Chapter 29
Yoda looked at the floor plan of the renovation project. Each room was small, but there were many rooms, allowing for different functional areas. The floor plan Yoda tried out was less than 80 square meters, yet it still had three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Zhou Liu, sitting in the chair, slid over: "You got criticized? You look so gloomy."
Yoda showed it to him: "I think this is pretty amazing. How can so many rooms be made in such a small area? But they say my furniture dimensions are wrong. I don't understand why they made the furniture so small."
Zhou Liu could tell which community it was just by looking at the floor plan, and said dismissively, "That's how it is now. More rooms of the same size mean better value for money. Besides, this is a show flat, so each room is already small. If you don't put effort into the design, how can you attract people to buy?"
Yoda frowned: "But it's not practical at all, they'll find that out when they're decorating. Besides, the house is only this size, the design should be objective."
Zhou Liu: "Everyone does it this way now. Even if you don't become Old Wang, you'll eventually end up doing it this way. Besides, people who go to look at apartments are used to it. When I go, I always bring my own measuring tape to measure anytime, anywhere. We're doing it fairly honestly. Last time I went to see one, the bed was shortened to 1.8 meters in length. It was 1.2 meters wide but they pretended it was 1.5 meters. Even the pillows on the bed were proportionally shrunk."
Yoda remembered houses as spacious and normal; how could this be? "Is it really necessary?"
"As for it!" Zhou Liu thought about his house-hunting experience and muttered to himself, "Do you know how much house prices have risen now? Because house prices are high, everyone is thinking about designing more rooms for the same area. Think about it, for the same amount of money, you can have an extra bedroom, so you don't have to move to a bigger house. It's such a good thing, so it doesn't seem like a big deal if the room is a little smaller."
"Moreover, because design can make their houses more functional, more space can be saved. Every square meter saved is the design fee that customers are willing to pay. And these custom-made furniture for model homes have become an industry chain. There are also companies that specialize in making these small furniture pieces, so you can just pick them up when you're decorating."
Yoda sighed. Well, he realized he was too behind the times.
Zhou Liu comforted him, "Sigh, don't think about it so much. If you keep thinking about these things, your internship will never end. This company's designs are already quite good. Look around, many design companies are still open today, but they'll go bankrupt tomorrow. The current demand is for this kind of design. If you don't do it, someone else will, and in the end, the result will be the same."
Yoda shook off the thoughts in his mind and suddenly noticed something: "You're going to look at houses? House prices are so high, didn't you say your salary was low?"
Zhou Liu said, "Several properties are lowering their prices. I'll go take a look first, to be mentally prepared and to have a target in mind. If you want to settle down in this city, you still need to own your own house. Otherwise, you'll always feel like a guest, someone who can leave at any time."
Yoda nodded and patted Zhou Liu on the shoulder encouragingly. "By the way, I'm planning to check on how the plumbing and electrical work is going on that project from yesterday. Want to come along?"
Zhou Liu pouted, exhausted from running around all day: "What's so interesting about this? These kinds of hidden projects are done, so be it. Just hand them over to the construction team; they're all experienced. At most, the water and electricity locations might be slightly different in height. But as long as it doesn't affect usability, you won't even notice unless you look closely. Besides, it's not our project."
Yoda explained, "It's difficult to make changes after the renovation is complete, that's just how it is. We're only just starting now, so if we find anything wrong, it's just a matter of a few words. We're just doing a little extra, even if it's just to make things a little more convenient for future residents, it's all very meaningful. Right? Let's go."
Zhou Liu said he was afraid of getting tired, but he still accepted Yoda's profound reasoning. "When I have a house in the future, I'll ask you to design it too. You're so attentive to other people's work, what will you do when it comes to your own? You'll be living on the construction site."
Yoda retorted, "You studied this too, why don't you just make it yourself?"
As Zhou Liu walked, he complained, "This is different. I study design as a job, but you design for me as a consumer. Design is so stressful. I find it too tiring to do it myself, and I don't trust others to do it. Ordinary people only renovate once every few years, and many design companies just do a shoddy job and that's it. Anyway, it's hard to have repeat customers. It's not like buying clothes online, where you can return them within seven days if you don't like them. You only find out what's wrong after living in the house for several years. Where are you going to find someone then?"
"And the thought of how a single detail of the renovation might not be done well and how it might affect the usability of the space gives me a headache. If I hadn't studied design, I wouldn't have noticed it, but I happen to know a little about it."
