When should you hire a Designer for your renovation or Custom Build
The question a lot of homeowners face when hiring a designer is often when they need to do so.
To skip right to the end, the answer is immediately. However in an effort to reveal why this is important for you lets go into some details as to where, when, how and why.
There is a common idea circulating that interior design is a luxury you can afford to live without. Designers are fluff finding, money spending, know it alls that will drive up your budget and make you feel inadequate whenever they get the chance. We are not certain whether this perception evolved from real experiences that have been exaggerated over the years or if it is purely fictional.
Since it would be impossible to vouch for all the designers out there, let us explore first what your designer should look like. Because after all, before you know when to hire a designer, you at the very least have to know who you’re hiring.
La Casa Azul Design
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN HIRING A DESIGNER
1. Your Designer Should Be Your Advocate
Your designer should be a client advocate, committed to bringing all of their knowledge, expertise, resources, and relationships to full utilization on each project.
The designer should have a passion for interiors, but a passion that is matched with technical skills and experience to complete all the detailed work and decision making that goes into a custom build or major renovation.
Your designer should have a vested interest in you and how you live. After all, anyone can pick pretty things. Anyone who has remodeled just one time knows that just isn’t going to cut it.
Your designer should have excellent communication skills, otherwise, how will they convey the design not only to you but the lovely people who will be charged with building the design?
2. Find a Designer That Can Produce Your Style
Your new designer’s portfolio doesn't have to fit your style exactly, but what they have completed should be of the quality that you wish to see in your finished home.
Designers are trained in a multitude of styles and any good designer knows someone who specializes in your particular style, just in case it falls outside of the realm of their knowledge.
To quickly re-cap your designer needs to be, Positive, Homeowner focused, Knowledgable, Great Communication and Skilled at design.
WHEN TO HIRE YOUR INTERIOR DESIGNER
So now that we know who they are let’s dive right on into when to hire a designer.
1. When You’re Working With an Architect
If you are building a custom home, it is a good idea to bring on an interior designer, or at least begin communication with them, shortly after the architect is contracted to design. This is an important step because the designer can work in tandem with the architect to make sure the interior floor plans will work for you.
That is, in fact, an interior designer specialty, space planning for the occupants of the home. So working with the architect on initial floor plans can prove useful. At the very latest you can hire a designer as soon as the architect is finished with plans and preparing them for approval with the city.
On some projects, the designer is picking furniture, finishes, and equipment and later specifying for furniture so they don’t need to be brought on until the plans are submitted and approved.
So to recap with the custom build you hire the designer shortly after the architect or after all plans have been approved and submitted, depending on what you are doing.
2. When Completing a Major Renovation - Hire a Designer First
If you are completing a major renovation, you should hire the interior designer first.
Interior designers are different than decorators in that they are trained to design the interior layouts. So if you are planning on remodeling and removing walls or moving walls around an interior designer can draw up these preliminary plans for you.
Depending on the scope of the remodel an architect and structural engineer may also need to have a seat at the table. The 3 individuals will work with each other to make sure, Code, Materials, Overall Design and function are always present.
It is important to hire a design professional long before your Contractor is hired, mainly because the contracting team will not be able to properly bid and make material calculations if there are no plans out-ling all the pieces of the puzzle for them.
So in both instances hiring a designer is steps 1 and or 2 in your process. Having the creative agent on board so early will save you so much time and frustration over costly mistakes.
Renovating or building your home should be fun, even through some of its challenges of not knowing when to hire a designer, which is why we exist here at La Casa Azul.
Here at La Casa Azul Design, we specialize in interior design and interior architecture for your custom build, renovating older spaces and turning them into your dream. If you’re looking to start a home renovation or building project and don’t know where to start, we’d love to help!
We offer complimentary calls to anyone looking to begin a renovation project that doesn’t know where to start. We’ll talk with you about your vision and the goals for your home, and offer our best services to get you on the way to your well-appointed home.