Tips For First Time Interior Design Clients: Budget

Never worked with an interior designer before? Not sure what to expect or how to make the most of your consultation hours? Over the next 3 weeks we will share a few secrets and tips to make the most of your Lo-Ki Interiors experience right off the bat.

Working with any interior designer for the first time should be a fun and exciting process, but we know that any new experience can bring its own stress points and confusion. To clear the air, we thought we would let you in on a few tips to make the experience as easy as possible both for you and your designer.

1. GET REALISTIC ABOUT YOUR BUDGET

There’s no way around it! I am sorry but this is the truth, I wish I could tell you that halfway through your project you will reply to the suspicious email about a long lost relative in Kyrgyzstan, and receive all the inheritance the world has to offer. But you wont, so please Honey, be realistic!

The more money you have set aside (yes, that means saving) for a project, the more a designer will have to work with. That being said, whatever your budget is, your designer should be able show you heaps of ideas to improve your space. If your budget constraints are too much of a hurdle for your designer, you have hired the wrong company.

Here is where it gets tricky… It is often the case that clients want to look at pieces “just to see” outside of their realistic budget. I say this is a NO NO! Why would you want to tempt yourself like that. Once you fall in love with a piece outside of your budget everything else will seem like bland, overcooked cabbage in comparison, leaving you feeling disappointed with your room at the end of the project. Be nice to your designer please. If you are able to lock down a specific budget from the start, your designer will have a much better framework for sourcing.

A final piece of advice we have in regard to budget is to do a bit of research for yourself before starting a project. You know what your taste is and what you like, just maybe not how to execute it. So have a little browse around and get an idea for what things cost. Don’t be afraid to show your designer pictures of rooms or pieces, and ask what the price points are on those.

In our next blog we will discuss BEING BRAVE.

Lo-Ki Team

xx