Yoda pushed Zhou Liu: "Okay, okay, let's go. I'll give you a 20% discount from now on."
Yoda occupied half of Shixing's office, and whenever he had free time, Yoda would come to ask for advice on the spot.
"What's this?" Yoda pulled out a renovation plan for a project Shi Xing had done. The small room was densely packed with custom-made cabinets of various sizes. "Why are there cabinets everywhere?"
Shi Xing took a look; this was the first small home renovation he did. Because it was a school district property, its value was relatively high, and it needed to house a family of four, so in the less than 50-square-meter house, every available space was filled with custom cabinets for storage and as partitions.
Because the design was so good, making full use of all the available space in the house, Shi Xing kept the interior design drawings of the house as a reference for similar interior designs in the future.
Yoda looked at the room full of custom-made cabinets. As an intern, she often helped other designers measure the area for custom cabinets, so she had some understanding of their pricing. A rough calculation showed that this much space—wardrobes, shoe cabinets, bookcases—even using the most basic panels, would add up to more than the renovation cost itself. "Is this reasonable?" she wondered.
"Compared to housing prices, it's very reasonable. At its peak, just one square meter in this area was enough to make these custom cabinets."
Yoda couldn't believe it: "My God, it's so expensive!"
Shi Xing nodded: "So that's the value of design. Through design, a house can be made more comfortable to use within the same area, accommodating more functional areas. When housing prices were high, this kind of small-apartment multifunctional design was very popular, and we did a lot of similar house designs. However, now large-area apartments are gradually becoming the new trend, so the design focuses more on the comfort of living, unlike in small apartment designs where every square meter has to be fully utilized, taking into account both vertical and horizontal space. Large-area apartments have more space, and there is more blank space in the design."
Yoda nodded, then took out another set of design drawings: "Why are there two sets together?"
Shi Xing glanced at them. Although there were many pictures on the table, he could immediately explain the design concept and the details that needed to be paid attention to during the process for each set. He would also list the shortcomings of the design at the end and then improve it next time.
Shi Xing leaned down and said to Yoda, "This is a second-hand house renovation project. We didn't do this type of project very often before, but after I handled it once, I felt that this is a new development trend in the future. The styles of decoration in the past are different from those now. In recent years, many new decoration materials have emerged, and people's aesthetics have changed very quickly. In the future, there will probably be more and more similar decorations. So I kept it as a sample image."
Yoda looked at the cabinets with various wood grain stickers and the gorgeous wave lines designed on the tiles throughout the house in the photos, which looked very luxurious, and nodded: "The style you decorated is quite good, it looks very rich."
Shi Xing suppressed a laugh: "That was the style before the renovation."
Yoda couldn't believe it: "Huh? Is this the style before the renovation? Good heavens, I thought it was after the renovation. What happened? Has my aesthetic sense become so outdated?"
Shi Xing put away his smile and said sincerely, "The interior design styles have been changing very quickly over the years. But that's okay. You can start by learning from some new design styles. Actually, there's a retro style that's starting to become popular again. Maybe you can catch up with it now."
Yoda felt slightly comforted. He then carefully examined the final renderings of the renovation done by Shi Xing. It was a very popular modern minimalist style, but the interior design appeared somewhat cold and hard, with a lot of dark colors used.
Yoda turned her head to the side: "Why does the overall color scheme feel so cool, and why is there so much metal material used in the furniture? Is this a popular style?"
Shi Xing glanced at it and said, "Hmm, it was a subconscious choice when I was designing it."
Yoda looked at the design drawings in his hand. The designer's choice of colors and lines reflected his inner thoughts when designing. In the early works of Shi Xing, the color scheme was rather chaotic at first, and the style of each project was quite different. At that time, the focus was probably on meeting user needs, without a distinctive style of their own.
When the design style became more unified later on, each design featured simple and direct lines, and there was a lot of metal decoration.
Even though Yoda didn't experience that period with Shixing, he could still clearly sense the loneliness Shixing felt while persevering alone during that time.
But that was all in the past, and Yoda put those thoughts behind him. Shi Xing continued working at his desk.
Yoda had looked through it enough and put away Shixing's design drafts. Ever since Yoda came in, Shixing had been seriously studying something. Yoda leaned closer and saw that they were all decoration materials.
Not quite familiar with them, seeing Shi Xing's thoughtful expression, he asked curiously, "What are these?"
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