What is Trade Day in Interior Design?

Trade Day is one of the most important parts during our process in interior design. If you're working on an interior design project and you're doing it on your own, you might be interested in hosting your own trade day. Trade Day is a day that we gather up all of our trades - all of the people that are involved in the project, that are going to help make the design happen and execute it. We have them come to the job site in scheduled intervals so they can take their measurements, photos and ask questions about their scope. We can collaborate, talk about things that are in the design that might be better suited elsewhere, or trades can talk together and say when they are going to install and in what order the work should be coordinated in.

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Transcript

EP 045 Trade Day.mp3

Transcript

Welcome to this episode of your favorite Interior Design podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie Stewart, interior designer over the top maximalist and firm believer that animal print window, well, should be. Considered a neutral. This podcast is for anybody that has ever looked around their space and thought this is ****. You deserve better, and through my eclectic career, including multifamily housing, hospitality, senior living and high end residential, I've learned that confidence is key. We'll be here each week with industry experts to share their experiences and motivate you to take action and create a space that feels good and makes. Proud. I promise it'll be a little. Bit cussy a lot. Sassy and we'll have a ton of fun. Thank you so much for joining me for this show. I am so excited today to talk to you about Trade Day. Trade Day is one of the most important parts during our process and interior design. And if you're working on an interior design project and you're doing it on your own. You might be interested in hosting your own trade day. What is trade day? Well, Trade Day is a day that we gather up all of our trades. All of the people that are involved in the project, that are going to help make the design happen, execute. The design and we have them come to the job site in scheduled interval intervals so that they can take their measurements. We can collaborate, we can talk about things that maybe are in the design that might be better suited elsewhere, or trades can talk together and say when are you going to go? When am I going to go? What's the best order to do things. But it's one big day that we try to have all of our trades come so that we can collaborate and gather information. It's a huge information. Gathering day we do trade day in our process right after the concept presentation before design development or while we're in design development because we have already created some design concepts, presented them to the client. They have approved those concepts and then we're going to further develop them. So today, we're going to talk about. What trade day? Is when it happens how we execute it, what happens on trade day? Maybe while you're not at home, if you choose not to be there for that day and then what happens next after trade day? So the first thing is what is Trade day, which we already discussed #2 how do we coordinate? Trade Day and the first thing is we check in with you, our client and we will ask a few different days that are available and see if you have any conflicts. Now you don't have to be there for trade day and frankly we're talking about things that aren't presented to you fully yet. They're concepts, but it's helpful if we have access to the space. If you have any boxes in the way, say that you've just moved in and you know we might be looking at a window treatment or something. If you have any boxes in the way that those are moved out of the way, you certainly don't have to clean your house for us, but we just need access to the space. And a few hours, sometimes it depends on how many trades there are, how long we need access to the space. For example, a family room might take up to, you know, five or six different trades we might have millwork that we're doing. There could be some, some fireplace changes that we're doing. Be a tile setter or a general contractor installing a fireplace, or maybe some stone on the face of it, we could have a custom team coming and doing a mantelpiece. And a painter potentially. And then window treatments. When we do window treatments, we could even have two different people come in. One is the fabricator of the window treatments. And the other one might be the installer of the window treatments. So you can see how it can really add up quickly. How many people are coming to trade day and how long of a duration that we need to. Of them. So before we schedule Trade Day, we check in with you, see if there's any days that are available for you, and then we reach out to our trades and schedule them in certain intervals. For example, today we had a trade day and we had the window treatment installer and they didn't need to coordinate with anybody else. There was no book heads in the way. There was no. You know, molding or any trim or anything that was in the way of the window treatments. And so I had them come first and I scheduled them for 30 minutes to collaborate with me, talk about what the design was. And they did their measurements and took extra pictures. And we talked about if there was going to be any challenges and there really was a straightforward drapery installation. So they did their measurements, took some pictures. We confirmed the scope that they had already, that I had already given to them and saw if there were any changes or any outstanding items that we needed to do. And then. They went on their way. Next, I invited 3 trades to come at the same time. The next three trades that came were a custom millworker, a standard millworker, and also a general contractor. So the custom mill worker they are creating some furniture. Pieces for us. Also, the custom mantle and then they're doing some special countertops that. Are out of wood. Set of quartz or hard surface because we want to have more of a furniture look and the other mill worker that's coming is a standard mill worker where they're doing a lot of pieces that are standard boxes, they're they're the finisher, they