Do’s and Don’ts When Hiring an Interior Designer

The art of interior design and professional decorating is still alive and thriving, it’s a matter of finding the right one with the right connections and resources to turn your business, office or home into the vision you’ve imagined. Even if you’ve already found interior designers in Michigan that you love the look of, there are many things you must consider when planning the design of your property.

Do:

Research styles (with photos, preferably) of homes, businesses, rooms you like

• Examples:
• Rustic Contemporary
• Industrial Chic
• Mid Century Modern
• Transitional
• Ultra Modern
• Retro Modern

Do ask your designer for a portfolio or background in the styles they’ve worked with in the past – ask if they use 3D architectural visualization and 3D rendering software

Do ask your designer the websites and sources they are buying from – find out if they receive a discount as a designer

 

Do give your designer your budget and price range you would like to spend for an entire home or specific room

Do consult with your designer about what you expect vs. what you can afford

Do give your designer specifics about what you definitely DO want and DONT want in your home or room before allowing them to make suggestions – it will save you both time and energy

Do let your designer know the amount of time you expect the space to be ready and do respect their expertise in their profession for the amount of time vs. the quality of the final result

Do have meetings with your designer with conversations outside of business – this establishes a better relationship between you and the designer you’re working with – making sure you have the same vision, are on the same page and work well together

Do give your designer a tip or bonus at the end of the project because chances are they went above and beyond just the scope of the project to give you everything you wanted while providing their artistic eye which you can’t put a price on

Do give your creative eye and vision, show examples with photography – using only words as a source of communication for your vision is not enough considering words are limited and many great interior designers may not use your first language as their first language

Don’t:

Don’t give a tight budget but demand standards be met within a certain timeline and quality of products without doing the research for yourself first (if you have better alternatives be sure to express these to your designer, there is no harm in demonstrating your knowledge base and offering alternative sources that the designer may have not researched)

Don’t expect your designer to produce work in the same amount of time as yourself considering they may have other obligations outside of their profession (scope of project and timeline should be discussed before deposit and a flexible timeline is part of any artistic endeavor)

Don’t speak, act or treat your designer like a servant – you are their client, thus you are paying them for a service but they are the one with the expertise, skill set and knowledge – if you wanted to do it yourself then you wouldn’t have hired them for the job

Don’t ask your designer to do anything else except the interior design of your home and what both (you and the designer) originally discussed prior to the project starting

don’t ask them to:

• watch your kids for a few minutes while you run out to do errands
• to help clean out the space or physically move furniture around
  
• what they think would fit best based on vague details like your personality – unless this is part of the original negotiation or part of their niche of expertise
• to determine structural aspects such as architectural or engineering – this is what renovators typically do
  

An interior designer designs the room based on the space provided, what is already there and the information given to them – they determine style, design, color, quality, budget and price with an artistic and keen eye for what you are looking for.

Many interior designers have a team working with them or connections and resources that can do these things for you at a lower cost with better and more efficient communication.

Finding the right interior designer may seem like a challenge at first but research online, ask friends, family members, contractors, interior design colleges and even furniture dealers will have resources of excellent interior designers for hire.