The Build, by Temple and Webster, was one of our generous sponsors at She Renovates Live 2022. We invited Laura Pittaway, the in-house interior designer at the build, to tell us more about how The Build can help renovators create beautiful homes.
First, a little about Laura. She is a residential interior designer who is married and has two young children, seven-year-old Hendricks and four-year-old Goldie.
My husband and I have just recently finished our second renovation that we’ve tackled in the last 10 years. It was quite a major renovation, so it was a big job.”
Laura has been working with The Build team for almost a year which she has found fun and interesting as it is different to working on residential projects. She shared some useful tips for how to renovate on a budget using some of the home improvement products available at The Build.
Digital 3-D Spaces Give Inspiration To Renovators
As the in-house interior designer at The Build, Laura is responsible for designing all of the digital 3-D spaces and curating the looks for those spaces.
It’s my job to show our customers what our products could look like in a real space and give them ideas and inspiration for their own project.”
Laura works closely with The Build’s 3-D artist, Mike, to design and create digital images of the spaces that bring The Build’s products to life. Instead of physically building the rooms, which would take significant time, the 3-D digital spaces provide clients with inspiration and communicate the look and feel of the rooms.
You can find the images created by Laura and Mike on The Build’s website and all of their social media platforms.
Making Interior Design Accessible For Renovators On A Budget
Laura noted that when planning a renovation, not everyone can afford to use the services of an interior designer. It can be an expensive option, especially when working on large projects, and it’s not always a priority for renovators working on a budget.
That’s one of the things she found most appealing about working at The Build. Her role enables her to offer interior design inspiration to more people on a larger scale.
Using the 3-D spaces, we can curate looks to give customers more of an idea of what these products are going to look like in a real space, and hopefully, give them a bit of confidence in the product and make them feel confident about their purchase.”
Laura told Bernadette that Mike does a fantastic job of making the images look very real. He and Laura spend a lot of time on them, and a lot of consideration goes into pulling the products from the website and creating realistic looks. Everything is well thought through and curated.
And we definitely want to make sure we cover a whole range of trends and looks and that, hopefully, there’s something for everybody.”
Home Improvement Products Available At The Build
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the products sold by The Build, they stock a wide range of home improvement products, including:
- Kitchen sinks
- Tapware
- Tiles
- Bathroom
- Laundry
- Flooring
- Lighting
- Heating
- Cooling
The Build currently stocks 20,000 products, and they are continuously adding new products and expanding their ranges. Laura says they have a great team of buyers who are constantly sourcing and looking at new and innovative products to add to the website. They draw their inspiration from conversations with customers and industry experts.
Explore The Trends In Renovating From The Comfort Of Your Own Home
The team at The Build are constantly striving to ensure that they have their finger on the pulse, keeping up to date with what is happening in the industry, so they have the products people are looking for available on their website.
Visiting a number of different showrooms to find everything you need for a renovation or new build can be extremely tedious and time-consuming. When you shop for your home improvement products from The Build, it takes the hassle out of sourcing all of the products you need because you can do it all from the comfort of your own home (in your pyjamas if you like).
As a mom with two young kids and having just gone through the process myself, it’s really tricky to try and get everything you need without going grey.”
If you need to touch and feel the tiles you are considering and see how they look in your space, The Build allows you to order up to five free samples on their website. It makes it possible for you to pull the look you envisioned together yourself and have confidence in knowing the colours you are seeing on the website are what you are going to receive.
It’s essential because it’s really hard to represent a colour accurately through photos”
Take Samples Of Tiles To View Them In Your Property
Laura pointed out the environment and the lighting also have an impact on the appearance of your tiles. Therefore, even if you are shopping in a bricks and mortar store, it is beneficial to take samples to your property to see what they look like in that lighting. The Build offers this service to make your decision-making easier.
Bernadette admits to having a range of orphan tiles lying around her house from the samples she has used for her renovations and asked Laura if people usually return them. It turns out it is common practice for people to keep the samples. However, Laura had a great tip for what you can do with them:
When I was studying design, students were always after tile samples and finishes. So you can sell them on Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace, or contact Sydney Design School, for example, and see if they would like some samples because they’re always after samples from people.”
6 Things Renovators Need To Know About The Build
- You can do everything online from the comfort of your own home. It’s super easy and convenient. The Build has spent a considerable amount of time creating a platform that provides a beautiful and simple shopping experience. Not only does The Build sell a wide range of products, but they offer renovating inspiration too.
- The Build’s customer service is second to none. Laura says that although they have a large online offering, they are not a marketplace. When you purchase a product through The Build, they take over the customer service and the shipping. The whole experience is done in-house. They want to ensure that when you shop with them, you have a great experience every time.
- The Build is an Australian company, and they offer a lot of great Australian brands within their range. The Australian brands they offer include Timberline, Phoenix, Oliveri, Thermo Group, and Turner Hastings.
- The majority of the products sold by The Build ship nationwide. Where they don’t, The Build is working hard to make that happen so that their products are available to everyone.
- Order consolidation ensures that everything you order is delivered at the same time, even if it is being shipped from different warehouses. The team at The Build work hard to ensure the process is as smooth as possible, and if there are any issues, their customer care team do their best to solve them.
- Communication is key to keeping customers happy with The Build. Because they can’t always be sure when a product will be delivered, they keep their customers informed via email about when they can expect their deliveries.
Services From The Build Help You Manage Your Renovating Project More Smoothly
Buying your home improvement products from The Build helps you keep your renovation organised. Ordering what you need only when you need it could put you in a tight spot, waiting for your deliveries while your trades have nothing to do.
You must order everything you will need for your build or renovation in advance, including the timber, flooring and fixtures. The same goes for hiring your trades. They are particularly busy at the moment, so you must ensure that they are lined up and ready to go to avoid costly delays.
Common Myths About Home Improvement
Laura shared two of the most common home improvement myths with Bernadette. The first one is in order to achieve a really luxurious look, you have to use expensive products. Laura says that is definitely not the case.
They have used some of their more affordable products to create expensive-looking rooms in some of their 3-D images. It proves that you can still create a beautiful space on a tight budget.
It comes down to making the right selections and mixing the right finishes together. Layering also helps to make a space look and feel more lux and have that homey feel.”
The second myth Laura wanted to dispel is that an interior designer just fluffs cushions and makes spaces look pretty by just throwing things together.
Pulling a room together takes a lot of time and consideration. People are surprised by how much admin is involved in designing a home.”
Interior designers spend a lot of time behind the computer doing administrative tasks and documenting designs. Only then do they start looking at samples and pulling looks together.
The Benefits Of Having A Trade Account At The Build For Renovators
Just as you can do with Temple and Webster, as a renovator, you can set up a trade account at The Build. They have a trading commercial team that looks after anybody that’s part of the trade.
To apply for a trade account, you can go to The Build website and scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you will find the list of contacts. Click on the trading and commercial customers link to create your trade account.
The Best-Selling Product At The Build
Out of curiosity, Bernadette asked Laura what the best-selling product is at The Build. Laura said:
I think lately we’ve been selling a lot of laundry cabinets. They’ve been selling really well. And then, I’d say our tapware is probably up there. We have a great range of Tapware and quite a substantial group of suppliers.”
Conclusion: Laura Pittaway, The Face Behind Interior Design At The Build
It’s always nice to know who’s working behind the scenes on a website. Laura gave us some useful insight on what is available for your home improvements at The Build and how they can help you with 3-D images of rooms in which their wide range of products are used. They offer all the home improvements you might need for a build or renovation and the inspiration to create a beautiful space.
To discover how to harness the power of renovating, check out the school of renovating.com.
