6 Most-Important Questions to Ask an Interior Designer

One of the finishing touches after building a home is interior decoration. An interior decorator is hired to give the rooms and internal spaces of the building appealing aesthetics.

He may still be hired later on solely for deciding the next color of paint for the rooms, the positions of cabinets and other furniture, or whether to include or remove some decorative elements to improve the aesthetics of the room or to give it an intended mood.

Upon the conclusion of the design, praises are usually showered on the interior decorator alone for their creativeness without acknowledging the role of the owner of the house in ensuring that the decorator did an excellent job.

Top 6 Questions to Ask an Interior Designer

The house owner must ask some questions when hiring an interior decorator. There has to be a proper client-decorator relationship to help them quickly establish a middle ground in their choices of decorative elements and strategies in utilizing the available space.

Interior decoration, as easy as it is perceived to be, is not a hurried process. It is a process where a client’s ideas and requirements may conflict with the decorator's creativeness; this may result in an awful design if not handled properly.

It's also a process that requires a client to trust in the ingenuity of the interior decorator in using the client's decorative materials.

Listed below are some important questions you should ask an interior decorator to achieve maximum results.

1. What is Your Budget?

It's almost impossible to underrate the effect of proper financing in interior decorations. The prices of decorative materials, cost of transportation, availability of materials, and service charges will affect the outcome of your interior decoration.

It is proper to ask the prospective decorator you want to hire to make a comprehensive budget of what it will take to make the interior of your home or office have that look you so desire.

While the prices of the decorative items may not be dependent on the interior decorator himself, the budget presented might give a clue if he might be wasteful with your funds and materials when hired.

The budget will also give an insight into the quality of materials the designer will use and the kind of services he might render. It will give you a clue on the number of workers and professionals the designer might employ to get the work done.

Asking for a budget from the interior designer you wish to hire will also help to assess your readiness to undergo such a project in your home or office. The prices of decorative materials (and other building materials) are usually unstable. So, you might be misinformed about the prices until you get a budget of what it will cost to design your home or office.

A budget from a designer will give you an idea of the current prices of the materials and prepare you mentally to spend on the project.

2. What Experience Do You Have?

Interior design is a broad art.  There are different styles such as the Scandinavian, Mid-century, French Provincial, and Hamptons. Interior designers choose to focus on one or multiple areas of this art and build their experiences on it.

The experience of an interior designer matters a lot when you’re hiring one. Go for a designer who specializes in handling your choice of design. It’s also important to hire one that’s experienced in designing the types of buildings found in your locality and the type of architectural design of your building.

An experienced interior decorator will use their experience on your project, educate you properly on your desired design, and show you a photo album or magazines of their past jobs from which you can choose or form your choice. Subtly, the pictures can also convince you of the designer's capability in handling your project.

However, have in mind that hiring an experienced designer may increase your budget. The more experienced they are the more they tend to increase their charges.

3. How Long Will it Take?

The time it takes to complete an interior design may vary from one professional to another. Several factors can affect the work rate of a designer.

They include the number of workers, the experience of the designer, availability of the decorative materials in the locality, and the use of machines and equipment. Some also choose to work at a pace favorable to them.

The work rate has to tally with the timeframe you allocated for your design project. During the interview, ask your prospective designer if they can get the work done within a stipulated time. It's up to you to either adjust the timeframe or go in search of another interior designer if they can't meet up.

There has to be a common ground on the timeframe for the design, else, it may lead to hurried work and awful design.

4. What is Your Insurance?

In this case, the insurance has to do with the event of a bad job done by the designer. Some materials used in interior design are expendable and cannot be reused if things go wrong (for example, paints and ribbons).

The completed design may differ from your desire or choice. In such situations, will the designer be held accountable for the incurred cost of wastage? What percentage of the cost of wastage incurred will the designer refund?

Ask questions like these when interviewing your prospective designer to ascertain the risk you’re taking in hiring them. Thereafter, it's up to you to decide if you’d bear the cost alone or the interior designer will be liable to make refunds when things turn out bad.

5. What is Your Project Management Style?

Interior designers are creative by nature. However, their creativeness alone doesn’t get the job done. They also have principles, visions, plans, ethics, and communication skills that will enable them to do their jobs effectively.

When hiring an interior designer, you must make inquiries on how they intend to do their job. Listen to them as they talk and watch out for ambiguous and uncertain plans.

Some designers carry their clients along in their plans. The client is aware of the progress made at every stage, starting from the procurement of the decorative materials to the finishing touches made on the design. The client may be allowed to make changes along the line and make corrections if need be.

On the other hand, some prefer leaving their clients out of the whole process. The buying of materials, selection of paint colors, choice of furniture, and hiring of workers are left to the designer. The client only trusts in the ability of the designer to do a beautiful job.

Ensure that you make inquiries about their style during the interview.

6. What Do Your Services Cover?

Some interior designers limit the scope of their duties to some areas in the home or exclude some functions they are expected to perform.

Originally, their duties should include drawing out the decorative plan, buying and selecting the decorative elements to use, installing and arranging furniture and decorative materials, contracting other subcontractors, and managing other workers on site. An interior designer may choose to de-list one or more of these functions from his duties for one reason or another.

Some may choose to focus on an aspect of the home while others may choose to be involved in every aspect. It's worthy to note that the preferences of the interior designer don’t reduce their quality in any way.

Ask for the services of your prospective designer before you hire them. This will prevent disagreements from ensuing when the project kicks off.

Take-Home

The design process for your building can be a fun-filled one if you choose to let it be. You can eliminate impending disagreements, confusion, and wastage of decorative materials if you ask the proper questions beforehand. The process of obtaining the necessary information from an interior designer may be tiring but it's worth it.