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Have you posted this on House Chat? May find more designer types there.
Thanks.
Can a little guy hire a designer for a one time, inexpensive, consultaion? Accent paint colors, window covering thoughts, etc. Kind of a house walk through prior to finishing a new house?
Curious.
I know that furniture stores sometimes have services to help coordinate furniture. Of course you typiclly are buying 10, 20 or more thousand dollars in furniture from them.
ID is one of those great unregulated fields where anybody can hang out a shingle. It is based more on taste and recomendations than pure knowledge and skills. I have worked with some great ones and have worked with some real loonies. Most of the ones so-called working in stores have little actual taste beyond your grandmother or skill beyond salesamnship.but the trade works basicly the same, the real money they make is in the markup on goods and kickbacks from specialty artists and supplieers on top of their hourly rates or basic fe3ees. It is possible to hire an ID on a hourly consult basis, but you are less likely to get a good one without total commitment.That is only based on my experience working around a dozen or so of them.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin, pretty much my thoughts as well.
Sometimes, what my wife and I need is a few ideas. Like most people, we know what we like when we see it.
My wife is afraid of color. I say color is key for a "look". I understand the fear, because it is difficult to know what you are going to get before you throw the paint on the wall. White is safe. No, risk . . no gain, however.
And I beleive you are right in that if you hire a IDer you will often get his/her taste or what is in vogue, not what you are looking for.
In my experience, colour is one of the things that these folks are weakest on, even the good ones. Given enough experience they have a palette of choices they know has worked before and keep using it. When they try virgin material, they end up ordering re-painting about 40% of the time leaving the HOs to question why is the paint invoice over budget?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Yes you can. It's like contracting, some will take small jobs and others won't. Some are great and some are not.
You'll have to ask around and call around. It would be good to see a portfolio to see if she could design in a taste that suits you.
As for inexpensive, it depends on if you think $50 to $150 per hour is inexpensive. Of course, people blow much more than that on more transient things.
There's a difference between interior decorators and interior designers...while (I believe) most any person can call themselves an interior decorator, an interior designer is held to a higher standard. Many states require them to have a degree in design and to be registered, much like an architect or engineer.
You can go to the Americn Society of Interior Designers website at http://www.asid.org/, and they have some links for finding a person in your area, along with the address for the local chapter.
youe beat me to it Stuart. My wife is an interior decorator, and gets testy when their compared as equals. If your looking for colors and placement then get a decorator. If your looking for that and all the suppliers, specific pieces, room layouts, flow...etc. then get a designer.
If it's primarily color, and you don't want or need to buy furniture, there are people who will give you a day or 1/2, or whatever, helping you decide, & recommending ways to arrange and recombine what you have.
You can find one by asking the higher-end real estate agents in your area. They sometimes use them to arrange houses for sale. The somewhat disparaging term is 'fluffer', but I'm not sure what they are really called.
Good luck, & happy holidays!