How to Work With an Interior Designer and Get a Real Return

Great design is not just about spending more money, it is about strategically allocating your resources and spending money smart to ensure that you’re actually putting your money to work for you.

Yeah, it takes the same budget and it turns it into something that looks great and feels great and actually even feels twice as valuable in there. I mean, somebody’s going to walk into a home and they’re going to see how you’ve intentionally used your budget or made strategic design choices and they’re going to pay for it. Sometimes even not realizing it because it creates an emotion within them that says, I want to be here.

Welcome to Return on Design, the podcast where beauty meets strategy and interiors become assets that perform. I’m your host, Rachel Niederhofer, designer, investor and builder of high impact spaces that deliver real results. Alongside my husband, I run both a design firm and a real estate investment company where I live at the intersection of creativity and ROI every day. Each week, I’ll be unpacking what most people overlook, how strategic design decisions can grow your investment, elevate your lifestyle and unlock the full potential of your property. You’ll get real tools, proven strategies and unfiltered conversations with industry experts who are doing it right. So if you’re ready to invest with purpose and leverage designs, a powerful tool, this podcast is for you. So when you hire an interior designer, most people think that means, you know, pretty pillows, a nice table lamp. But in reality, hiring the right designer can actually increase the value of your property.

Yeah, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it a ton. Good design choices can mean higher rents, higher sales prices, retention of better tenants and working with the right designer can help you to truly gain and get to that point.

On today’s episode, we will be sharing with you how to strategically work with your interior designer to ensure that every dollar you spend adds value. Let’s kick off today’s conversation with talking about how interior design is not a luxury. It is actually an investment. Great design is not just about spending more money. It is about strategically allocating your resources and spending money smart to ensure that you’re actually putting your money to work for you.

Yeah, it takes the same budget and it turns it into something that looks great and feels great and actually even feels twice as valuable in there. I mean, if somebody is going to walk into a home and they’re going to see how you’ve intentionally used your budget or made strategic design choices and they’re going to pay for it, sometimes even not realizing it because it creates an emotion within them that says, I want to be here.

Well, I was going to say to you, I feel like luxury is a perspective. You know, it interior design is often perceived as, you know, this upper echelon of people that it serves. But you can actually get a strategic design for your property at a variety of price points. It doesn’t have to just because your budget doesn’t feel big, doesn’t mean you have a DIY budget. I mean, you can actually still partner with professionals to help bring your vision to life, too. And therefore, you know, advance your your property or advance probably isn’t the right word, but elevate your property.

Yeah, elevate it.

We have we serve clients on different spectrums. It’s less about having a big budget and more about having a realistic budget for the goals and like what you actually want to achieve with your property. It’s not just a black and white dollar amount. There might be certain people who maybe only work at certain price points, but there’s always somebody that will serve within that realm. I mean, for us personally, it’s more of a what do you want to achieve when we’re dealing with clients and then is that realistic and being very transparent up front, you know, because sometimes people just don’t know what what what is this going to cost or. They have a budget in their mind and there’s sort of a disconnect of. Yeah, application and the reality that like what things truly cost. But we have worked with clients who spend, you know, way up into the six figures, seven figures even, and then some that are barely tapping on that six figure budget. So it just depends on. What you’re trying to accomplish and helping are helping you, not just for our clients, personally, but you are a listener, you know, come to a conclusion or at least have some direction of is that actually enough money to do what I want to do?

And this is this is also why we say, you know, it will, you know, your budget matters, but it’s how you strategically allocate the funds, where you spend matters. Yes, because that’s how you get the return out of your design.

Yeah, because I mean, if you have fifty thousand dollars, that’s still fifty thousand dollars. You can do a lot with fifty thousand dollars. You may not be able to do everything you want to do with that, but it’s not an end all be all. I mean, it’s like, OK, well, that’s your budget. Let’s prioritize and help you allocate that strategically so that you can actually achieve at least a portion of the goal that you might have for your property.

