You may be thinking about hiring a professional full-service Interior Designer. After all, a qualified designer can create a beautiful, functional space in much less time and with less stress and decision fatigue than most people could do on their own.
Sure, you can scour Pinterest, watch HGTV, and daydream about the perfectly put together 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 will not go out of style and last through the kid spills and regular-life wear-and-tear 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, efficiently.
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 work with clients like you every day and can express the pros and cons of each of your decisions. We have access to a vast range of products not available to homeowners, and we have connections to reliable contractors…… And, we LOVE what we do so we bring excitement to what can feel like an overwhelming endeavor!
When it comes to hiring an 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 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 I think are the most important to ask your interior designer before hiring for your home renovation to better understand what the process will really be like. Below, I explain the questions and why they are important.
What’s is your design process and how long does it 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 Align Interior Design.
Before You’re A Client:
Alignment Call: Once you complete our contact form, we’ll email you our Services and Investment Guide, along with a link to schedule a complimentary 20-minute discovery call with me (Rebecca). This call is an opportunity to get to know you better & discuss your project goals. At the end we will determine if/how we can best help you with your project.
Initial Consultation: During our alignment call, if you let us know you would like us to proceed in putting together a proposal for our services, the next step involves a paid, 90-minute consultation—available in-person or virtually. This session allows us to dive deep into your wishes and needs, room by room, setting the stage for a detailed scope of work.
Preparation of Scope of Work & Contract: Following the consultation, we’ll promptly align your vision with a precise design-fee proposal and detailed scope of work which will be sent to you within 3-4 business days. Once we sign an agreement, we will pre-book our first meeting together!
Once You’re A Client
Onboarding: You’ll receive a welcome guide covering our tools, communication methods, revision requests, and a pre-booked milestone timeline for your meetings. We schedule meetings in advance to ensure clarity and maintain progress towards our target completion date. Your design start date depends on our current availability. Tip: January – April is generally slower for residential construction, making it an ideal time to pre-book your start date for a quicker kickoff.
Layout refinement + concept review: We start the process with an initial design meeting to understand your space goals further as well as any initial ideas you have. We will take precise measurements and work on layout refinements, crafting options to enhance your space. This phase includes preparing a building permit drawing package if your project requires it along with a virtual room by room concept board (a collage of curated images that showcase what we suggest) to ensure we are aligning with YOUR vision before we dive into the specifics. For full-service clients, this phase typically takes 4-6+ weeks depending on the scale of your renovation or if you require building permit drawings.
Documentation: After an in-person sample meeting, we get down to the nitty-gritty. Every finish is documented, every detail is drawn, and we create a full cabinetry package. Additionally, we’ll provide trade-ready documents, including reflected ceiling plans, lighting plans, electrical plans, and finishes plans. We know the questions the contractor will ask, so we ensure that it’s all written down – contractor’s love us for the amount of detail we put into these packages because it makes their (and your) lives easier. 🙂 For full-service clients, this phase typically takes 4-6+ weeks depending on the scale of your renovation.
Optional additional service: If you would like us to assist you with a value engineering meeting after you receive your construction estimate from your contractor, we can help you navigate where we can adjust specifications or scope to better align your budget. (We highly recommend you receive a full estimate from your contractor, BEFORE starting the demolition phase of your project)
In-Construction Admin/Support Phase: For full-service (local to Vancouver, BC the Fraser Valley or Whistler BC) renovation clients, we continue to assist you through the construction phase alongside your contractor. Essentially we are your advocate who understands contractor language and can help you navigate the questions that come up during construction. (Timing varies depending on your project scope)
Furniture Installation/Walkthrough: If your scope includes ordering a furniture package from us, we strive to coordinate a special reveal day at the project’s end, giving you the opportunity to celebrate! You have been dreaming of this day, so if it’s possible we want to celebrate your new home! (PS furniture orders typically take 3 to 6+ months so we typically aim to place orders for large items around the time your construction starts to ensure it’s there for your reveal/ photoshoot day) You can read more about our furniture selection and procurement process timing here.
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.
