Why you should get help from an interior designer by Carrie Cotton Design
This is a guest blog post by Carrie Cotton of Carrie Cotton Design.
The thought process
The biggest reason to get help from an interior designer is not what you think. (Hint: It’s not just about making your home look pretty). If you’re working on your home design and start asking yourself;
- “What aren’t I further along in this process?”
- “Why can’t I make decisions on what I need to purchase?”
- “Does everything really cost this much?”
- “Why can’t I figure out what to do with this room?”
The chances are, you are doing one or more of the following:
One – Making purchases for your home without a plan. It’s what I call starting with ‘the pretty stuff’. Just adding some ‘pretty stuff’ first will no doubt leave you stuck without knowing what to do next to pull your room or your home design together even after a few good purchases.
Two – Going onto Pinterest or Instagram for inspiration. Pinterest is a place FULL of inspiration and this is great, right? Everything you need to know in one spot? The problem is, it can get very overwhelming if you are doing generic searches or even worse, just scrolling. This leads to more confusion, doubt and indecision further delaying your progress.
Three – Listening to the opinions of others instead of thinking about what you need and like for your own home. Does your neighbour really know exactly how you are using your living room with your family and guests? No? Well should they weigh in? And if they do weigh in and their opinion doesn’t align with yours…will you go back into ‘doubt’ mode?
These three things almost always come down to poor planning which leads to a lack of action which can ultimately end up leading to living in a home you don’t love for years, decades even.
What happens with poor planning
When you are lacking planning and action on your project and it is moving forward, you then may end up asking yourself the questions below:
- “What aren’t I further along in this process?”
- “Why can’t I make decisions on what I need to purchase?”
- “Does everything really cost this much?”
- “Why can’t I figure out what to do with this room?”
On repeat.
The biggest reason to get help from an interior designer is to come up with a plan for your home design so you can make it happen…instead of your home design just happening to you and potentially ending up with a home that’s not very good. This is probably your biggest investment and the place where you are going to be spending the majority of your life.
When you can plan out what you are going to use a room for and then the exact furnishings going into a room or in several rooms in your home BEFORE you start making the purchases…that’s when you are confident and ready to execute a design.
An example of why you shouldn’t rush
Since I’m writing this blog for Olson and Baker (which is a FAB company to work with), I’ll share a quick before and after story of one of my clients that spent time and money on her family living room only to end up with a living room they RARELY used. There wasn’t enough seating for the entire family, the sofa wasn’t comfortable and the tv and log burner felt disconnected from the seating area so it wasn’t a cosy room to be in at all.
And because they made rushed purchases for this room, they waited years before they reached out to me for help. They just couldn’t justify the expense before because of how much money they spent buying furniture that didn’t work.
And because their furniture wasn’t quite right and the room didn’t feel cosy, they kept spending money on new cushions and accessories only to realise it wasn’t helping at all.
Fast forward, I worked with them to go through the pros and cons of arranging their living room in 3 different ways.
Ultimately, and to get everything they wanted from the room, we ended up designing a sofa with Olson and Baker that would fit their entire family AND work in their space which had doors opening up into the kitchen, the garden and another room that we needed to work around.
They now have a living space that they use ALL the time. Because the room was planned properly to fit their needs, we spent the majority of their budget on the sofa and bespoke rug but filled in with side tables from Ikea and accessories from other high street shops.
Conclusion
Investing in an interior designer can be the difference between a room that is rarely used and a living space that is functional, comfortable, and enjoyable. With proper planning and execution, you can create a home that reflects your personality and meets your needs, ensuring that you love where you live for years to come.
The result? You can see and read for yourself.
“After our renovation, we had rushed our interiors; everything was a bit bland so we wanted to inject a bit more style into the house and sort out a few issues. Carrie was really great to work with and really professional but fun and relaxed and made it a really nice process. The things she was suggesting for us were based on what she felt would work best in our home and help us achieve the look that we were trying to achieve and that I had failed to do on my own.” – Anna G
This was a guest blog post from Carrie Cotton of Carrie Cotton Design.
