Stop 2 of 8 · Weekly
The consultation
Walk into the showroom appointment already knowing their taste, and walk out with a selections plan instead of a page of notes.
The hour you get
A design consultation is ninety minutes with two people who have been looking at kitchens for a year. Lina loses that hour in two ways: asking things the photos already answered, or leaving with pages of notes that turn into nothing for a week. Both are fixable before anyone sits down.
The designer runs most of these. That matters, because the prep sheet is also how the designer walks in knowing what Lina knows.
The prep sheet
Everything the client has already sent is evidence: the lead photos, the board, the measurements they guessed at, the DM where they said their mother in law hates open shelving. Claude reads the images and the board screenshots together and gives you one page.
[attach the room photos and the screenshots of their Pinterest board] I have a kitchen and bath consultation with these clients on [Thursday]. Build me a one page prep sheet. Section one: what the room photos tell me about layout, condition, what has to stay and anything that looks like a problem. Section two: the three style choices their board repeats, named in plain product terms, not mood words. Section three: where their board and their room disagree, for example a look that needs a window wall they do not have. Section four: the six questions I should ask in the room that none of this material answers. Keep the whole thing under one page.
In the room
The prep sheet ends with questions, and those are the ones you ask. The other half of the hour is the budget conversation, which goes better when it is a conversation about tiers rather than a number. Good, better, best, with what changes between them.
Using the prep sheet above, write me three short paragraphs I can read aloud in the showroom: what a good, a better and a best version of their kitchen actually changes, in products and finishes rather than adjectives. No prices in the paragraphs. End each one with the trade off the client is accepting.
Notes out, plan in
Lina records the consultation on her phone with the client's permission and the designer scribbles. Both of those are input. What comes out is a selections plan: one line per category, what they leaned toward, what is still open, and when the decision has to land.
[paste the consultation notes or the recording transcript] Turn this into a selections plan for the [Marlow] kitchen. One row per category: cabinets, counters, backsplash, floor tile, plumbing fixtures, lighting, hardware, paint. Columns: what they leaned toward, what is still open, and who decides. Then, under the table, list what has to be decided first because of lead time, and flag anything they said that contradicts something else they said. Do not invent a product name they did not mention.
Draft the recap email to the clients from that plan. Warm, plain, under two hundred words. Thank them for the time, name the two things they were clearly excited about, list what we agreed to price, and name the first decision with its date. No prices, no start date.