$300,000 in 1970 is $2.3million today uses an average annual inflation rate of about 4% per year. Crazy, huh?

Actually, closer to $2.4 ($2,387,619.05, if you assume January 1970).

You don't even have to assume a constant rate; this calculator uses the actual history of inflation. It is free from your government. : )

https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

The wonder of compounding! It also is kind of sobering when you think that money could have been invested in financial instruments vs furniture (which depreciates, deteriorate, and becomes obsolete/out of style). Of course that is truly of every dollar we spend.

I digress of course but it makes you think, no? Today's "Buy Nothing" generation may be on to something.

I live in Manhattan. I am using an architect / interior designer who charges $140/hour and 15% mark up for procurement. She allows me to use her designer's discount when ordering myself and most places have allowed it. Paying an extra 15% is worth it to me, even if I'm accepting deliveries and inspecting for damage. Dealing with customer service is such a complete, time consuming PITA. Hell yes I'll pay her to Pay triple check that an order is correct, deal with shipping delays, sit on hold for returns, ensure a refund was given.

We openly discussed expectations at the beginning and divided the shopping list: I love buying vintage furniture so I took care of all furniture. It makes me nervous to calculate square footage or specify too many details, so she handles those purchase.

Many designers would not be keen on Wayfair purchases. It isn't high quality furniture and can take more work to make a room look great when you are cobbling pieces together from the many brands sold on Wayfair. Your designer sounds conscious of your budget needs, which is great.

My designer is dirt cheap for Manhattan. She is young, starting out, and doesn't know a ton. (I know more than she does on many things simply because I spend too much time reading Houzz!) But few other designer would touch my project with a budget under $500,000. While her skills are lacking, I think of her more as a project manager who has greatly reduced my stress. Paying someone to take over my stress is worth the money.

@Kendrah Thanks for your response, which was actually the opposite of my reaction. But it's helpful to think about nonetheless.

> Dealing with customer service is such a complete, time consuming PITA. Hell yes I'll pay her to Pay triple check that an order is correct, deal with shipping delays, sit on hold for returns, ensure a refund was given.

This is the part where I'm struggling with apart from all else. Maybe it depends on the store, but from my experience, returning things these days is absolutely simple and often a click of a button. The harder part to me is the packaging and act of returning, which our designer isn't helping with anyway. If I run through the scenario in my head, buying and returning something from like Wayfair requires clicking like three buttons. But if I have to go through my designer, I have to email/text/call her, describe what I want to do, hope she gets it right, and field multiple phone calls for the whole process.

Similarly, let's say I need to have something delivered. If I did it myself, I can setup delivery online, change delivery dates online if I need to, all of that happens with two clicks. If I need to go through my designer, I have to email her, wait for her response, and she'll come back with a few choices for alternative dates, and if none of those work, email her again asking for more dates, wait for her to confirm, etc. etc. It just seems like more work to go through the designer than purchasing it myself these days, so paying a markup to do that is a big mental hurdle for me right now.

@pkp…if the $3000 couch is on sale for $1500 why would your designer opt to pay full price? Or are you saying you are privy to deals she isn’t?

@User I don't know how designer discounts work across all sites so maybe my concern never actually happens. But my concern is whether or not the designer discount is always on the currently listed price or whether it's on the full retail price. For example, suppose on a given site, a designer account always gets 15% off of full retail price. However, let's suppose that the site is having a limited time 50% off sale. When the designer logs in to their designer account, are they always guaranteed to see a price that is the 50% off sale price or better? Or is it possible that the "regular sales" don't apply to designer accounts and then they end up with only the 15% off rather than the 50%+ off or 50% + 15% off?

Pkp…I can’t ever imagine a company would offer any discount to you, a non pro, a discount that they also wouldn’t offer a pro , they wouldn’t have pros sign up. If a company offers a discount, they’d likely give the greater discount, but not both. So if the sofa was 50% off, available to you, the designer would also get 50% off but not 50% off plus 15% off, just the one greater discount. The flip side is that the pro would have access to lower prices that you, as a non pro, would have, because where you only buy 1 or 2 sofas from them, the pro could be buying 10 or 20. It really all boils down to do you trust this person that is spending your money. And it seems like you don’t or are hesitant to. And it’s why nearly every designer talks about their relationship with their clients, because without that relationship, and the inherent trust you have in each other, both sides are going to spend the time side eyeing each other and nothing about that or the end result will be satisfying or enjoyable.

"$150 an hour. 20K for 150 hours of work. Well that's for what State?"

New York.

"Work" ..........It's not just for work. Washing dishes in a fine restaurant is work, as is bussing tables. The chef who created the MEALS? That's different and he makes more. A lot more.

