[vc_row animation=”fade-in”][vc_column][mk_padding_divider size=”35″ visibility=”hidden-sm”][mk_fancy_title size=”28″ font_weight=”300″ txt_transform=”uppercase” letter_spacing=”4″ font_family=”none” align=”center”]Behind the Scenes | A Day in the Life of an Interior Designer[/mk_fancy_title][mk_divider style=”thin_solid” thin_single_color=”#dddddd” margin_top=”0″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][mk_padding_divider size=”15″][vc_column_text]As a general rule of thumb, most people perceive interior design to be all fun and fluff. The reality is quite different! Before we get started and let you in on the behind the scenes of our profession, we first want to say how much we absolutely love our jobs. For us, design is what we live for. We get excited by the tiniest details and are overjoyed on installation days when we get to see our vision become reality. Even more, we truly love our clients and the opportunity we get to make their house into their home. Nothing is more fulfilling than working hand-in-hand with a client for the duration of their project and witnessing the joy on their faces when they see their new space and how well it suits them.

Now that we have that out of the way, it’s time to give you the inside scoop into a day in the life of an interior designer. This is a great way for those who already have worked with an interior designer to understand what all they do for you, and for those who haven’t yet hired a designer to see why they will be an integral part of your project. Whether or not you’ve used a designer, you may already value what we do, particularly if you have tried to do the interior design work for your own project. The expertise and effort that goes into creating a cohesive space in a remodel or furnishings project is extensive and much more than simply selecting pretty things.

We like to say that interior designers are the stage directors for your project. If you have ever been backstage during a theater production, the stage manager is working at full speed to make sure everything is running smoothly, from the actors being in the correct place, and the right props getting used, to the stage hands doing their jobs accurately. All of this is unbeknownst to the audience as they quietly watch the action unfold on the stage. Like the stage director, we are working tirelessly on your project, coordinating with you to make sure we have the right elements in the right places, ensuring that all of the components we select are here on time and in the condition we expect, and managing the sub-contractors to be completing their work exactly as we envisioned.

Sometimes, it can get a little intense too. In addition to day to day project management, we also deal with the not so fun unexpected things that sometimes come up in design projects. For example, when a custom sofa arrives with a cut in the fabric, it’s our responsibility to find out what happened and coordinate repairs. As simple as it may sound, these types of issues take lots of time and many steps to complete. In the instance of the damaged sofa (which was an actual issue that came up on one of our projects), we first had to go back and forth with the manufacturer, shipper and receiving warehouse to find out when the cut was made. Once we had that piece of the puzzle solved, we coordinated with the manufacturer to ship out a fabric remnant that, thankfully, they still had. The sofa was then taken to a local upholstery shop for repairs, and then transported back to the receiving warehouse before it could be ready to deliver to the client. Although it turned out that the cut in the fabric was made unintentionally while it was being unpacked, it created a lot of extra work that was not planned for.

Not all fun and fluff right?! We envision that your work day has its own stressors and fires to put out which can leave you exhausted and in need of a stiff drink. So, can you imagine adding those above mentioned issues to your everyday pressures by attempting to design your own home yourself? By allowing a designer to bear these burdens, you can relax and enjoy the process all the while knowing that despite the mishaps, everything will end well whether you know about them or not.

You might be asking yourself, why are we sharing these behind the scenes moments with you? We want you to feel comfortable with your investment in our design services, and by giving you a peek backstage we hope that allows you to get a glimpse of our value. When it comes to interior design services, the perceived value is generally lower than it should be, often due to the fact that the client simply does not have the knowledge of what we really do for their project and how we take on the burdens of various complications so they don’t have to.

We hope that this blog will help you understand how hard we work for you and all that goes into your project behind the scenes. When it comes down to it, don’t think of it as only paying for our time, but also our ideas, creativity, experience and project management skills – all of which lead to better end results for you and your home. We know it’s not always a piece of cake, but we love what we do, and we happily manage your projects (and problems) so that you can sit back and enjoy the process![/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][mk_padding_divider size=”80″][/vc_column][/vc_row]