or cash ready for payment on delivery or installation. If you are purchasing small items, such as prints, floral arrangements, cushions, lamps or fabric, or if delivery was not included, we’ll phone you as soon as your goods are ready for collection.

Optional Step 9:
If you are interested.... on the day of installation, we quite often bring a few decorator items to your home for you to see how they work in the room. They may be small items such as some photo frames, a small bowl, a print, lamp, floral arrangement etc. Often one or two carefully selected pieces can make the whole room come together. If you like these, you can purchase them, or add them to your ‘Wish List’ for Birthdays, Christmas, or simply treat yourself at a later date.

Step 10: Enjoy your stunning ‘new look’ room.