As to any designer, ( me in this scenario)

It is compensation for the thirty plus years of experience.

For art/science/taste/skill/creativity/problem solving/solutions.

For r.e.c.o.g.n.i.z.i.n.g there IS a problem that needs a solution.

WORK: Let's talk about "billable" hours. For most of us, and if we are totally honest with ourselves : We are lucky to invoice two thirds of the hours we actually "work" . Even with an accountant.......the paper/communication trail in this business would blow. your. mind.

Let's talk about the best laid plan of mice and designers.....and the "work" word.

You need an example: Custom order placed for a sofa 9/15/21. Fabric selected from the manufacturers wide breadth. Perfect. Saves time and no c.o.m with additional shipping hassle etc.

Six weeks later..................notice and email: "Your fabric selection is no longer available- please re select". Spell huge problem.

First? Everything else in the room revolves around the fabric. Second, the client is now two thousand miles out of town. Third? That was the ONLY selection in the assortment we wanted.

What ensues is roughly 25 hours over the course of a week of what I call search and destroy. Found it ! Nope. "Back ordered"

Found one! Nope.....350.00 per yard. Found it!

Nope, cutting for approval is WAY off dye lot. Found it! Nope.....yardage is in pieces/all different dye lots.

Is this billable work? No. Is it the client's fault? No. Is it mine? No. Am I billing her? NO. I EAT THOSE HOURS. ALL 25 of them. All of this is prior to fed x that must be sent 2000 miles, the phone call after I finally find a second best, spend another hour on the phone reassuring a client it will STILL be a fine and fabulous room.....and I am now about seven days behind, I eat the shipping for the c.o.m as the price of her sofa just went up by a lot.

The week is blown to bits, I have made basically Z.E.R.O for all the effort, made not one thin dime on the new fabric as it was more by a substantial amount. I have canceled two appointments with others.

What happens? The sofa ends up taking 51 weeks to arrive. In the meantime? I have LOANED a sofa, mine, yes mine. Brand new and for four full months. ( second time a loaner and that's ANOTHER story, almost identical )

Finally................Bogus internet pricing, "free shipping" , on "sale" and all the rest of this?It needs volumes to compete with the Library of Congress, not going into it here, other than to say believe HALF of the b.s you see on the internet - if that.

Tell you what. I will step away from this desk. I will hand you the job to do your own home, and you need not pay me ONE thin dime.

Last and to the OP

You found a designer willing to source on low level goods. You found one whose style suited you, and was "willing to source on a VERY limited budget. You signed a contract.

I would guess she simply could have said:

Here's the deal pkp, : I will design/ source everything, handle every detail, pass on every dime of discount, run all the interference, pack, ship, arrange delivery, set it up in your home. You approve my selections for which there will be no more than two in any item and pay for them. Click away!

For this service I will take a 20k retainer with 10k due upon receipt of all aforementioned that you will have purchased.

All in or NOT? Sign or do not.

Ladies.......all above and dead last:

When you get a twenty minute tooth cleaning for 140.00 or more....or a haircut/ color for 150.00 .......what the HELL do you think you are paying for? And is it TIME?

You pay or you do it yourself. I doubt you ask, "Gee, how the hell much money do you make?! Good luck on the tooth cleaning.

First I have to correct a mistake about costs and money.

The $300,000 budget amount was adjusted to 2000 when he related the story, I verified this, we still talk to each other

Budget in 1970 about $70,000

Equals about $300,000 in 2000 dollars

Equals about $524,000 now

Sorry about the $2.4M figure, but the real figure puts this in line with @Kristin Petro Interiors, Inc. and @Kendrah 's current experiences.

The incorrect figure derailed the conversation because it seemed so high, but the point in still the same, Interior Design services cost more than one would think and there's more to the job than the non-pro decorates for fun individual would think

Second, I think that @JAN MOYER brings up a couple more good points:

that usually billable hours are less than the actual hours worked.

And that searching out the cheapest version of everything will start to eat up hours spent looking for it and you may end up spending more for the cheaper sofa than if you had just gone for the higher priced on in the first place.

The other thing about billable hours is what it covers. In Jan's scenario say the hygienist does two cleanings in an hour so the billable hours are $280.

Does the hygienist make $280 an hour? Does she make $140 an hour, does she make $70 an hour? Probably she makes about 45-$50 toward the upper end of the pay scale. The rest of that money goes various other places.

My SO was an interior designer for a large firm doing specialty commercial and institutional interiors. Billable design hours on site $300/hr. Was SO's salary $600K? $300K?

Nope salary in early 2000s was $40,000, or $20/hr.

Finally I go back to the Internet and how it has changed things.