You think about one of the the kind of the ranch house project. And now that was one of the I don’t want to say small budgets. It’s it was a smaller than some clients have, but. You know, it’s it’s a relatively moderate sized house and and there were just certain pains within the house that needed to be addressed. Like the kids are getting a little bit bigger. You know, this room is not working very well for us. The floors ahead are just a concrete stain and just they didn’t like it. It’s really amazing. Just a few other, you know, really, yeah, real. Main issues was like they wanted to know how can we take this budget that we have and and maximize what we can do to make this house truly something amazing. And, you know, like you said, it’s not necessarily about the dollar figure amount, but it is how we spend the money and how we allocate funds within the project and what’s going on to elevate the space and complete it and and figure out for them.

Yeah. And these that this client specifically had gotten some bids on a couple of things individually prior and they were really high and sort of discouraged them on thinking, like, oh, my gosh, we just have to continue to live in this situation. Totally unhappy with our, you know, house the way it sits. And one thing that we bring to the table is is that strategy. We have connections. We have, you know, just knowledge on how to pivot and be able to achieve certain things that they want that may not be accessible to them without having these industry partnerships and relationships that add tremendous value. Like specifically windows in this house, you know, could have been, I wouldn’t say double, but let’s say, you know, 25% more money had they gone out by themselves and not really knowing how to,

You know, wouldn’t know certain questions. Manufacturers, or different options, option, optionalities that you can easily get led down one path versus, hey, you know, we,

Which is part of how you get that benefit when working with a designer. I mean, your designer should have access to people, you know, product and a whole knowledge base that immediately adds value to your project that you wouldn’t have otherwise, unless you, you know, somehow spend hours and hours of trying to learn that industry. I don’t know if that is a good example of Ella, you know, I go down. Part of the concern for these clients was that pain points seemed way bigger in their mind than they were in actuality. So it can become very daunting for people. It’s an overwhelming, I just don’t know what to do. Everything seems like a problem. And, you know, having a fresh set of eyes and experience to come in and say, it’s actually not quite as bad as you think. We know how to mitigate some of these, you know, we can put paint in here and we can, you know, update, you know, this specific room for a different function, move this wall a little bit. And they had a relatively realistic budget to begin with. It was just shy of like $80,000. If they did not have us involved, they might have been able to achieve most of what they wanted if they already had a plan and they knew what they were doing. So you always have to understand you are going to pay extra for the expertise of an interior designer, but they have experience. It’s going to save you money in the long run. It might feel like you’re paying more upfront, but ultimately you’re still going to capture that return because the strategy they’re going to bring, the experience that they have,

You know, and the

Connections, yeah, the connections. I mean, so either way, they we told them, you’re pretty close realistically to what you want to accomplish. We think we could do that, but you still have to pay for me. And so they were open to the idea. We kind of gave them an idea and we got the price up. What another maybe 30,000 or something. And until you have a defined design, you know, it’s really difficult to give people a precise number of what things are going to cost, especially when you’re dealing with commodities and prices are always changing. But we haven’t experienced to be like, this is realistic. This isn’t realistic and help them navigate that process throughout and really identify, like, yeah, it feels dark in here. But once we update your windows, I’m going to give you fresh paying and we change out your flooring, like that problem is eliminated. So we can do that with this allocation. And then we focus on, OK, what are your functionality pain points? Your lifestyle pain points like these clients, like you mentioned, had a growing, you know, maturing family just different seasons of life. And yeah, like when we when when these clients came to us, they were about $80,000 on their budget.

Part of this is my and my I’m just going to say this while we’re recording. I don’t care whatever right now. My desire is that if if our clients are listening, they don’t they may figure out that we’re talking about them, but I don’t want too many specific details where it’s like, oh, they’re definitely. Yeah, I agree. 100 percent talking about me right now, you know.

Well, and I think where people. Like in real life feel that. That disappointment is when they start going out to get budgets on or get bids on their own and they have no like relativity of like, how much does it really cost to do this? This guy told me 30,000 this, you know, and we kind of come in and when that’s but genuinely, that’s what people do is they think, oh, I don’t like my kitchen. I’m going to renovate my house. I’m going to find a contractor and the contractor comes in and he says, well, what do you want to do? And they’re like, well, it’s just dark or I want it more modern. I want to update it. And then they’re just there’s no plan to execute. They’re just sort of or or they’ll come in and say, I can do it for 80 K. They’ll rip up half your kitchen and then say, well, now it’s actually going to be 125. And we still need to know exactly what you want to do. And it’s a very encumbered. We had a client that came to us and their budget, I would say it’s not that it was too low, but it just they had no conception of how much things were really going to cost. They had gone out on their own before and gotten a few bids for work. But they really there was no plan on how to resolve, you know, the feeling of a dark room or the discontent with how they flowed with their family in the primary living area.

