Hiring a Designer: Part 1

“Designers are expensive!”

”I can make decisions on my own.”

”A designer isn’t going to respect my budget.”

”What if a designer doesn’t listen to what I want!?”

These are just a few of the concerns we’ve heard about hiring a designer and, you know what, they’re all valid ones! Trust us, we recognize and understand that hiring a designer can be daunting. However, hiring a designer can be one of the best investments you make for your home and we’re going to explain why. We want our “Hiring a Designer” blog series to be resource for you in your journey to hire any designer!

Here are some reasons to consider hiring a designer and the benefits they bring to the table.

Hiring a designer saves you money.

We see you rolling your eyes at this but trust us when we say that a good designer is going to save you money and help you stay in budget! Here are a few ways designers save you money:

• Furnishings: Designers have access to “to-the-trade” furniture and decor which means that they can source pieces that are exclusively available to designers at a much lower cost than retail. Many designers will share part of that discount with you which saves you a lot of money on furnishings. This also allows you to have unique furniture that isn’t available to the public! See images below to compare retail pricing versus to-the-trade pricing.

• New Construction or Remodel: We’ve had clients come to us who say, “we thought we could make decisions on our own but we’re overwhelmed and need help!” When it comes to building a custom home, the amount of decisions is OVERWHELMING. It’s not just picking out fun tile and pretty countertops. Do you know what trim style you want? How thick? Grout color? Wall texture? What about paint colors, can you pick all those yourself? Will they go with your flooring selections? Have you picked a countertop material? Do you want 2cm, maybe 3cm? Y’all, when we say the decisions that have to be made during home building is overwhelming, we aren’t kidding. All too often, clients don’t use a designer and try to make the decisions themselves which can be very frustrating to many homeowners. Selections end up being made that don’t feel or look right and have to be reselected and that costs money. A good designer is going to help make all the decisions with you and is going to make selections that are within your budget. If a designer is making selections that completely blow your budget out of the water, they’re not doing their job correctly. It’s so worth it to have help and do it right the first time rather than try to make hodge-podge selections room by room and make expensive changes as you go.

• General Design: Whether you’re building or need furniture, a designer is going to tell you where to invest and where to save based on your budget. For example, if you have little kids, let’s invest in a performance fabric for your furniture and go with a quartz countertop instead of marble because it’s a little more durable. Pets? Let’s invest in a good floor material but get a more budget-friendly rug. A designer knows where to save and where to invest based on your budget, your needs, your style and how you live in your home. They’re also going to help you pick selections that are classic and will outlast any current trends that you might get tired of. Designers are great at balancing trendy and classic and there are ways to incorporate both to achieve the look you want! You can get fun and creative but keep the design classic so in two years you’re not ready to redo it all.

“I had never worked with a designer and I was apprehensive. I was concerned about the cost of working with a designer but in the process, I realized having a designer was so necessary! MHI was priced very fairly and the experience of working with a wonderful designer like Ashley actually helped save us money. She helped us be forward thinking and made recommendations that were truly cost-saving for us. Left to my own devices, I would have likely made costly mistakes in the design process that might have been redone or left me unhappily living with selections I didn’t like. Enlisting Ashley and MHI for our project negated any of those issues.” —Julie F.

This living room look would be an estimated investment of $17,557 with Moore House Interiors. That cost includes furniture, design fees, our team managing ordering/shipping/tracking/receiving/any returns or working with vendors and then installing it in your home aka giving you your own HGTV reveal. You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing!

This similar living room look would be an estimated cost of $20,068 before tax with you ordering and managing everything on your own and no designer help. This would be you ordering through a big box store and doing everything yourself including ord…

This similar living room look would be an estimated cost of $20,068 before tax with you ordering and managing everything on your own and no designer help. This would be you ordering through a big box store and doing everything yourself including ordering/receiving/delivery/managing returns and dealing with customer service.

We deal with the headaches as much as possible.

All those decisions we talked about? Let us manage them and prevent you from getting an ulcer. When it comes to home design, issues are going to arise and that’s a fact. Your tile might get installed wrong, a piece of furniture might arrive damaged, a light fixture might be hung in the wrong room, something got lost in transit, a room was painted the wrong color… in any of those scenarios, a designer is going to handle the cleanup for you! We manage all the ordering, tracking, shipping and receiving of our client’s furniture. If there’s an issue with anything, our client will probably never know because we handle it and don’t let them stress about it. We are in constant communication with our client’s builders and contractors, so if they install the wrong tile or we need to troubleshoot a problem together, we have that conversation with the crew and the homeowner doesn’t have to do that if they don’t want to. It is our job to handle the headaches, that’s what you pay us to do as a professional!

“Having a designer saves time and stress in the building process, especially if you get overwhelmed easily like I do. I think it’s well-worth the money to have someone who knows what they’re doing. I tell everyone that!” —Julie H.

Your home will have a cohesive design and feel as designers look at the big picture design.

When you’re trying to make decisions on your own, it’s easy to lose sight of the ‘big picture’ or the whole home. Going room by room makes things easier, but often times this leads to the home feeling piece-mealed together and the home doesn’t quite ‘flow.’ A designer can look at the big picture design and bring the home to life with one fluid design. If you have special, meaningful furniture pieces or family heirlooms that you want to use, a designer can incorporate them while still having a cohesive flow throughout the home with new, modern design elements.

“Doing the project ourselves would’ve resulted in stressing over the many, many decisions, spending a lot of money on the wrong things and ending up with a hodge-podge of looks that I'd want to re-do as soon as possible. With Ashley, I could take deep breaths and relax knowing that she was steering us in the right direction.” —Debbie B.

A designer will advocate for you.

A designer should be your teammate during your home design experience. If something goes wrong on your job site or a mistake is made, a designer is going to make sure that it’s corrected and you end up with a design you love. Unfortunately, we’ve dealt with some builders who seemed to be on a mission to make our client’s lives difficult. As your designer, it is our job to stand up for you and fix any issues with a builder or contractor. If they’re not doing quality work on your home or aren’t following design direction, we’re going to have a serious (maybe multiple) conversation with them because we won’t tolerate you getting anything less than the best from everyone you’ve chosen to work with! We’re all lucky to be part of your home project. We’ve also dealt with furniture vendors who have sent pieces that were very damaged or poorly made. We will not accept those items under any circumstances and will make sure that you get the furniture that you’re paying for and it meets our standards. You’ve invested in us, your builder, your contractor, your furniture and you deserve the utmost best service and quality from all parties involved.

We’ll be sharing more about the benefits and process of hiring a designer so stay tuned for upcoming blog posts! We share new posts every Friday.

Are you planning on building a custom home any time soon? Check out our series on hiring a builder!