Try before you buy

At a recent Lapada conference interior designer Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill gave an interesting piece of advice, "One very important service dealers could offer is to allow a client to try a piece in situ as it is amazing how many people cannot visualise what it would look like in their home. It can also be very useful for a dealer to work as a team with an interior designer, perhaps by visiting the decorator's project to get an idea of the tastes and style of the client. Some clients are moving house and might need to change their style to fit in with a different period of house so dealers could perhaps help by advising a client to swap a piece that fitted into the period of their old house for one better suited to the new one."

Elspeth Thompson in her project to transform an old railway carriage into an eco home shows that this advice is relevant, because much of the furniture was of abnormal proportions due to the strange shape and size of the carriages. Elspeth said, "We found a great table, 103 inches long we were allowed to try it out for a few days to see if its unusual dimensions would suit our living space."