Some of the efficiencies within that.

Yeah, like their master bathroom, huge pain point. It was really designed for two people very well. And so they had a lot of like discomfort and pain points, but there was no connection to what is this really going to cost? And how do I make decisions to do it? Like there’s no structure in that strategy that a designer will bring to you that a general contractor is not going to bring to you.

Your general contractors are to perform the work. You’ve got your designer to help you strategically figure out what work needs to be done and how to get it done. Yeah, their budget wasn’t a huge budget, but it was doable for the vast majority of everything that they were actually wanting to do if we did it strategically.

So helping bring like some clarity to the situation on what things really cost to achieve their goals, where that stood in in in alignment with sort of their initial thought of a budget. And then we helped them realize like, look, we can actually do all of this for about 30,000 more. We can come in and provide that strategy and then help execute to to solve your pain points.

Yeah, one with this particular client, they’d already had some work done in the past. And by not knowing, you know, as we’ve talked about in the past, having the right contractor do the work or, you know, knowing how to how to find the right contractor for certain jobs. You know, they had gotten this bathroom redone and it worked. It was good for the most part, but there were still issues with it. And some work kind of needs to be redone, right? And it’s that’s where, you know, having us come in, knowing we’ve got certain contractors that we know we trust. We also know where to go, get certain materials. And have people that we can work with to say, this is what the client wants. These are the goals and this is kind of the budget we see within their budget of what we can do that for. They helped us to get the proper materials and the labor to get it done.

And it might seem more expensive up front. I mean, we’ve had clients that sort of panic, like, oh, my gosh, how much is this going to cost me? How much more, you know, to be able to define the value of what we bring, all of the existing relationships, you know, access to different products that you’re not going to get apart from being within an industry.

And that’s something we’re going to get into later.

Yeah. And it’s there’s a lot of value add. And that is how you’re going to get that return on partnering with somebody who is a professional who already knows the space who can take away some of those headaches that come along with construction that people don’t foresee. Just making sure you have the right people in place, which is a beautiful segue into our next talking point with how do you actually choose the right enter designer for your project? Because it’s not a one size fits all. There are designers who specialize in different things. And so really depending on what you are looking for is going to help determine, you know, how to go through that selection process and find the right designer for you.

You know, some of the best I guess when you’re looking for designers and you’re not choosing somebody who just wants to say, well, what do you like? Because that’s a broad term, but they need to be specific.

Yeah, they need to have

To be able to walk you through a process like, what are you, yes, what do you like? Because that’s going to help determine some of the styles, but it’s also what are you wanting out of the space? Like what performance? What, you know, what is your goal in this area?

Yeah, what’s your lifestyle?

What’s your lifestyle? What, you know, what are you looking? What are you looking to accomplish really?

And even if you don’t know, like, you know, how do you use the space today? How would you like to use the space? Like, it seems so basic, but it’s not always a natural thought process, so it really can kind of challenge the way you think about something, and that can help refine the process. I mean, like I said, not all designers are the same. They don’t all serve in the same capacity, and their experience is in all in the same capacity. Some might have a tremendous amount of construction experience, and some may have none at all. So if you’re going to do a renovation project, you need to make sure your designer knows how, knows construction, knows how to work with tradespeople, and has a level of experience in that regard. And there are some designers who focus primarily on finished goods or the aesthetic of the interior after construction takes place. And some that, you know, maybe only focus on kitchen design or bathroom design or lighting design. I mean, it gets pretty vast, and that may not actually give anyone clarity, though, on, like, how to actually find somebody.

Well, I think it does, because you can ask them for, you know, what, show me work that you’ve done. Let me see before and afters, case study, you know, a case study, or, you know, tell me about the projects. Is it, does it align with what I kind of think I want to do, or, you know, because if I’m wanting to remodel the entire house, but I’m talking to somebody that focuses on a kitchen, okay, you might be great for the kitchen, but what about the rest of the place? What about my bathroom? Because that’s a problem.

