Interior Design Brief Writing Checklist

Write one paragraph describing what is wrong with the rooms today, using things you can observe rather than the changes you have already imagined.

Stating the problem rather than the answer leaves room for a professional to propose something you had not thought of.

Note which of the problems you have listed would remain if the rooms were simply repainted and tidied, because those are the ones needing a design response.

Telling tired decoration apart from genuine dysfunction stops a modest refresh being treated as a rethink, or the reverse.

Describe what you have already tried, including furniture you moved or bought to solve the problem, and say why each attempt did not work.

Failed attempts are strong evidence about the real constraint, and they stop a professional proposing the same thing again.

State what a successful outcome would let the household do that it cannot do now, described as behaviour rather than as appearance.

Behavioural outcomes can be tested against a proposal, whereas a desire for the rooms to feel better cannot.

Separate what you want from what you need, and mark every line accordingly so a reader can tell one from the other at a glance.

Unlabelled wish lists are read as requirements, and then everything becomes equally immovable.

Record who the brief is written for, whether an interior designer, a maker of fitted furniture, or the household itself, because that changes the detail expected.

A brief for a joiner needs different content from a brief for someone shaping the whole scheme.

Put the rooms in order of importance to the household, and write a line explaining what makes the first one first.

The reason behind the order is more useful than the order itself, because it lets someone else apply the same logic to a new question.

Name what you would give up first if not everything can be done, and name what you would refuse to give up under any circumstances.

Deciding this while calm is far easier than deciding it under pressure once a scheme is being cut back.

Record where two of your own requirements conflict, such as wanting a large table and generous circulation in the same modest room.

A brief that admits its own contradictions gets a more honest response than one that hides them.

Note which requirements are shared by the whole household and which belong to one person, and say who holds each of the individual ones.

Requirements without an owner tend to be dropped quietly, and then reappear as an objection at the worst moment.

Write down which decisions you are willing to leave open for a professional to propose, so they know where their judgement is welcome.

Explicit openness produces better proposals than a brief that appears to have decided everything already.

Mark which requirements exist because of a specific event in family life, and say what would happen if that requirement were met later rather than sooner.

Understanding which pressures are real and which are self-imposed changes what can sensibly be staged.

Describe how each main surface will be treated in daily life, including spills, pet claws, bicycle handlebars in the hall and bags dropped on a table.

Specific abuse is easier to design for than a general request for something hard-wearing.

Note which rooms must be quick to clean rather than beautifully finished, and say who in the household actually does the cleaning.

A finish that needs particular care will only survive if the person who maintains it agreed to that care.

Record whether any room takes strong direct sun and where it lands, since some materials and finishes move or fade where others do not.

Sun exposure is easy to observe now and awkward to discover after upholstery or timber has already been chosen.

How a particular fabric, timber or coating behaves in strong sunlight varies by product; ask the manufacturer or supplier what they state for the conditions in your room.

State whether anyone in the household reacts to dust, smells or particular materials, and record it as a question for professionals rather than as a specification.

Writing the sensitivity down makes it far more likely to be considered, without the brief pretending to answer a health question.

Health-related material choices should be discussed with a suitably qualified adviser and with the product manufacturer, not settled inside a brief.

Say which items must survive being moved, stacked or borrowed by another room, because occasional furniture leads a harder life than it looks.

Pieces that migrate need robustness and weight considered, not only appearance in their usual position.

Note where noise between rooms already causes problems, and describe when it is worst rather than proposing a remedy for it.

Describing the pattern of the problem lets the right professional identify the cause instead of treating a symptom.

List the rooms explicitly excluded from this brief, since a room that is never mentioned is generally assumed to be included.

Explicit exclusion also prevents a corridor or landing being treated as nobody's responsibility.

State whether existing furniture is to be reused, replaced, reupholstered or ignored, working through it piece by piece.

Vague intentions about existing furniture are a common source of late change in interior projects.

