You can hire an interior designer to design and furnish your home in cost effective manner and without any hassle. Learn about the pros and cons of hiring interior designers.
If you are in the process of constructing a house or buying a flat or an office, I am sure you have thought to hire an interior designer. There are many who are not sure if hiring interior designers is worth it. There are many who are not even sure if they need to hire an interior designer, they think, they can design the space on their own.
And if you are one of them, then let me tell you that there are many benefits of hiring professional interior designers for they can design and furnish your home and make it work for you. But like any other decision you make, there are both pros and cons of hiring interior designers and that’s what we are going to discuss in this post.
A lot of sweat and money goes into buying or constructing a house or any property for that matter. And I am sure you want to design the interior of the house in such a way that it looks nice and work well for you and your family. And when you hire a professionally trained and experienced interior designer, they just make it happen.
If you have not made up your mind yet and want to know about the pros and cons of hiring an interior designer then please read through the post to come to a conclusion.
5 Reasons why you should hire an interior designer
If you have just purchased a new flat or constructed a home and you have not made up your mind, then I am going to help you take the right decision. Like everything else, there are both advantages and disadvantages of hiring an interior designer.
If you choose to design your place on your own without using interior designing service from a professional firm, then you may save some money – money that the professional will charge. But chances are you may end up spending more through the process.
When you hire a professional interior designer to help, the process will be as smooth and you will have single point of contact and the pro is going to help you make right decisions at every stage such as layout planning, design escalation and execution of the project.
Listed below are some of the benefits and advantages of hiring interior designers.
Helps you get most of your money on furnishing
Now that may come as a surprise, but hiring interior designers can help you save money. When you try to design and furnish the space, you may end up spending on wrong material or things that does not add value to the space.
A professional interior designer will help you make right decision and help you invest on things which are important, and add value to the aesthetics and functionality of the overall space. For instance, they can help you choose right set of materials like plywood and laminates. There are many varieties and brands, and you may not know what is best suited for your needs.
Single point of contact and accountability
While decorating your home or workplace, you have to deal with plumbers, electricians, false ceiling contractors, carpenters and other types of vendors for painting, curtains etc. It involves lots of subcontracting and coordination, which you may not be able to handle so easily.
But when you hire an interior designer, you can award them the job on turnkey basis and they will take care of everything. They become the single point of contact. The interior contractor will coordinate with their team and manage it all smoothly. They take all the responsibility and hence they are accountable for any mess or delays in execution.
Helps with space optimization
Whether it’s a huge bungalow, duplex flat or standard 3BHK flat, there is no point in wasting the space. Professionals know it better than anyone else and hence when you hire an interior designer, they do adequate layout planning to ensure that the available space is being utilized perfectly.
They take the measurement; understand your requirements and then do brainstorming to come up with ideas that’s going to work well. They will come up with several ideas and layout that you can choose from.
You get to know how it’s going to look after completion
One of the best advantages of hiring an interior designer is that they show you the final outcome in the beginning, so you get the better idea of how the space is going to turn out after they finish the project. Right from the look of the ceiling to the corner of the room, you will have a 3D view to see the entire interior part of the house.
And this is huge, because imagine what would happen if you don’t like a cupboard or sofa once it is finally ready? Obviously you can’t replace because it’s going to be a costly affair.
But when you hire an interior designer to design the interior of your home or office, they create the layout and then 2d design escalation. They will present several 2 drawings to give you the idea of how the furniture and other parts will come out.
On approval of 2D elevation, they will create 3D and views of the entire space- this includes every room and corner of the property. These 3D views will give you up to 95% idea of how it’s going to look at the end. If you are not sure about any part of the room, they can redesign that part, and that way you will have the clear idea of how it all is going to turnout, on completion of the project.
This is huge, because both you and the technicians can be sure of how it has to look on completion. In many cases, I have seen people making expensive mistake, just because they work randomly. As the work progress, they realize that the design is not coming out well and they scrap it.
They offer great quality craftsmanship
Interior designers work with professionals who know their craft well. They never work with mediocre electrician or carpenters. They have permanent subcontractors or individual technicians who understand the technicalities of the design and specification given by the interior designer.
For instance, when they do the false ceiling, they will offer you the guarantee and they can ensure that work is done using good quality materials and standards. But when you hire an independent contractor to do the false ceiling, they are not going to be accountable, easily. For any reported issue, the blame game will start between the contractors and the designer.
Cons of hiring an interior designer
Obviously, not only advantages, there are disadvantages as well of hiring interior designers to work on your home or office interior projects, but there are just a few disadvantages, like.
Fees of the interior designers
Obviously, you there is a professional fee that the interior designer will charge you.
Interior designers can be hired for only design consulting and supervision or you can hire them on turnkey basis.
For turnkey projects, interior designers will take care of everything from start to end and won’t charge you any fee separately. They will quote for the entire projects including design, sourcing of materials and execution of the entire project.
But if you want, you can hire them for designing (layout planning, 2D and 3D visualization) and supervision of the project. They can direct you to independent contractors for various works as per your requirements.
The fees in such cases could vary depending on the space, but usually for a 2/3 BHK residential flat, designing and consulting fees could be between Rs. 40000 to 75000.
On top of that, if they have to supervise the project, they may charge Rs 40 to 65 per square feet, depending on the number of visits they need to make to the site.
Delays in starting the work
When you hire a professional interior designer, they spend good number of hours in planning, brainstorming and designing the layout on papers through multimedia aided technologies and software. It takes lots of time and in some cases up to 3 months, to do the planning.
If you are staying in a rented apartment, then waiting for 3 months before starting actual work on site, could turn out to be costly. Even if you pay Rs. 10000 per month as rent, then only this delay would cost you about 30000.00 and another 3 months to complete the projects, so in total, you may blow away about 50-70K in rent.
But this is something that can be easily managed. Even before you get the possession of the property, you should start evaluating interior designers. When you hire a professional designer in the beginning, you can plan everything comfortably, because you have got time. Once you get the possession, you can simply get started with actual execution of the project.
Conclusion
In the processing of designing the interior and furnishing of the house, having a professional interior designer is always a plus. Just make sure to hire an expert a few months before getting the fit out or possession of the property. When you hire a professional interior designer in advance, they may help you choose right set of tiles etc for the washroom and kitchen, which can be easily replaced by the developer. Interior designers also help you make right decision about the layout, look and feel and meet your functional needs.
Assuming it’s going to be a costly affair is not fair. Go out there, request for proposal, evaluate some offer and you will be able to figure it out right.
What do you think? Does it make sense to work with an interior designer or you think one should do without them?
Share your experience of working with and without an interior designer.
Pingback: Why Hire an Interior Designer: The Pros and Con...