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 Align Interior Design, we specialize in residential renovations and new builds and our favorite projects to design are ones where our clients are busy professionals with families that want to collaborate and be involved in the process and decisions, however once we earn their trust, truly want us to guide them through the process and navigate the nuanced small details for them (such as floor transitions, Schluter end caps for exposed tile ends, bathroom fan specifications, pendant canopy rough-in sizes, how high a shower valve should be from the floor etc.-Yes, I could feel your eyes slowly glazing over, don’t worry we want you to be involved in all the fun stuff and we will take care of the nitty gritty details that your contractor needs.)
What will you need from me, and when will you need it?
You’ll want to know what your time commitment will need to be throughout the interior design process. Every interior designer offers different services with varying levels of support and access so you’ll want to make sure you fully understand whether you’ll need to be hands on or hands off, or if there are certain parts where you’ll be more involved than others. Yes, you are handing the bulk of the work off to a professional — that’s the whole idea, so the design process will be easier on you and your family. But to ensure your interior designer has everything they need to design the perfect space for you, your involvement in providing key information about your needs and your vision is critical.
And, at other times you will need to make your home available so that the designer can take measurements, tradespeople can do the work, and all of the finishing elements can be brought in and installed. You will want to have a thorough understanding of when you will need to devote time toward getting your project completed.
At Align Interior Design, our clients are the most involved at these key phases:
Onboarding. We want to know all the details about your lifestyle, design style, and functional needs. This is what will allow us to fully understand your style and goals to ensure we design a space you love. During the onboarding phase, we provide a link to a shared Pinterest board and ask you to upload (or narrow down to) your top 10 photos that best represent what you are envisioning as well as provide you with an onboarding questionnaire. Then we will schedule a time with you for your initial site measure (and site survey for renovations with additions). For the site measurement we will be in your home for approximately 2-4 hours (for the site survey they will only need to access your back yard – so dogs will need to be inside). Once we have that information, we schedule our first design meeting together!
Design Phase. During the design phase, you’ll want to set aside time for each of our design meetings as well as some time for showroom meetings when applicable. We typically have 1.5hr design meetings virtually every 2 weeks as well as 1-2 in-person sample meetings. Each sample meeting is typically 2.5hrs long and takes place in your home (if you are a local, full-service client). We pre-book all our design meetings so you are able to schedule time off from work if needed. Another important thing to consider is the two main showrooms we recommend you make time to go to in person is the appliance showroom (when applicable), as well as the plumbing showroom. We can easily narrow down the toilet or bathtub that we think is right for you based on your size & style requirements however you are the only one who can truly confirm if that toilet or bathtub is going to be comfortable for YOU. Most showrooms are only open M-F during business hours, so we like to let you know in advance that you will need to factor time in advance.
As you can see, even when you hire a professional interior designer for a full-service renovation project, we want to include you in the process and get your feedback along the way, so there is going to be a certain amount of your time needed during office hours. – Something that is often overlooked when homeowners dive into the renovation planning process.
How will we know if the decisions we are making are blowing our budget or are headed in the right direction?
Let’s be honest, no matter your budget size, you have a budget and you don’t want to get to the point of your contractor preparing your construction estimate only to realize your hardwood flooring was $25k more than expected. – Ok I’ll be honest, this has happened, BUT when it did, we were able to value-engineer a very similar alternative which came under budget and I quickly updated the unexpected price increase on my sample room.
A design team that will be able to best guide you through the process without blowing your budget is a design team who likes working along contractors in a design-build capacity because we literally learn more and more after every project making each client experience better and better as we progress.
After working alongside build teams since 2012, working on over 115+ homes (at the time of this blog post), I can honestly say that I learn something from EVERY project. That knowledge combined with the fact that I helped a past construction company build their estimating software which would calculate all the trade and labour costs really helps me, help you navigate those tough investment conversations.
I hope these questions have been helpful for preparing you to hire an interior designer. The relationship between designer and client is a special one.
If you take one thing away from this blog post, let it be this:
“ Your experience with an Interior Designer will ultimately come down to if your communication styles align and if you feel you can honestly communicate with them. ”
PS. You might have noticed that I referenced “full-service” client multiple times in this post. I wanted to point out that is because that is our main service type. However, if you have a small, one-room project and you are interested in a quick turn around service, you can check out our Design Immersion Day Service here.
If you are considering hiring an interior designer and have enjoyed learning about our design process and team, I’d love to hear from you. The first step in our process is to submit a Project Inquiry here. Then, we’ll be in touch with more information.
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