Frequently Asked Questions

We suggest hiring an interior designer 3-6 months in advance depending on your project scope and before or around the time of hiring an architect, builder or general contractor. Knowledgeable designers are able to enhance the project and ensure that you receive the end result that is in your dreams. We’re here to guide you and be your advocate through the process.

Let’s look at what happens when you don’t bring in a designer first— it’s like making a movie without a director; there’s no one holding the full vision and no one sharing information with the team in a way they are used to processing the information. With a designer on board, you will have someone taking charge of all the decisions, someone who knows exactly how all the pieces in your very large project puzzle impacts the next, and someone who can, and will, take all those pieces and create a home that is breathtaking in every way.

Our team is your unbiased expert resource— your advocate who is the liaison between all our various services: architect, contractor, and trades people. We communicate the information on the who, what, where, and how of your home to the appropriate parties.

We dig deep before we start because we want to get to know you on a very personal level. To get there, we set up meetings with the intention of establishing direction through inspirational elements. In those meetings we ask lots of questions and listen hard to your answer— because your answers tell us who you are, and what you care about. Your answers tell us what you love, what’s sentimental to you, and what you want to express about yourself. After we get to know you, and through detailed consideration, we integrate images that communicate our ideas into a new vision for your home.

That’s generally not the most efficient way to work with your designer. Our experience has shown us that the key idea of working with an interior designer is to having one person steering the ship. This lets the original design vision be executed seamlessly, effectively and in a way that is truly service oriented for the client.

Imagine baking a cake and having someone else trying to add ingredients at the last minute or frosting it in a style that isn’t in keeping with the original intent. The cake won’t be as the baker, or in this case, the interior designer intended. It’s tempting to do your own shopping to save money, but in the end, we find that it costs our clients in scale and quality mistakes which means that they end up buying items twice and experiencing frustration from the extra costs. If you prefer to do your own purchasing, we may not be the right designer for you as we offer full interior design services.

Calling it “Reality TV” is really a bit of a misnomer, because it’s not “reality”. You’re seeing results, not a process, and process is a big part of any design practice. Reality shows are based on months and months of pre-planning, which is probably the only place where the processes do overlap, but they can’t show that prep work in thirty minutes. So, what you see is the big, flashy and fabulous reveal. But it’s not done in real-time and it’s not real life. For your home to have the big wonderful reveal certainly is possible, and it certainly is our goal, but based in real time, which is often six months out, or more. Someone is paying the salaries, fees and for the materials used in the projects.

We suggest working with a firm that specializes in a limited scope such as an overall design plan.