Say whether lighting positions, wiring and heating fall inside or outside the brief, and who you expect to lead on each of them.

These sit at the boundary between design and installation, so they are frequently assumed by everyone to be someone else's.

Electrical and heating alterations belong with suitably qualified installers; a brief can state an intention but cannot settle what is feasible or permissible.

Record whether the brief covers only movable items or extends to fitted joinery and other built-in elements.

Fitted work brings in measurement responsibility and site coordination that loose furniture does not.

Note anything already ordered or already committed to that the design must accommodate, and attach whatever paperwork you hold for it.

A commitment made before the brief is written still constrains everything that follows it.

State clearly whether the household will be living in the rooms while work is happening, and which rooms must stay usable throughout.

Living in the works changes sequencing, storage and dust management, and it should never be assumed either way.

Replace the word cosy with the specific things that produce that feeling for you, such as low light, textiles underfoot or a seat with its back to the room.

Named attributes can be designed for, whereas an atmosphere word will be interpreted differently by every reader.

Define what you mean by modern, since some readers hear a period and others hear an absence of ornament.

This single word probably causes more misunderstanding in interior briefs than most of the others put together.

Avoid the phrase low maintenance and write instead which cleaning and upkeep tasks you are simply unwilling to do.

Every material needs some care, so the useful information is which care you will not give.

Say what neutral means to you by pointing at something physical in the house rather than by naming a colour family.

Pointing at an object removes an entire round of samples that miss in a direction nobody expected.

Replace the word timeless with a plain statement of whether you expect to change this scheme again or intend to live with it as it is.

That intention affects how much weight you should give to elements that would be awkward to reverse later.

Remove any word borrowed from a sales page that you could not explain in your own terms to another member of the household.

Borrowed vocabulary makes a brief sound decisive while communicating almost nothing.

Read the brief as though you had never seen the rooms, and mark every sentence that could reasonably be understood in more than one way.

Ambiguity that survives into a scheme becomes an argument about what was agreed.

Ask another member of the household to read it and note every point where their understanding differs from yours.

Differences found on paper are far easier to resolve than differences found in a finished room.

Check whether any two requirements cannot both be met in the same space, and state plainly which of the two wins.

Deciding the priority yourself keeps the choice with the household rather than leaving it to whoever notices the clash.

Go through and label each statement as either a preference or a constraint, so no reader has to guess which is which.

Constraints shape the solution space, while preferences guide choices within it, and confusing them wastes everyone's effort.

Look for any sentence that tells a professional how to do their job rather than what outcome you need, and rewrite it as an outcome.

Method instructions from an owner can close off better approaches and can shift responsibility in unhelpful ways.

Confirm that nothing in the brief quietly assumes an answer to a question you have not yet put to anyone qualified.

Assumed answers about what can be moved or removed are a common reason a brief has to be substantially rewritten.

Questions about structure, services, drainage and local requirements must be answered by qualified professionals and your local authority, not decided inside the brief.

Keep one authoritative copy of the brief and mark clearly which version is current, so nobody continues working from an older one.

Superseded briefs circulating alongside the current one cause errors that are difficult to trace afterwards.

Record every change as a new line rather than as an edit that hides what was there before, so the history stays visible.

Seeing what changed and when often explains why a later decision was made the way it was.

Note who agreed to each change and whether the whole household was asked before it went in.

Changes agreed by one person in a hurry are the ones most likely to be reopened later.

Write down which decisions in the brief are now settled and which remain open, and revisit that division whenever anything is about to be ordered.

The point of ordering is the point at which an open decision quietly becomes a settled one.

Send the brief to everyone who needs it at the same time, and note who has actually confirmed that they received it.

Staggered distribution is how two people end up designing against different requirements.

Keep a separate list of questions raised by the brief that nobody has yet answered, with a name attached to each one.

Questions without a named owner stay unanswered until they become urgent.

Unanswered questions about structure, services, drainage or local requirements should be taken to the relevant qualified professional rather than left sitting in the brief.