design

I’ve worked as a professional interior designer for more than a decade now, and throughout my work, I’ve come across a multitude of misconceptions pertaining to the interior design field. Typically, these misconceptions make themselves known at a first consultation, as clients begin to see that they are getting much more than just a decorator or trend guru. However, I also face them as I work with contractors or suppliers who are surprised to see how much I know about their trades, in addition to my own.

Here are 8 of the most common misconceptions about interior designers that I find prevalent as I go about my work each day:

1. They Just Decorate Homes. Nope! That’s the job of an interior decorator. Interior decorators are for homes what style consultants are to people and their wardrobes. An interior decorator comes into a space that is already finished or built, and works to dress it up in style – using colors, fabrics and accents. Interior designers can do all that and more. An interior decorator is educated in trained in architecture, the history of design and basic construction tenets – as well as all the fundamentals of colors, patterns, lighting, lines, texture, and so on.
2. You Don’t Need One If You Have a Good Contractor. Unless your contractor is also an interior designer, this one goes out the window as well. While there are “design-build” firms that hire in-house interior designers to work with their clients before the build-out takes place, most contractors are just that – contractors. Their job is to build a home or remodel according to the plans they’re presented by the architect and interior designer. Read, Why Use an Interior Designer For a Remodel or New Home Construction, to learn more about this topic. If you rely too heavily on your contractor for design expertise, he’ll probably tell you to go hire an interior designer!
3. They’re mostly women. There was an era when interior decorators and interior designers were predominantly women. Those days are over. Today, there is an increasing number of men entering the field each year, especially now that the remodel and renovation realm is so much a part of pop culture. This gender balance will continue to even out over the next decade or two.
4. Interior Designers Are Too Expensive. There are interior designers for every budget. Sure, some interior designers only work for the high-end clients, but most strive to work within their clients’ budgets – regardless of the clients’ net worth. In cases where prospective clients don’t have enough money to pay for an interior designer’s full attention, we can always be hired to work on a consulting basis, providing suggestions, advice and input for clients along the way. And, in fact, many homeowners find that investing a chunk of money on an interior designer at the outset actually saves them money because everything is done right the first time around.
5. It’s Their Way or the Highway. Unfortunately, this can be the case for some interior designers, but not most. It’s important to meet with three to five interior designers before you hire one, so you have a chance to get to know them and can select the one with whom you feel the most comfortable being yourself, expressing your opinions and who you aren’t afraid to say, “no thank you,” to if they suggest something you don’t like. While an interior designer may help to broaden your design vision – the finished product should reflect your personal taste and lifestyle.
6. Interior Designers Live in Picture-Perfect Homes. Remember those old adages about the cobbler whose children walk around in broken-down shoes, or the contractor who lives in a home with a leaky roof? Well, sometimes when you spend all day and night doing something you love, you don’t always have time to apply that passion to your immediate life. Most interior designers have nice homes, but they look pretty darn normal if you catch them unawares.
7. If You Have a Good Eye, You Can Do It Yourself. Yes, those who are creative and artistic and who have a solid understanding of basic color and design principles may not need an interior designer to create their initial design. However, interior designers have something the average person doesn’t: connections with artists, design houses, showrooms and vendors, so they can get rock-bottom prices that independent DIYers don’t have access too.
8. Your Home Isn’t “Fancy” Enough For an Interior Designer. There is no home too modest or too small for an interior designer. In fact, the attention from an interior designer can help to take your “modest” home and transform it into a showpiece of sorts. We can make smaller rooms seem larger, we can increase light availability and we can rearrange the furniture and accents you have now to better showcase your home’s best features.

Hopefully this helped to dispel any potential myths you had about interior designers.

Where does your staircase fit into your interior design plans? Have you thought about it at all? Sometimes, the stairs are like a dead zone in the house. Sure, you may have created a gallery wall of some kind to break up the monotony of an interior wall, but it’s amazing what a little bit of attention can do for a staircase the blends into the background.

