The week we send clients home.

After every kitchen visit, we ask our client to go home for seven days without discussing anything we saw.

There is a rule at the studio that no client has ever understood on first hearing. The rule is: after every showroom visit — kitchen, marble, hardware, appliances — the client is sent home for seven days, and during that week we do not discuss what we saw.

The client, in the moment of hearing this, always argues. _But I am excited. I want to decide. I want to lock this in while it is fresh._

We know. That is the reason for the rule.

Why we do it

Enthusiasm, in a showroom, is a poor signal. It is the least reliable emotion we can act on. A showroom is engineered to produce enthusiasm — the lighting is designed for it, the salesperson is trained for it, the display is composed for it. Every decision made in a showroom, within an hour of leaving it, is a decision made under the influence of a well-designed room.

Seven days later, the client is back in their own home. They are sitting in their own light. They are looking at the material they were excited about in the context of the walls it will actually meet. They are asking, quietly: _do I still want this?_

The answer, roughly 40% of the time, is _no, not exactly_. The finish is right; the colour is wrong. The colour is right; the size is wrong. The brand is right; the specific model is wrong.

If they had signed the purchase order on the day of the visit, the wrong thing would have entered their home. And it is very expensive to remove a wrong marble slab from a home.

What the seven days actually do

The seven days are not for research. They are not for spreadsheets. They are not for second opinions from friends. We ask clients specifically _not_ to send us photos or ask questions during that week.

The seven days are for the excitement to fade so the judgment can return.

By day four, the client stops thinking about the material. By day five, they remember it only when they walk past a similar surface. By day six, they either think _I still want it_ or _I forgot about it, which is telling_.

By day seven, they are ready to decide. And the decision they make is almost always better than the decision they would have made on day zero.

Silence is the point. Silence is what allows the client's own judgment to re-assert itself.

The math of the seven-day rule

We began this practice in 2020. We have used it on every specification decision since. In five years, we estimate the rule has prevented:

- Approximately ₹35L in wrong-material spend across our projects

- Approximately 60 days of delay from re-orders

- An immeasurable amount of client regret

The clients who initially resisted the rule now insist on it. Several have asked us how to apply it to other decisions in their lives. It works — as far as we know — for most large decisions made under emotional pressure.

What we do during the seven days

Nothing loud. We send the client the technical specifications of the item they were considering, so they have them for reference. We do not push. We do not schedule follow-up calls. We do not send comparison images.

At the end of seven days, we send one message: _are you ready to decide?_ If yes, we book the order. If no, we look for an alternative.

Roughly 60% of decisions come back exactly as they were on day zero — the excitement was correct, the decision holds. Roughly 40% shift, sometimes small, sometimes large.

Every shift saves the project from a regret.

— Suneeth