I know that I’ve had people and continue to have people reach out to me after they’ve already started a pro, a project and they realize, oh my gosh, this is so overwhelming. I don’t know what to do. I already have a team of people, but they’re, but no one’s helping me, like, pick out my final finishes or, you know, make these certain decisions, and I’m so overwhelmed.

Can you help guide me through certain aspects of this process?

And that is not the ideal time for an interior designer to get involved in your project. It can, it can feel like a quick fix, and we can definitely still help, but it is not ideal because interior design requires so much planning, forethought, preparation and collaboration with a team that when you jump in after a project’s already going, it just, it takes a different level of learning curve and relatability. And there’s a whole another, whole another slew of dynamics that come with that.

You know, one of the things kind of like you alluded to at the very beginning here, people think a designer’s there for, you know, just the pretties, the aesthetics, the final finishing touches when in reality, having a designer start with you from the beginning can actually save you a lot of process and a lot of trouble in the end. Yeah, because they help you strategically think about the design and how it’s laid out and what’s going to happen and how those finishes come into play later on. But they think about that at the very beginning and so they help to guide you through so that the process runs smoother, runs more efficiently and

Saves you money, saves

You money in the end. Ideally, you know, it does cost sometimes a little bit more up front. And we’ll talk about this in another episode, too. But like how how that up front plan saves trouble time in the middles, which is where it can cost you the most.

But they’re going to help you define scope, too.

A good designer, a good designer, I’m going to say, will help you define that scope of, again, thinking strategically of where your budget is going to gain you the most return, where it’s going to benefit the most to spend here versus here and help to lay that out and plan it. Yeah. You know, you you may think I want to redo the entire room. Well, the designer is there to help you say, you know what, really, we don’t need to tear down this wall. We just need to repaint. That’s going to help lighten this up because that’s your pain point, or we can we can change this aspect and accomplish this goal versus having to just completely gut everything or, you know, or for what you actually want to do in this one, maybe it is a full gut.

I don’t know. There’s a lot of moving parts to it. So things to look for and take note of when you’re having a conversation with an interior designer, you know, are they asking you probing questions that are making you think about future use or function of a space, asking you questions or leading you in a direction to make you, I guess, evaluate your space in a way that maybe you aren’t. I mean, the goal first and foremost is to help you identify what do we really need to do? What is your real goal? It sounds so simple, but actually not everybody has

The hardest part to really figure out of what I need to do is what is my actual goal? Yeah, I want a new space. That’s very broad.

And they get overwhelmed with like all the decisions are here. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just don’t like it. So being able to really refine that and get you to a point where you can start developing like concrete ideas like, OK, this is actually what I want or what I think I want. And then them being able to lead you in that direction, not necessarily things like just purely, well, what do you like or what’s your color palette or what design trend do you like? That’s going to identify to you that they probably are not construction experts. They might be focused on the latest design trend or they

Might be good at the finishings, the final finishings, but not necessarily all of the steps in getting to there. I mean, yeah, because again, yes, there are designers who are great with the construction from start to finish. And then there are those that I can walk into a space and I can change this and this and this little bitty thing here, you know, and dress it. All right. So in short, if the conversation you’re having with that designer is is probing you to think deeper and leading you down the path of what is the actual ultimate goal, not just, well, I want a new space. But what am I wanting to do? How am I using the space? What do I want to use the space for? What, you know, get deeper, get, you know, a lot, you know, in into the weeds of it, I guess. And how we want to function, then that’s somebody that can probably truly lead and help you accomplish the goal of what you actually want and not just, well, I don’t know.

Yeah, design is a very personal business. I mean, you’ve got to get personal up front. It will grow as you kind of let your guard down. But, you know, for them to really serve you, they’ve got to get to know more about you. And to your design is really about partnership and collaboration. Your designers should not be making every decision for you and dictating the whole process. You need to take on a level of ownership and responsibility as a partner to make sure you’re happy with the decisions. You understand enough throughout the process.

And yeah, you know, we’ve said before, you are the CEO of your project, but a good CEO doesn’t micromanage every aspect of it. They delegate to the people who they’ve hired for their expertise. This is what I am wanting and make it happen. You know, I’m going to trust your process. You know what you’re doing. You know how to do it. Let’s let’s go.

And trust is the biggest thing you can bring into that collaborative relationship. You have to trust the process, trust the people and. Yeah, trust the process.

