7 Reasons NOT to Hire An Interior Designer
You should not hire an interior designer. I’m going to give you seven reasons why I think that’s the case. You don’t need an overpriced interior designer with a big portfolio to make your space look cohesive and pull together.
1. Use The Money ON Your Space
The first reason is the most obvious, and that’s because the money that you spend to hire a designer, you could be spending that money to invest into your own space, into things that you really care about, even higher quality pieces, if you don’t spend the money that you would spend on the designer.
2. You’re The Expert On Your Space
The second reason is no matter how well an interior designer. Gets to know you. They can never know your space like you can, and they can never know your routines and how you like to use the space, as well as you do
I’m going to give you an example. Let’s say an interior designer does a layout for you.
They determine that the best use of your space is to put the couch in one position. It really makes it great for entertaining, but you know that you don’t often.
Really what you like to do is lounge in your couch in front of the TV. So for you, that arrangement doesn’t make any sense, but only, you know, that, or let’s say an interior designer picks out a, a sofa for your space, and it’s going to take minimum 12 weeks to get to you.
But you have the resources to find something that isn’t going to take quite so long, maybe even on Facebook Marketplace or at an estate/garage sale, but a designer’s probably never going to recommend that. Bottom line, you’re the expert on your own space and how you use it. Number three is technology has made it possible for you to have the same resources to design your space as a professional would.
3. Access to Technology for Everyone
Now we have tools that are practically free like Canva and Pinterest and Instagram. There are so many laces where we can go to find inspiration that didn’t used to exist.
We can use tools like Canva and Floorplanner.com to pull together ideas to see how they look (see how to make a mood board in Canva). These are tools that previously only an interior designer could do. But now because of technology, the whole world of possibilities has opened up to us.
There are also SO many tutorials, like the ones that I share that give you tips on proportion and how to mix patterns and things like that that previously weren’t available.
4. Availability of Custom Furniture and Fabric
It didn’t used to be possible for everyone to buy custom things and custom fabrics. But now because the internet has opened up the possibilities, you can get custom fabrics. Try looking on Spoonflower and Etsy.
You can get custom furniture without needing to use an interior designer. So access to things online has really opened up things for individuals that didn’t used to be possible.
5. Emotional Bias
The fifth reason why you shouldn’t hire an interior designer is because there’s an emotional reason that you’re going to like your space better if you design it.
It’s called the IKEA effect. It means that if you put the effort into doing the thing, You will ultimately like the result better than if somebody else does it for you. You become a lot more invested in all the little decisions that go into picking out the artwork and picking out the color scheme, and as a result, you’re going to like your space better.
6. Build Your Design Skill
You’re going to see that as you start designing your space yourself you learn as you go, Like any skill, the best way to learn it is to do it., and you learn as you go.
Let’s say you design your master bedroom and you learn something from that. Then when you get to working on your living room, you’re that much better at the whole process.
So it’s a skill that you’re building that you can use throughout your life in every space you live in. And you’re probably going to live in a lot of different spaces, the average American moves 11.7 times. Over the years you will live in different style homes. As you start learning, you start really developing your own personal style.
Your style will change over time. But once, now that you’ve developed the skill of pulling together your own space, as your styles change, Your space can change with it, without having to go back to an interior designer to figure out, what size coffee table should I get? Or, what size piece of art?
You’ll start to learn about proportions and scale so that you can apply these principles to ANY space that you live in.
7. Your Design Plan
Number seven is, what interior designers provide for you? is a well thought out design plan, but you can learn to build a plan yourself. It’s really just three steps.
And I’ve made a lot of videos sort of walking you through how to do that. But once you learn these three steps, you can use them in any room yourself.
Develop your own design plan and keep a record of it so that when you’re out shopping, you have your design plan right there on your phone. If you, if you’re looking for a new pillow or a new throw pillow, or you want to do something seasonal, you’ve got it all right there at your fingertips.
Keeping a plan for each room is so helpful because you have it with you always.
If you want to transform your space from feeling ordinary to feeling well designed and well put together, then watch some of my other videos because you can do it yourself. And there’s seven reasons why you should not hire a designer. You should do it yourself.
