Some advice when you go shopping
Shopping before renovating one’s apartment can be fun and exciting, but also tiring. You’ll be spending many hours walking around shops that sell tiles, sanitary ware, lamps and all that’s necessary to create your dream house.
Luckily, nowadays in Israel, you can find everything, from locally produced materials to imported materials. Although this is good, it also makes searching more complicated, especially for the inexperienced buyer. To make things easier and more pleasant, here are some suggestions:
1. Be prepared! Spend at least a couple of hours doing preliminary research. If you are working alone, without the help of an architect, flip through relevant magazines, cut out pictures of home décor/interior designs that you like the most and would like to replicate in your apartment. File everything in an orderly manner so that you can easily explain what you are looking for to the shopkeeper.
If you’re working with an architect, he (or she) will handle this fundamental aspect, show you sketches and ideas about style, color, and material.
2. Bring the dimensioned plan of the areas that you want to renovate. It’s very important not to forget and leave the famous “plan” at home. The plan is needed both to make sure that your purchases (sanitary ware and furniture) are the right size for your apartment, as well as to calculate how much merchandise exactly to order.
Forgetting this document will mean coming back a second time and wasting precious time...
3. Choosing tiles and sanitaryware for your bathroom can take many hours. This is why I always advise my clients to wear comfortable shoes. It’s very useful to carry a bag with what I call a “survival kit”: a bottle of water, healthy and nutritious snacks such as washed and cut up fruit and vegetables, walnuts, almonds, a sandwich that can be munched on during downtime and to boost low blood sugar levels and energy.
4. Ask for advice!
If you work with an architect, go to the shops he/she recommends. Usually, this will guarantee that you will be treated better, both in terms of time, as well as quality and service.
If you are working alone, ask for advice from someone who has done renovation work before you.
When you decide which shops to go to, take into consideration the quality and the availability of the shopkeepers to help you solve the problems that often take place upon delivery (tiles arriving broken and that have to be substituted, delays, etc.).
For any questions or clarifications, you can write to me here below!
I will be happy to answer and help you.
Deborah Schor Elyasy