Consider One Of These Ideas to Make Your Staircase More Interesting

Maybe it’s time to spruce your staircase up a bit, in which case I have 5 ideas for you to consider:

1. Bust out some walls. Often interior staircases are enclosed by interior walls. The goal was to sort of insulate the staircase and “mask off” what is considered a utilitarian space. In today’s open floor plan designs, this can backfire, putting up a big block in a space where openness is the key. Contact an architect or contractor and talk about the potential. You may find you can remove an entire wall, or a section of the wall, which will open things up and expose the staircase to the rest of the home. Then, you can work with an interior designer to figure out what style of staircase or railings will work to your home’s best advantage.
2. Change the stair railing. Your staircases railing was (hopefully) originally selected to suit the interior design. If you weren’t the original homeowners, or if you haven’t updated your interior design in a while, there’s a good chance the stair rails aren’t contributing anything anymore. Or, they may even be detracting from your design style. In either case, redesigning your interior should include an analysis of whether your current stair railing works aesthetically. For example, take a look at this Suburban Entryway I redesigned a couple of years ago. Those sleek black railings are a far cry from the wooden, traditional versions they might have been.
3. Decorate the risers. This isn’t done very often, and I wonder why? Decorated risers make as much or as little of a visual statement as you want – but they’re guaranteed to add visual interest. In this Portland, Oregon home, the risers are such a beautiful statement with the simple addition of wallpaper. You can paint wallpapered risers with a durable clear, sealant to protect them from scuffs and dings. On the opposite side of the impact spectrum are these ornate, risers with beautiful wood inlay –each one unique. This is a literal example of pattern layering at its best. The good news is that while you are welcome to paint your own risers or commission an artist, tile layer or woodworker to do it for you, Etsy has a wide range of pre-made riser decals that make it easy and more affordable to efficiently do the job yourself.
4. Just add a rug. Do you have a beautifully finished wood staircase? While wood is gorgeous, a large expanse of it can wind up being a visual blank spot in a design. Look into beautiful, high quality runners – the area rugs for stairs – and choose one that works with your home décor. In addition to sprucing up your staircase, the rug can add a little color or pattern and will also help to save the wear-and-tear on your finished wooden stairs. The rug can also add a softer texture to interior designs with an abundance of hard, cold or sleek surfaces.
5. Supersize an artwork. If your staircase has a landing, odds are there is a large expanse of wall that runs up the side and/or faces the downstairs area at the top of the first landing. These walls are the ideal spot to install a large, oversized work of art. It sure beats trying to keep all those frames on your gallery wall straight…

There are so many reasons why it makes sense to include open shelving in your kitchen. The good news is that they work well in large and small kitchens, as well as both modern and traditional designs. The bad news is that careless attention to design will see you with plenty of open shelving, a clutter or mismatch of stuff stored on it, and way too much cleaning and dusting on your hands.

No-Fail Methods for Adding Open Shelving to Your Kitchen Design

Before we go into the best methods for integrating open shelving into your kitchen, it’s important for you to decide why you want them in the first place.

• You like the way they look. Open shelving adds an ‘open’ feel to the kitchen, and they look great when adorned with the right shelf inhabitants. Are you planning to fill them with the right items? Do you have a sense of what will look organized and what would wind up looking cluttered? Make sure you’re clear on exactly what the shelves will contain so you can choose shelving materials appropriately.
• Your kitchen is small. Open shelving is a smart move in small kitchens because you reclaim the visual space that is typically lost by a standard 12-inch deep cabinet box. If this is the case for you, be thoughtful about where you place the cabinets to maximize that sense of spaciousness. For example, a row of shelves above your sink wall or in blind corners will help to keep things more open.
• You don’t like cabinet walls. We live in an era of fully-integrated cabinetry, where you often can’t tell the difference between a refrigerator door and a cabinet panel. At the same time, this can make for a fairly boring, wall-to-wall cabinet look – and that has its own inherent downfalls. Many of my clients like to use open shelving to break up the monotony. If this is the case for you, place them in locations where you feel a visual break is needed.

There are a few examples of why open shelving may be on your kitchen remodeling wish list. Now, let’s look at the ways you can ensure they don’t add unexpected chores to your already full schedule.

Balance materials with cleaning realities. Cabinet boxes with doors protect your dishware from dust. You’ll never know how much dust and grime is moving through your kitchen atmosphere until you add open shelving…unless you’re smart about it. If you are okay with a more contemporary look, consider using stainless steel shelving with wire rack-style shelves if you plan to add more than a few open shelves to the mix. This will make your life much simpler.

If you have a traditional or farmhouse-style kitchen, you might want to consider decorative cabinet boxes sans doors rather than fully open shelves. That way, you get the openness and exposure you’re looking for (and you can choose complimentary or contrasting paint colors for the box interiors) but the dishes and shelves are slightly more dust-proof.

Plan the contents and location accordingly. Keep in mind that any open shelves near a hood will be prone to grease and moisture – as well as splatter and debris. This may alter whether you choose that for an open shelving location or what you choose to store there. The best items to store in open shelves are cookbooks, dishes you use on a regular basis, or dishes and dishware collectibles that you’re intentionally putting on display. When you stray too far from these items, you can wind up with shelves that look cluttered or that need to be cleaned way more often than you’re in the mood for.