The Real Questions You Should Ask An Interior Designer

You may be thinking about hiring a professional full service interior designer. After all, a pro can create a beautiful, functional space in much less time and with less stress and heartache than most people could do on their own. 

Sure, you can scour Pinterest and daydream about the fabulous rooms you see. But creating something similar in your own home? It feels impossible, especially when you consider the millions of options available and the fact that just because something looks beautiful doesn’t mean it will work in your house with your existing pieces and elements. 

But don’t feel bad! Designing a space that meets your functional and aesthetic goals, all while staying on budget AND feeling confident that your choices are, in fact, ones you will love forever, is not an easy feat for most people. 

Interior designers, on the other hand, have access to a multitude of resources and can put together a cohesive vision that meets all of your goals AND will withstand the test of time. Simply put, when you hire a designer, you are hiring an expert to solve your problem.

There are many benefits of working with a professional full service interior designer. We have extensive expertise and knowledge that allow us to hone in on solving unique design challenges. We have access to a vast range of products not available to homeowners, and we have connections to reliable contractors and skilled tradespeople. 

When it comes to hiring a full service interior designer, you will likely have a myriad of ideas about how the whole process will unfold. So you can be an informed consumer — and to ensure an effective working relationship with your chosen interior designer — it’s important to ask the right questions.

While your interior designer should know and be upfront about the project costs, billing and payment terms, and project timelines, there are a few key questions we think are the most important to ask your interior designer to better understand what the collaborative process will really be like…

What’s your design process? How much time does each part of the process take?

This question is critical to understand what to expect as you move forward working with an interior designer. Although most designers follow a similar process, it is important for you to understand your designer’s particular progression from initial ideas through completed space.

Here’s what you can expect when you work with Sketch Design Co. –

BEFORE YOU’RE A CLIENT:

• Discovery Call
  We’ll talk through the details of your project to make sure we’re a good fit and answer any questions you have about working together, 20-25 minutes
• Consultation
  We’ll walk through your home, talk through your goals, and answer any questions you have about working together, 1 hour
• Preparation of Scope of Work & Contract
  We’ll create your custom proposal specific to your project and design goals, 2-3 days after consultation

ONCE YOU’RE A CLIENT

• New Client Onboarding
  We’d love to see what inspires you so we can make sure we completely understand the look and feel you’re going for in your space, upon receipt of signed contract + design fee deposit
• Design Phase
  While you won’t hear from us much during this phase, our whole team is hard at work pulling together all the elements to bring your design to life. We’ll create floor plans and elevations, source fixtures and furnishings, and select finishes to create your custom design., 6-8 weeks after we officially kick off your project we’ll be ready to present your design!
• Management Phase
  We’ll collaborate with your contractors and place your orders with our vendors and suppliers, the management phase can take 8-12 weeks for furniture only projects or 12-20 weeks for projects that include construction.
• Installation
  Once your project is ready for soft furnishings, we’ll oversee the installation so you can enjoy a big reveal, typically, 1-3 days.

Have you done a project like mine before?

Make sure your type of project and end goals are in alignment with the services your interior designer offers. Some designers specialize in kitchen and bath remodels, others concentrate on furnishings-only projects. Some may only do new construction projects, but not remodels. 

At Sketch Design Co. we do all of the above! Our favorite projects to design are new builds and large scale renovations!

How will we communicate throughout the project? How frequently will I hear from you?

You don’t want to feel left in the dark at any time during your project: why isn’t my interior designer calling me? Is anything happening? Are they even working on my project? 

These thoughts can be very anxiety-provoking and in our experience with our clients, it’s more often that “no news is good news”. But, you’ll want to make sure you understand the interior designer’s process and key milestones so you aren’t worried if you don’t hear from them during a certain phase. Once you know their process, you’ll have a full understanding of all the things they’re doing behind the scenes to keep your project on track.

Another important thing to be aware of is your preferred communication style and your designer’s. If you prefer phone calls but email is how your interior designer and their team communicate best, you may need to adjust your expectations OR find a designer who is readily available via phone.

You’ll also want to know who you’ll be in contact with throughout your project. Is the interior designer the main person you’ll reach out to if you have questions? Or, is there a designated support person at their office who will handle a majority of communication so nothing gets missed?

At Sketch Design Co., we pride ourselves on our proactive communication. By providing weekly email updates, site visits, contractor collaboration meetings, and scheduled milestone design meetings, our clients always know what to expect and we are able to minimize surprises and delays.

Is there anything else I’ll need to pay for throughout the process?

Hopefully the interior designer’s fees are well understood right from the start. But you don’t want any surprises down the road. Make sure you have a full understanding of all costs that will be associated with your project.

Will there be shipping and delivery charges? Fees to store furniture items before install day? A re-selection fee if you change your mind at the eleventh hour? Don’t be shy about asking these questions! 

At Sketch Design Co., we believe in transparency and have established project minimums for both design fees and budgets for furnishing or construction projects. If you’re interested in working together, once you submit a Project Inquiry Form, we’ll share in depth information about our services and pricing so you know what to expect. 

What if I don’t like the design you come up with?

The reality is that experienced interior designers are very well-versed in collecting all the right information from you to help ensure the design concept will be perfectly aligned with what you are hoping for (and, maybe exceed what you are expecting!). They know the right questions to ask, how to spot patterns among your inspiration images, and how to distill everything you tell them into a design that is custom-suited to your needs and wants.

But there may be instances when a designer misses the mark just a bit. And you want what you want, right?! So make sure to understand your designer’s process for revising the design concept, or making re-selections of items that just don’t resonate with you. There should be a workable and efficient process in place if you are not 100% happy with what your designer proposes.

At Sketch Design Co., we want you to love your design and that’s why we spend so much time during the onboarding phase of each project to truly understand each client’s style. Then, once they’ve seen the design at presentation, there will be  a dedicated revision period specific to the service booked. During the revision phase, our clients are able to request changes so we can make new selections that work with the other design elements. 

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We hope these questions have been helpful for preparing you to hire an interior designer. The relationship between designer and client is a special one. I/we work closely with my/our clients for months or years on a single project and they become like family. And, the privilege of designing someone’s most sacred space, their home, is an honor we don’t take lightly. 

Before we finish this post, we want to share a few questions we don’t think are as important to ask your designer because they don’t really delve into the actual design process over the months or years it takes to complete a complex project. Here are a few of them.

—If you are considering hiring an interior designer and have enjoyed learning about our design process and team, we’d love to hear from you. The first step in our process is to email us at studio@sketchdesigncompany.com. Then, we’ll be in touch with more information!