Dear Dakota | What Is The Best Way To Set Up An Interior Design Sample Library?
Dear Dakota,
I’d love to know more about setting up a design library for my boss. As a former librarian of books, I know my way around a library. However, I am not familiar with design libraries and best practices for them. I would love practical information on doing this.
Thank you!
This is a great question and one that doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer that will work for each and every designer out there. Like, if you only source retail, don’t have a designated office space, or don’t do a high volume of projects to where you would need to store all those samples.
But also, the quantity of samples you maintain in your office may depend largely on your geographic distance to a major design center. Several major cities (New York, Chicago, Miami, Minneapolis) have design centers that house many showrooms in one building or location. With access to various showrooms from which you can borrow samples, it becomes less imperative to keep a wide range of samples close at hand.
Another factor that will impact your need for samples will be the services you offer and how you present designs to your clients. If you do full service design and share flat lays, you’ll likely need all the samples, versus if you offer virtual services and present your designs digitally.
But in general, most designers DO maintain a collection of material samples within their office. It saves tons of time to have samples on hand when you are looking for inspiration, putting a scheme together, or finalizing specifications. Eliminating the need to run out to a showroom to get a sample or to wait days for one to arrive in the mail will impact how long it takes you to design, which will ultimately impact your profitability and how many projects you can take on at a time.
What product categories you maintain in your sample library is entirely up to you, but many designers keep these samples in their offices:
Hardwood or engineered flooring
Luxury vinyl flooring
Carpet or rug
Tile (ceramic, porcelain, stone)
Countertop (quartz)
Fabric
Fabric trim
Wallcovering
Paint decks and sheets
Window treatments
Metal or hardware
Wood finishes
And most often, every vendor has sets of samples that coordinate with their metal and wood finishes, and any other type of finish materials they use. So if you have four upholstery lines, you’ll likely have fabrics + nailhead samples + wood finish samples for each line that you'll need to keep organized separately.
Then the question becomes, how to best organize them? You will need shelving, baskets, drawers, bins, trays, lidded containers, a hanging rod, pegboard, wall hooks…… whatever works for you. This is probably the most challenging part — to develop a storage system that works within the confines of the office space you have and for the wide range of sample sizes you deal with. And your material library may also serve as a meeting place if you regularly invite reps into your office or host presentation meetings with clients. But, you’re designers, so you are all about solving these kinds of challenges to make a room functional AND beautiful with adequate storage.
So, first up, you’ll want to organize your office into zones by category. Rug samples here. Fabric samples there. Wallcovering samples here. You get the idea.
Then, within each zone, you’ll want to organize within those groupings. Easier said than done. Should it be by color? Size? Vendor?
It depends.
How interior designers should organize their sample library
For materials such as flooring and tile, I would suggest categorizing by type: solid hardwood, engineered, laminate, vinyl, and porcelain, ceramic, stone, glass, mosaic. Then perhaps by tone: light, medium, dark. You may have some large format porcelain samples that need their own space. Deep drawers or shelves are usually needed. Make sure to also have a grout sample box from one or two manufacturers for use with tile selections.
Carpet and rug samples are challenging because they are usually large and can vary by size. However, some are small — 6” x 6” carpet samples are also common. Deep shelving probably works best, with bins or baskets for the smaller pieces. What is challenging about carpet samples is that you may have one sample of a carpet pattern that comes in different colorways, so I recommend organizing by pattern type, not color. For example, solids, stripes, herringbone, etc.
Countertop samples are challenging because they are HEAVY!!! You may have 3” x 3” samples for the full lines of Cambria, Silestone, or other quartz manufacturers. You may also keep granite or marble slab samples and perhaps also solid surfacing. You may choose to organize these by color or keep them within the manufacturer’s sample boxes. But you will need sturdy shelves that can hold a lot of weight.
For fabric samples, you may have both sample books and loose memo samples. I suggest organizing by color, not the manufacturer. You’ll likely be looking for a specific hue when searching your samples. Drawers or bins that match the height of a folded sample can be effective, because then you can see one fold of each fabric at a glance.
BUT, for fabric samples from your upholstery lines, you’ll likely have their graded-in fabric samples, which are usually each grommeted and on a metal ring. Keep these stored per manufacturer, as they can only be used on that manufacturer’s frames. Then, within that manufacturer, sort by color
Wallcovering can be sorted two ways, depending on preference. You can sort all samples by color, as you will usually be searching a specific color. Or, you can first subdivide by type: vinyl, paper, grasscloth, and fabric, and then by color, as you may have a product type in mind initially. Sort or pile samples into bins that match the sample sizes. You may also have wallpaper books from vendors such as Thibaut or York. Books should be put on tall shelves, as library books are. But wallpaper books are also HEAVY, so make sure you have sturdy shelving that won’t sag.
For paint, keep several fan decks for a few lines, probably Benjamin Moore (make sure to have all their decks: Classic, Color Preview, Williamsburg, Affinity), Sherwin Williams, and perhaps Farrow and Ball. Organize loose sheet paint samples by color, then stack them into shallow bins or put them into binders.
If you keep window treatment samples, those will likely be within the large books Hunter Douglas or other vendors provided.
Samples of metal finishes are usually small and can be stored in bins or baskets. You may have metal samples for your preferred lighting or cabinet hardware lines. You’ll want to store these by vendor.
If you often have to reference blueprints for your large-scale construction or renovation projects, a deep shelf or tall basket will work best to store those.
There are a few additional features to have within any sample library:
A large table or counter on which to lay out samples. And this should be an island within your space, not a counter or desk up against the wall. That way, two or more designers can collaborate, and you can view your sample groupings from different angles. It is optimum if this is in an area that receives natural lighting from a window. This is also where your vendor reps will lay out large pieces of fabric when showing you new releases. You’ll definitely need the space!
Project-specific bins or trays. These should be labeled where you can store samples that have been selected or considered for each project you are working on. Once you have chosen something for a project, you do not want it to get put away with all the other samples you have; you want it to stay stored with all the other selections.
A large bin or container. You’ll need somewhere to toss any materials you’ve decided against until someone in your office has time to put them back in their designated location. Better to have a designated “stash” area or “return” pile so you don’t clutter work surfaces with items not immediately needed. This stash bin would also serve any incoming items that need to be filed away.
An inbox for CFAs. If you regularly order cuttings for approval, you’ll want to have an internal process of where those go and how they are handled once they’ve been approved. Typically, this will be an inbox-style type of bin or desktop tray so they can be reviewed and approved by the designer quickly and then stored with the client-specific binder or bin.
Finally, to keep your library organized, you should prioritize these three processes:
Have a regular process for organizing your samples, whether refiling from your “stash” bin, refolding samples that were messed up during sourcing, collecting them from clients you loaned them to, or returning samples that are out on loan.
Have a process for getting new release samples. Whether that’s having a designated vendor meeting day to review all their new releases or dedicating one day per month to go to your key fabric and wallcovering sites to order their new releases - you should have a consistent process in place.
Have a process for getting rid of samples. This might mean having your rep come in to pull any discontinued fabrics from your bins/shelves. This might mean doing a quarterly review and pulling any fabrics you know you won’t use. This might mean taking a fine tooth comb through the fabric drop lists your vendors send out, pulling those fabrics from your shelves, and discarding them.
If you have questions about creating processes for your interior design business or working with vendors, be sure to join The Weekly Install™ for complimentary business advice.
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