do the. Painting and they're going to be installing the shelves and kind of pulling it together along with the general contractor who is going to be installing a fireplace and going to be coordinating with those both of those mill workers actually on different parts, putting the putting the stone on the face of the fireplace and installing some more. Electrical outlets along both sides, and a few additional things. So I had those 3 trades come together so that they could coordinate the the coordination of the. When which order? The work was going to be done and also talk about who was going to be do what. Now it turns out that originally the custom mill worker was going to do a little bit more, but he said, you know, while we talked out the design, which had actually changed a little bit from the concept presentation till you know, a few weeks later. Said, you know, actually, why don't you pass off some of this? This, this isn't as custom as as you know, I thought it was going to be. So go ahead and take on. Scope, so it's really helpful to have the team there together. So once we get everybody lined out and we get the schedules together, we come on site that day. And today the the owner wasn't there, they had we had the space to ourselves and we took actually about 3 hours to work through with those different teams and talk about what the. Different scopes were. Again, there was some scope swap and we traded out, which vendors were going to do what part of the process. And then also we all worked together on the best practices and the best part of the design. Now I don't always have the all the details worked out and this is the beauty of the trades coming right before we start our design development, which is digging in. So we were really able today to put our heads together and work out some of the new things that the millworkers had learned in the general contractor and talk about what would be best for them actually. In the field, it's one thing designing on paper or presentations are getting samples, but actually what's going to happen when you're doing construction or remodel is really what's important. So we want to always know what's going to happen 1st and what's going to happen next. So after after we met, then everyone takes notes. There's a lot of pictures, a lot of tape measures and. At one point we were joking about how many tape measures it takes to, you know, how many tape measures it takes to plan out an entertainment center wall. But we had a huge TV and 85 inch TV, which is huge, by the way, and all of the measurements were then going to be dictated off of that. That because you have to think about the viewing height and you know where the mantle is going to go and the fireplace clearance requirements and the codes and all of those good things. So once we put our heads together on Trade day in, in the space, then we all take notes, take pictures, gather information and we all go our separate ways. Next the trades will. Then finalized their bids and those final bid numbers are then going to be presented by me to the client at the design development presentation. So it's really nice because they give me an initial concept, you know, initial quote on the concept or I pull numbers from recent projects and then you know, they have the scope outlined, we firm it up on Trade Day when, you know, we all have everyone collaborating together and then after trade day, you know, I gather their quotes and get them implemented. Into the final design press. Patient and also give them, you know, ask them for anything that I need any submittals any actual final samples or specification information that they might need in order to that I might need in order to present or that they might need in order to finalize their quotes. So a lot of information and a lot really comes out of having a successful trade day. The next thing that happens is the presentation. So at the design development presentation, again, all of that information that was gathered and all those details that were hammered out after trade day and on Trade Day get presented and the client really knows what to expect. By that time, we know what order the materials need to be ordered in what order they are going to be installed. And who is going to bounce off of who and what timeline and what the duration is. So a lot of great information and firm details come out of this successful part of our tier design process. If you're working on your own project, I think that it would be. Great for you. To also have your trades come together, working together and everyone learning from each other, knowing what they had experienced from on different projects or they've learned you know on their new newer projects or best practices in the industry all come together to help make a successful project. No one person knows it all and you know the design on paper might end up being a little bit different. In reality, which then you will know after having those conversations or a designer like me can tell their client after the fact what's changed from the concept or what's developed since the concept. So a successful trade day is really important. I highly recommend it to everyone. Scheduling can be a little bit of a bear. But everyone is really, really lucky and happy. They feel fortunate to be part of a collaborative process and to get those. Those details up front and out in the open, and it's very organized and everyone will really have a successful project at the end of the day. So if you have any questions about Trade day, hosting your own trade day, implementing a trade day or you know what comes out of Trade Day, if it's really important or not, go ahead and reach out to me any way you'd like to, you can. E-mail me at Stephanie at Stewart Design Co or reach us on all the. Socials at stewartdesigncode.com or of course, you know, just DMS. Anyway, you can contact us and I'm happy to answer any questions about trade day and help you set up your own successful trade day. Or you can go out shopping, go do your thing, go have lunch, go brunch, go do what you need to do, and we'll have trade day at home with you and you'll come back. And you'll know that all the details are taken care of. Hope that this is helpful and informative, and that your projects coming along have a good day.