What to Expect When Working With an Interior Designer
Hiring an interior designer can feel like an unknown if you’ve never done it before. You know you want help with your home, but what does that actually look like? And what is your designer doing behind the scenes?
While every designer works a little differently, the real value of working with one goes far beyond choosing beautiful pieces, it’s having someone take all of the ideas, decisions, logistics, and details that go into your project and turn them into a clear plan.
You don’t need to have everything figured out.
You don’t need to know your exact design style before reaching out. You also don’t need to have a perfectly organized Pinterest board or a list of everything you want.
That’s part of the process.
I want to know what you’re drawn to, but I’m just as interested in how you live, what’s not working in your home now, what you want to keep, and how you’d like the finished space to feel.
From there, my job is to take everything you’ve given me and develop a point of view for the home.
It’s still your home, but you’re hiring me to bring my perspective and expertise to the table, too.
There are a lot of decisions you won’t have to make alone.
One of the biggest benefits of working with a designer is simply having fewer decisions sitting on your shoulders.
A renovation or furnishing project can involve hundreds of choices, and they’re usually dependent on one another. The flooring affects the cabinetry, which affects the lighting. The furniture affects the scale of the rug. One change can have a ripple effect through the rest of the design.
Rather than presenting an endless list of options, I narrow things down and show you what I believe works best for the overall vision.
You still have a voice in the process, you just don’t have to research every possible option yourself.
A lot happens behind the scenes.
Some of the most important design work isn’t particularly glamorous.
It’s checking dimensions, reviewing plans, comparing materials, tracking down lead times, making sure a piece will actually fit through the door, and revisiting an earlier decision because something elsewhere in the project changed.
It’s also thinking several steps ahead.
That work is a big part of what you’re hiring a designer for. The goal is for you to experience a process that feels considered and organized without needing to be involved in every detail required to make it that way.
Your designer should help you see the whole home.
It’s very easy to make decisions one room and one item at a time.
It’s critical to zoom out.
How does this room relate to the room beside it? Are we repeating the same material too often? Does the house need a little more contrast? Are we buying something because it’s right for the home, or because it’s everywhere right now?
That big-picture thinking is what creates a home that feels cohesive without making everything match.
You’ll probably be encouraged to invest differently.
A good designer isn’t there to convince you that everything needs to be expensive, I believe the opposite is true.
Part of my job is determining where quality will make a meaningful difference and where it won’t. There are pieces worth investing in because of how often you’ll use them, how they feel, or how long they’ll last. Other things can be much simpler.
I’d rather see a home build slowly around pieces you genuinely love than fill every corner just to call it finished.
The goal is to make the process feel lighter.
Your home is a big investment, both financially and personally. Designing it should be exciting, but there are always going to be a lot of moving parts.
Working with a designer gives you someone who can keep sight of the big picture while managing all of the small decisions along the way.
You don’t need to become an expert in furniture construction, lighting plans, tile layouts, or what shade of paint works with your stone selection.
That’s my job.
Your job is to tell me about the way you want to live, and eventually, enjoy the home we create around that vision.
The goal is to make the process feel lighter.
You care about quality, character, and creating a home that feels distinctly yours, but you’d rather have someone you trust guide the hundreds of decisions it takes to get there.
If you’re looking for a thoughtful, collaborative design process and that sounds like you, I’d love to hear more about your project!