Trust the process. That’s a big one. And it’s a hard one to do.

Yeah, because it requires a level of relinquishing control. I mean, that is the thing I think we see the most of with interior design clients is either they’re completely disengaged and they just don’t want to respond to active participation,

Which makes it hard to actually complete the goal because the goal is not truly stated. And again, that’s where we talk about clarity and communication, collaboration, right? In order to bring this in full circle or

The other extreme of. I have to micromanage everything and I don’t even understand what’s going on that I am costing myself more time, more money and definitely more pain. Like we’ve joked like you don’t tell your attorney how to fight for you in the courtroom.

There’s a reason I don’t tell my mechanic how to fix my truck.

You can’t tell your designer how to design your space. You’ve got to trust that they have a plan that you’ve developed together. There’s a process that maybe they understand that you don’t and you have to go through it.

You can’t control what they do or how they do it, but you can give them clear, concise, like goals and goals for the project to accomplish.

Yeah, like that initial expectation, you know, for a lot of people, it is like, what is the financial budget, but you have to communicate? What is that expectation that everything will be based upon? Because that becomes the priority that’s going to move the needle for every decision that you make.

We’ve seen it several times, you know, starting out it’s like, well, what is your budget? Well, I don’t have a budget. Yeah, you do. Or even misalignment with a couple. Maybe your partner does. Yeah.

That’s probably the biggest pain point initially is that the team, whoever that is, usually the couple is not always on the same page to start, and that can slow down that goal defining process of you’ve got to be a unit first before anybody can come in and really add value because somebody’s always going to be uncomfortable enough that it’s going to create friction. And that makes it very difficult as a designer to serve you as a as a one unit when your goals are not the same or you haven’t even defined your goals together yet to be able to include the third party into that equation.

I was going to say here, too, you know, and we’ve worked with we have worked with clients in the past. And it’s, you know, oh, I don’t really have a budget. Oh, you know, they want to say I don’t have a budget. Well, there gets there gets a point where usually there’s one and say we’re starting to spend a little more than I wanted. And, you know, as we’ve talked about in the past, usually that’s the husband. Like the wife wants I want to I want to make it feel this way. I want everything beautiful. And the husband’s like, wait, at some point, I need to really see the value in what I’m paying for here.

And sometimes it’s the wife.

Sometimes it is the wife and we’ve we’ve had those clients too. And, you know.

But but when that does happen, I mean, it almost always slows the project down and in the end costs more money because we’re usually shifting the design to accommodate their shifting narrative or their shifting goals, which requires more design time.

More we’re shifting of resources, which then, you know, this contractor or group of people we had scheduled to work on a project. I’ve got to shift them around now to go to this other project because we we’ve we’ve had to pause, put the brakes on this right now so we can kind of regroup, refigure. And then it’s like, wait, when can I get them back? Well, now I’m waiting. And it may not always be a financial extra cost, but it’s a timing extra cost. It’s a headache extra cost. Sometimes it is a financial extra because now I’ve got to try and squeeze them in and squeeze it back up to.

Well, it definitely usually always leads to a level of.

It usually does. Yeah. Yeah.

Versus like, you know, our clients that are more in alignment to begin with. And there’s more clarity from the get go. The project’s way smoother. We don’t have to redesign as much. It definitely stays on schedule from a track, you know, timing standpoint, a lot better.

Just overall, the clients overall more happy. Yeah, because it was less stressful. It was less stressful. I mean, that’s that is as we do design jobs, that is a lot of our job is to take that stress off, help to mitigate, help to plan, help to foresee and strategically place, you know, the resources where they need to be to accomplish what the client wants, but minimize the headache that they have to go within it.

So much logistics goes into design and execution of any construction, which is why you got to relinquish that control, because you don’t have the experience to manage the project logistics. I promise you. And that’s part of the return you’re going to want

To deal that and deal with that on top of everything else. Yeah, as a client, you’re already dealing with on a day to day basis. That that added stress stresses you even more. Versus that’s what that’s what we do.

Exactly. That does not mean that you have to have all the answers to everything, especially upfront, but you have to be authentic and you’ve got to communicate. I mean, I tell my clients regularly, like, I want you to be yourself, even when they have a panic moment or they, you know, freak out about something that they don’t understand. Like, you’ve got to give space as a designer for them to have that reaction and then be able to rein it back in of, like, hey, we’re still focused on this project that cannot be what is ruling our schedule.

