A “difficult” client

Eleni, our daughter, wanted to change her bookshelves in her bedroom. They were to replace a bulky IKEA bookshelf.

After a lot of “client/designer” discussion we managed to get a brief;

The shelves had to accommodate all her stuff and much more but had to be “smaller” and take much less space!!!!!!
They had to be light in colour but not painted so that you could see the grain of the wood but not natural wood colour or maybe yes!!!!
They had to fit between the opened door and the red painted column at the end of the wall.
They had to fulfil a lot of small details like; they shouldn’t look the same as any of the pinterest stuff (she rejected most of it or she liked the ones that you needed 10 times the space she had), they should have an WOW effect, “….. yes my father designed them especially for me…” etc.

Easy stuff that all designers take in custom design for private clients.

Of course Eleni is 19 and at this age she is allowed to be like that (just in case any future client reads this).

So I started churning out ideas in my sketch pad and after all it wasn’t that difficult.

I chose white washed solid pine, I put down some heights of books and objects that she could position on the shelves and …. Voilà . I came up with this meandering serpentine shape of 25cm width and 5cm solid wood thickness that cover asymmetrically the available wall. The small vertical parts help a little with the support, otherwise it is supported with rods in the wood that go into the wall.

So after all the client wasn’t so difficult, I enjoyed solving the problem and I still love her a lot.

P.S. There are a lot of similar designs in the internet but it is still unique for the space and the time and because it was custom designed for a unique person!