Interior Design Process
If you’ve never worked with an Interior Designer before, you may be wondering how the process works. I want you to feel comfortable using my design services and get the most design for your dollar, so here’s a general overview of what it’s like to worth with an interior designer.
Choosing the Right Designer: Beyond the Portfolio
It’s important, in my opinion, to choose a professionally trained Interior Designer with extensive experience. Our foundational knowledge of design, art and architecture allows us to develop design schemes in a wide variety of styles, or to combine styles in ways that still look right.
But of course, there’s more to it than that – you also need to choose the right individual.
Make a point of asking for referrals, and then following up on them! Find out if the designer is always late for appointments or seems to brush off client concerns. You want to find someone you trust and respect, who respects your opinions too, and who seems genuinely interested in giving you the best design possible, no matter how large your project is.
If your interior designer has a portfolio, by all means take a look – although it’s sometimes difficult to evaluate a designer without personal style preferences getting in the way. Look at colors, textures, room flow, and the mood created by particular rooms.
Considering Your Lifestyle
This is key – part of my job (or any Interior Designer worth their fee) is to make sure that furniture, arrangement, floor coverings, windows treatments, accessories etc. reflect the way you really want to live. I can often help you reorganize space to make it more functional; I don’t want you to live with a layout that’s not working for you.
Be prepared to answer quite a few questions about how you’ll use the room, who’ll be using it, and special preferences you may have. If you hate frills and love plaid, let me know. If you’ve got a toddler or two or someone with limited vision, tell me before I get too far into the design.
I might ask questions such as:
- What colors do you like? What colors DON’T you like?
- Is there enough storage in the room, and how much do you need? Can you find things when you want them?
- Do you have any examples of rooms (or furniture or artwork or color palettes) you like? Picking up a couple of home magazines and taggging the photos with elements that appeal to you helps me enormously.
- What rooms in your house do you like – which are working well for you – and why?
- Do you do a lot of entertaining?
- Do you like open space, or are more defined private areas important to you?
Keep an Open Mind
Once I have these types of questions answered, I can usually begin work on a design concept for the particular room you want to re-style. Please keep an open mind at this point – I’m putting my experience, talent and vision to work for you, and it may take me in design directions you had not originally considered.
For example, one homeowner hired me to help her reorganize her tiny office so she could be more productive. Instead, I suggested that she move her entire operation downstairs, into the seldom-used den. She did and was able to triple her space and double her productivity almost immediately.
Rest assured that I’ll be checking in with you and getting your feedback throughout the entire interior design process – I want you to be happy with what I do!