Yeah, the clarity in the end result of this is what I’m looking for, not necessarily the clarity of how every step gets there. Right. That is what your designer needs. That is what we want to do. Goes back to that trust goes back to that trust of this. This is a process. You have to trust your process. You have to trust the process of the designer and the and the construction crews and, you know, that’s what you’re hiring them for. Again, I don’t I don’t tell my mechanic how to fix my truck. I don’t tell my lawyer how to, you know, fight a litigation or whatever. You know, or but and you don’t tell your designer how to design the space. You tell them this is what I want and this is these are the, I guess, certain constraints. This is my budget.

But also there’s a very there can be a huge disconnect in the process that I think is probably even more of a common pain point. I see is they might know what they want to show you a picture. I want this. But the process on how to achieve this is where they usually try to micromanage or get, you know, you’ve got a relinquish. Like you showed me what you want. We’ve we’ve established the goal. Everything’s going down that trajectory. You cannot expect to understand the full process, not having that experience, which is why you hire the right team to come in and execute. Your designer should be adding value from an execution standpoint that is beyond your ability to understand because that’s what they do. That’s not what you do and not micromanaging and trusting the process even when you don’t feel like anything’s happening. There’s a lot that goes into it. I mean, like they say, right, Rome wasn’t built in a day. So let’s focus on some mistakes or let’s share with with them some mistakes.

We see common mistakes or missteps that we’ve seen

When it comes to like working with a designer or hiring a designer specifically. Like don’t just hire for personality or like ability, you need to be comfortable with who you’re working with. But there’s got to be more depth, you know, just like any relationship. You’ve got to have a little depth because that initial personality might be fleeting.

You know, you’re hiring for processes. You know, how do they do they know what they’re doing? Can they actually show you and walk you through? This is how this is what we’re going to do. Yeah. You know, because if they can’t if they can’t explain this is how we can move forward, then we might have a problem.

Don’t just hire for status. I see this a lot where people, you know, maybe somebody gave them a referral like, oh, this is the biggest, best, you know, designer in this space. Luxury designer or whatever, whatever the tagline might be. Yeah. And then that person isn’t the right fit for you. And then people come to me and they’re like, I just don’t feel like I can be myself with this person or really tell them what I want. It’s like, that’s a red flag to your project at the end of the day. You’re going to live in this house. If you can’t communicate with these people, they’re not the people you should be working with.

Don’t micromanage the process. If you’re not the designer, don’t be the designer. Exactly. That’s what you hire the designer for.

Micromanaging will for sure cost you more money in the end. Don’t hire a designer purely for aesthetics or beauty. There has to be strategy or else your designer could be a liability, not an asset. Beware of someone who says, I can do it all. I can do it all. Everyone has a level of limitations, which is why collaboration is key. And anyone who comes in, especially as a designer and gives you a price for a project without having a design for a project, I would run the other way. It’s impossible to put a price on a project that has no scope of work. Yeah, they’ll be able to give you a price for their design fee or services, but you need to design first. That’s the same thing with the contractor, by the way. Yeah, collaboration is essential. It’s essential to a successful design. To a successful design with you, your designer should be collaborating with you and then execution of that design. So they’ve got to be able to collaborate with other partners that actually bring the full vision to life.

Yeah, so when you’re working with a designer and you’ve got to be strategic, they need to be working with you strategically because you’re not just buying style, you’re buying performance. So when you plan that next project, don’t necessarily go into what’s all this going to cost me, but what is my return coming back?

Yeah, because design is an investment.

Design is an investment, exactly. Design is an investment, and it’s a big investment.

And it should be producing your return, especially when done right. I always ask, do you like this? Do you like what you hear? Obviously, you do, or you wouldn’t be listening still. So make sure you have subscribed and you’re following because we are giving you fresh, real world content that will definitely add value to your projects and to your life.

So if you have questions, you have comments, hit us up on social media, send us a comment, send us a question. We’ll see what we can do to help you out.

Yeah, if you have a thought or an idea on a topic we haven’t discussed yet, let us know. We can definitely touch on those points also. And we’d love to hear what exactly you want to hear from us.

Must get your wheels turning.

See you on the next episode.