How neat! I wish they did that in every town. I hope you got some great ideas that you'll have fun implementing.

Good for you. Please post before and after pictures.

We use a designer and find him very helpful. We hired him for his suggestions of furniture placement (we have 2 large bird cages to work around), paint colors which can be agonizing, time consuming, and costly in samples (as you can tell from all the color threads on the forum), and for our shared vision. For us, it has really been worth the money since it has been a time savings.

If you find one that works with you during a room design and offers help outside of the room design, you have a gem. Ours offers his services all the time whether he is making money or not. He takes everything we place in our home very seriously since it reflects his design. He also offers us alternatives to save money. He likes to reuse existing furniture pieces whenever possible.

Recently we were looking for a TV console. I found and narrowed it down to 2 styles. He researched them further for us because there is certain criteria he looks for involving storage. Based on that criteria, we made our selection and ordered it on the web since he could not get us the same price due to shipping costs of independent vs larger dealer. The manufacturer is located on the West Coast. I'm on the East Coast. Pricey shipping.

Apparently, there have been some on the forum who have not had my positive experiences.