In our previous blog post, Jennifer Snider, our interior designer, outlined the five steps you should take in order to successfully integrate your church’s interior design into the rest of your remodeling or new church construction project.
In this post, Jennifer details how to prioritize your church interior design projects to make certain that you address the most important areas first. With a master plan in place (which we discussed last time), you can be certain that all areas will seamlessly integrate with each other, regardless of the order in which you do the work.
Begin with the Floor of Your Lobby
While many of us might think that the highest priority should be the worship space, Jennifer recommends starting with the first impression space, the lobby. Yes, the worship space is important, but there are other places visitors see first, and if they are turned off by what they see there, they might not even make it as far as the worship space. Therefore, the first place to begin with is your lobby.
Think Quality and Consistency
It’s important to ask questions like, “What do we want our space to feel like?” Jennifer suggests you visit other buildings in your area and pay attention to what you like.
Also, use commercial-grade materials and furniture, because your interior church design will experience a lot of traffic over the years. And make sure that the colors and finishes you choose will look good in the various spaces of your building, large and small.
You don’t necessarily want to spend money on the most expensive options, but quality does equate to stewardship. The best stewardship involves making sure all of the products you’re considering are of a high enough quality that they’re going to last.
Prioritizing Your Church Interior Design Projects
As we mentioned earlier, refinishing your lobby is a top priority, because you want to make a good first impression on those visitors who you’re trying to reach for Christ. For the same reason, you should also give special focus to the children’s areas, as you want them to send a message to visiting parents that their children are a priority.
Jennifer also recommends putting restrooms high on the priority list; think about how many times you’ve judged the quality of a business or building by the state of its restrooms!
Finally, of course, we recommend that you focus on the worship space, since this is where adults will spend much of their time in your new or remodeled church building. It should reflect your style of worship and be a tool in drawing people to Christ.
Approach Church Interior Design like a Newcomer
There are also those little things that, because you’ve been worshipping in your church for a while, you may not even notice anymore. To better detect them, Jennifer recommends that you try to walk through your church building with the eyes of a visitor in order to see what catches your attention and really needs to be addressed.
Is there a corner that has collected junk, a corridor with badly scraped paint, or a coat rack that has held the same umbrellas for six months? These smaller details can be moved higher up your priority list simply because fixing them can cost little or nothing and yet make your entire church building look appreciably better.
For more on making the best decisions for your church building or remodeling project, visit our website and sign up today for our free i3 webinar series. Interior design is just one of the subjects covered in this year’s webinar series. There’s much more valuable information waiting for you to view!