Building a Custom Home - What to Expect from Your Interior Designer

Hiring an interior designer for your custom home can be quite the investment, but what exactly are you paying for? In the video above, I dive into the process of what it looks like to work with Fuchsia Design, and what your builder can expect to receive from our team to keep your project on schedule and on budget!

THE DESIGN PROPOSAL & THE DESIGN CONTRACT

Before we can work together, what is the process like interviewing and hiring Fuchsia Design for your home? After you initial consultation, you receive an itemized Design Proposal with an estimate of how many hours it will take to complete your project. The purpose of this document is to give you an idea of your design investment. Once you approve the Design Proposal, you receive a Design Contract to sign and return to Fuchsia Design along with the retainer fee. This retainer is then applied towards all future design hours, and you will not be billed again until Fuchsia Design has exceeded the number of hours included in your retainer.

HOW WE BILL

While some interior design firms bill a set amount for a project, Fuchsia Design strictly bills hourly. The reason for this is because with a set rate, one of the parties always gets the shorter end of the stick. The design firm always includes extra hours in their set rate, so if you don’t use the extra hours, you end up paying for more than what you received. Sometimes, clients require additional hours than originally anticipated, and in this case, the designer ends up providing more than what they were paid for. Billing hourly ensures that you only pay for the design hours that you need. Fuchsia Design bills each month on the 1st of the month, and payment is due within 14 days. 

WHEN TO GET STARTED?

Once Fuchsia Design receives your signed contract and retainer, we are ready to begin your project! You will receive a timeline of when you can expect to meet at the Fuchsia Design studio in Grand Rapids to see the design of your new home!

Whether it be Fuchsia Design or another design firm, I always recommend bringing in the interior designer during the architectural phase of your project. Don’t wait until your plans are finalized to have an interior designer review them. There are typically a number of interior architectural details and framing changes that are made to the plans once we review them to better suit your lifestyle, so the earlier our team is involved, the better!

The design process explained in the video above is unique to Fuchsia Design, and you likely won’t find it elsewhere. Builders and homeowners rave about not only the attention to detail when working with Fuchsia Design, but how easy and stress-free the process is. We’d love to be a part of creating your dream home - ready to get started?

-Autumn Fuchs