Hiring an interior designer is not easy – it requires research and time. To help you alleviate the process, here are some questions to ask interior designers and advice to make the process of hiring a designer easier for you.

1. What do you describe as a good working relationship with a client?

2. What time frame would you suggest for the scope of project that we talked about?

3. How would you describe your typical process - the approach to your work?

4. How do you charge - how do your fees work? (It’s too early to ask what your fee would be, as you need to clarify lots of things around the scope of the work together first!)

5. Do you prefer to keep within a general style, or do you prefer to work among various styles and/or periods?

6. How much experience do you have in bathrooms, window treatments, building homes, placing pools, custom designing furniture, etc. (or the details of your project).

7. What have been a couple of your most successful projects? And why?

8. Tell me about one of your more unsuccessful projects, what happened and how did you resolve things?

9. Would you describe yourself more as an interior decorator or as an interior designer? (We shouldn’t put a lot of stock in the actual answer here, but it’s good to hear how the designer/decorator answers this question, and how they position themselves.)

10. If I’m getting concerned about how things are progressing, how would you prefer I bring that up?

11. How long have you been in business?

12. Why do you do this profession? What makes you do this job every day? (This is a very disarming question in the middle of a conversation, and the designer should not only be able to handle this with ease, but describe with some degree of passion about why they do this very tough job.)

Remember, hiring an interior designer deserves a good interview from both parties to get it started well. Good luck, please contact our Interior Design Firm if you would like any advice about this process, or the next steps moving forward with your new designer.