Choosing the right materials for your remodeling project can be overwhelming. Do you want classic porcelain tiles or LVT in the bathroom? Granite or quartzite countertops in the kitchen? Cuts, colors, luster, shapes, finishes… aesthetics and budget… so many choices! Some homeowners never settle these questions and end up in a never-ending loop of shopping for ideas without ever getting the results they want.

Your Progressive Design Build team can help you make smart choices, stay within budget and have a great time in the process. As an experienced design-build team, we can help you narrow down material design selections based on your most important criteria: style, functional needs, restrictions, budget, etc. We can help you quickly eliminate options that won’t fit while helping you decide on those that will.

Your designer will guide you through the following steps in the material design selection maze:

1. Stay Calm—You’re Not Alone

You can’t make good decisions when you’re overwhelmed. The good news is you’re not alone in this process when you work with an expert designer. We’ll walk you through each step, actually helping you have fun during the material design selection process! Your designer will clearly show you the smartest selections, explaining the benefits and drawbacks of each, so you can make informed stylish decisions.

2. Let Your Creative Juices Flow

We recommend setting up a Houzz Ideabook or a couple of Pinterest boards dedicated to your project. The first step in the creative process is brainstorming, so during this phase, just pin and save all of your favorites so you can show them to your designer. This phase will also give you ideas about what you absolutely do not want, which can also help you narrow down your ideas. Your designer can then help you take these ideas to the next level to determine how they best fit in your home.

3. Select an Overall Design Theme

A calm, brainstorming state of mind helps you make conclusions about what you want as your design theme. Your designer can point out prevailing patterns in your Houzz Ideabook and Pinterest boards or scrapbooks that you may not have noticed. Then you’ll be able to narrow things down into Modern or Contemporary, Transitional or Traditional, etc. Once you select a unifying theme, your designer can help you identify material designs you can eliminate while highlighting the best materials and designs to fit your theme.

4. Find Your Design Anchor

At this point, your designer can help you go through your theme ideas to decide on an anchor or key design component that will unify the entire space for you. For example, a particular tile mosaic design, countertop or flooring selection that immediately draws the eyes and from whence the rest of the room’s design naturally springs.

5. Don’t Decide Everything at Once

You don’t have to. Your design-build team of experts can help you prioritize and spread decisions out over multiple meeting sessions as the project progresses to prevent that overwhelmed feeling from getting to you. Breaking decisions down into smaller pieces and following a detailed project plan with your design-build team always makes a big project/process more enjoyable and less complicated. This system of spreading out decisions based on priority, as well as your designer’s meticulous documentation, also helps you and your designer communicate better and prevents anything from falling through the cracks.

6. Enjoy the Process—Visit Design Showrooms

If at all possible, schedule time with your designer to go visit showrooms together. This gives you the chance to personally see and touch the materials you’ve swooned over during your brainstorming process. Although it’s not always possible to personally see and touch all the materials you’re considering, you can go online for customer reviews. More importantly, you can lean on your designer’s experience with the materials. They’ll have the inside scoop on different manufacturers, suppliers and materials that even your online reviewers won’t have so you can make the best choices for your material designs.

Progressive Design Build removes many of the overwhelming roadblocks homeowners struggle with when they want to remodel their homes: indecision, confusion, and inexperience with materials. Your designer replaces these with intelligent guidance through the decision process, clarity on what works best (and what doesn’t), and a deep knowledge of how different materials can shine in your designs. Don’t be afraid of the material design selection process: schedule a personal consultation with Progressive Design Build’s experts today.