Chapter 4: Style Magic Experience

I recently completed my full day appointment at Style Magic around the end of April 2017. I spent few hours during browsing hours prior to the full day (8:30am - 4pm) appointment.  Even though I had done some pre-work, I pretty much spent every minute I had at the full day appointment. I did take some breaks and lunch as per their schedule.

How does it work? There are 4 sub appointments on that day.

1.) The first one was the Interior, this was the biggest part of my day. It started at 8:30am and finished right before lunch. I was very pleased with my interior consultant. She was Excellent! she has tons of experience in interior design and that helped a lot! I highly recommend you take some time during the browsing hours to select some of the things you are comfortable choosing by yourself e.g. interior door style, baseboard, fireplace, pantry door glass, etc. so that you can focus on things you might need to spend more time with the consultant. I spent more time on tiles selections (floors and backsplashes) and kitchen cabinets.  Technically your consultant will help you with everything but I find that if you had some homework done, you will find it easier on the appointment day (for me it reduced the stress level on the day). I was tired by the time I got to the end of the first appointment which I honestly didn't expect that and I'm glad I did a good amount of pre-work. One thing I wish I had done better was my kitchen backsplash, fireplace tiles and main bathroom tiles. I wish I had a second option prepared for myself. The tiles I really liked or picked out before the appointment were either discontinued or prices out of my budget and I found that out during the appointment.  Deciding on these 3 things on the spot was very difficult for me. So lesson learned, have a second option for your key interior pieces.

2.) Next was the Exterior of my home and this was with the exterior consultant. This part was tricky since the available exterior colours are depending on my neighbors exterior colours, developer approval, colours allowed in Riviera community. This appointment was the hardest for me. I had to choose exterior door style/colour, garage door style/colour, Trim colour, railing colour, James Hardie boards colours and shingle colour. I went in with one combination that didn't work for the available combinations so I had to come up with what would work on the spot. I had about an hour or so but I felt the pressure (created by myself since I normally would have to do some research and take some time before I decide on things like this). I landed on a combination during that appointment but end up emailing the consultant to make a couple changes after. The good thing is they will let you make some changes later within reasonable timeframe after you chose your selection. Again same lesson learned I wish I had a few combinations of exterior colours in my back pocket or obtained some information on available colours prior to the appointment (to a certain extent, they should be able to give you some ideas on what's available for you). I had a list of available James Hardie board colours prior to the appointment but on the day the colour I picked was not available. I wish I did more pre-work on the exterior. I didn't focus on this area as much as the interior. I think I did ok at the end after a couple changes made after the appointment. Now it's a waiting game to see if the developer will approve my combination of colours (Fingers crossed!). It will take a couple weeks before I find out.

 3.) Next was the Technology consultant, this one didn't take too long since I didn't have a lot of changes. We discussed where the TV will be, telephone ports, internet ports, etc. The IT consultant knew his stuff well which was helpful since I don't have a lot of tech background so I was relying on his expertise which was good.

4.) Last one we discussed was window covering options, wallpaper, etc. I didn't take out any window covering on the day since I will deal with this after I take possession of my home. Honestly I got really tired by the time I got to this appointment and I knew I did not need to decide on window covering on the appointment day so I decided to focus on this area later. I did get a quote from Jayman for Hunter Douglas window covering and I used that as a comparison point with other providers.

That was it for my full day appointment. Then a week after that I went back again to sign off everything I picked during the appointment day. This appointment took only about an hour with my Interior consultant. Overall I'm very happy with Style Magic process, staff and their professionalism. 🙂