Carpet Design

About two months ago, I was assigned to come up with a carpet design for our office's waiting area and this is what I did.

Before:


After:


It was an interesting side project for me because I got to try a few new things : interior design, communicating with a [carpet] manufacturing factory and bargaining. Out of those three, I think bargaining is the hardest because I am so easily persuaded...! LOL But in the end, I still gave it a go anyway and of course failed completely in my first trial talking to their Marketing/Sales guy. (Lesson learned: NEVER bargain with a Marketing/Sales staff because they are all scarily persuasive!) But then by the grace of GOD, I was arranged to meet with their Exporting staff and he was much more negotiable than the other guy. After a bit of back-and-forth, he ended up giving me a $1,200 discount and that's not the end of it: he also offered to install the carpet for us for free (which normally would cost a few hundreds if they had their legit worker to do it)! Sure, this Exporting guy is not a pro and his installation was slightly less than perfect (because it was his first time installing a carpet), still, it was a HUGE favour that he did for us!

Lesson for the day:
If things always turned out just fine in the first trial, then there wouldn't be "pleasant surprises."