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Are Interior Design Reality Shows Accurate of a Real Life Interior Designer? by Candice Mathers

With the influx of “reality” interior design shows, I have noticed many new clients who are uneducated about the process of hiring an interior designer and the associated costs. They want their homes to look like the covers of “Traditional Home” or “Elle Décor” with high quality fabrics and furnishings with unrealistic budgets. There are also the people who watch reality shows and have tiny budgets and think this is going to stretch as far as it does on television. Viewers see what can be done for $1,000.00 and think: “If they can get all that for $1,000.00 just think of what we can do for $20,000”. They know that the sofa they just looked at in Marshall Fields cost $3,500.00, and the dining room table was $4,500.00 without chairs, yet they think a “good interior designer” can magically stretch their remaining $12,000 budget for rest of the entire home, and pay their interior designer as well.

Let’s assess just how real reality interior design shows are:

For one, they have a “production staff” of many people who assist the interior designer in making it all come together, seemingly with no problems. They can afford to work with tiny budgets because they have something called “Advertising Sponsors” of the show known as commercials, who are paying the staff, the interior designers, and all the trades people involved with the show.

On Interior Design Reality shows the production staff consists of full time tradesmen who in the real world charge thousands of dollars to build custom furniture around the clock. Then there are interior design assistants who work on the shows, who schlep all over town for the main interior designer to get items needed for the interior design scheme. In real life, an independent interior designer/decorator would pay an employee to do their bidding, and many do not have interior design assistants to shop all over or do their running for them. If we don’t have an employee for running around, we get paid for this service. It’s added on to our time. Interior designers also don’t have free electricians, painters or a magical salary—we are paid by the hour, by the project or a combination of hourly and markups. We work very long hours. Interior designers who own their own studio on average work about 70-80 hours a week or more, especially when working on demanding projects.

Think of an interior designer as a contractor of aesthetics for your space. Just like in construction or renovation…interior design is a process. It takes time to make a plan, implement it and it takes money. Take into account everything and everyone a contractor has to coordinate. All the materials and supplies they need before they can get started. They also want a check for half down as well. Well, interior designers work very similarly. Interior Designers have initial meetings, budgets to meet and agree on, contracts to get signed, money down to begin the work, space planning, design schemes, drawings or AutoCAD imaging, shopping, orders to place, checks to send, driving, client update meetings or phone calls, vendor orders from many different companies to watch over and coordinate delivery for, management over the trades like painters, tile installers, mill workers, faux finishers, upholsterers, contractors, and constant phone calls and juggling to make your space come together beautifully, on time and within budget.

© Candice Mathers, CMR Interiors

"These award winning works, which exhibit in museums, can make your space appear more tailored, vibrant, or soft and ethereal depending upon which body of work you collect from."

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