My parents utilized an interior designer both for the technical design skills of layout, and the esthetic aspects and for access to products they otherwise would not have had access to. People who wanted nice furniture in the small town where I grew up had to go out of town and use interior designers because the furniture available to them locally was "Buy a seven piece living room set this weekend and get two free table lamps and decorative throw pillows", or there was the JC Penney or Sears catalog. If you wanted higher end or more stylish furniture, usually you ended up going to a higher end furniture store, a department store, and utilizing design services on some level whether you knew it or not. There was no Pottery Barn, there was no RH, no Crate and Barrel let alone Wayfair or Perigold and all the rest.

When I was in design school I remember having to pay $20 for brochures from Kohler, so I had some access to various bath fixtures styles and dimensions and so forth.

And now you can have unlimited access to 1000 different options for everything whenever you want it. And sometimes not only can you look at everything, you can Buy it yourself. So one big clear role for Interior Designers (and real estate agents, and orthodontists, since you can now go online to straighten your own teeth) --this role has been muddied, and people think "Well I could just do all of this myself" whether or not they really can do it well.

Finally with billing, I think the old was was mostly by commission, charging on top of what you sold. But not everybody liked that because they thought the interior designer just picked out the most expensive of everything so they could make the most money.

But with the hourly fee, and cost only passed on to the client, some people thing the hours are padded or don't understand what those hours are spent doing and don't see sitting there thinking about something and solving problems should take that long and maybe you shouldn't really get paid for it.

The other thing about commission only is that you can spend a lot of time up frond designing things, then the client backs out and having sold nothing, earns nothing.

So many designers do a combination of hourly rate and commission and people don't understand that either because it's complicated.

"Finally I go back to the Internet and how it has changed things."

Exactly . Aside from the wealth of goods spawned, ideas, images, all looking so "easy"? The hours of texts and emails from clients with "see what I found on pick : Pinterest, Instagram........%$$##$%^^ ???

It has turned the category of "to the trade only" to today's new form of prostitution. Is there still to the trade? Yes. Eighty percent of this is fine upholstery, fine fabric , and very, very, fine case goods.

Let me give you an example of what can happen:

A second home. Luxury, and a long distance client. Agreement is I will split w/ him my discount, and at the end of project, will apply a design fee of 10% on ALL combined purchases : those I recommended/sourced online and he paid and all purchased through me. That fee on discounted price tags, not retail.

What happened? He cheerfully paid every invoice except the last. Where upon....he did not pay at all. After chasing this for two months? The result, and to avoid having a stroke on my birthday as I headed out to dinner? I told him write a check for half, and do not EVER contact me again. Was this a LOT of money? You bet your pink ass it was. It was just cheaper than a stroke or an attorney.

Ugh...the clients that ghost you at the last invoice. I've had a few of them. Jerks.

The median salary for an interior designer at one of the 100 largest design firms in the world is $73,500 and the hourly fee is $140.00.

https://interiordesign.net/research/giants-2021/

I suspect that these firms have far more overhead than the average self employed designer and can probably charge higher fees.

From Houzz - discussion on how much interior designers make:

https://www.houzz.com/pro-learn/blog/startup-guide-interior-design-how-much-do-interior-designers-make

I would take the 64% of surveyed interior designers earned over $100,000 per year with a grain of salt. I work with survey data and know that survey questions are often answered with the answer the survey thinks they should say vs reality. Example: Safe sex surveys on teens show much larger increases in safe sex practices than the number of teen pregnancies support.

I think the other thing that happened is that people pay less for durable goods than they used to, they have really gotten used to durable goods costing less, and also have gotten used to the durable goods being less durable.

The OP discusses buying a sofa with interior designer for a 5 BR house for $1500. Lots of people are looking for a stylish sofa for $1000. That would be like paying $140-200 to go into a high end house in 1970. People didn't do that, they were paying more--and they were expecting it to last.

The last pairs of khaki pants I bought were $19 (on sale). I was not paying $6.50, even on sale, for pants when I was in college. But this is one of the things we have gotten used to doing.

OP all of this really comes down to you, your ID and the contract. All of our experiences as clients or those who are sharing as pros are kind of irrelevant. Everyone’s experience is coloured because we are all people and have opinions. At this point you need to figure out your next steps really. Do you pay the 20k and get whatever that provides and do the remainder on your own? Or do you pay and get all that is needed, knowing it will be well above 20k at this point? Both are valid options but you do need to choose one and then resign yourself to what that choice means.

Pkp, I can’t message you as more steps needed to set that up. I didn’t want to interfere with the designers describing their businesses.
What I wanted to say is there are complete decorator services like Jan Moyer ( who has great skill ) and others who will design rooms ( mood boards and purchase options ) for you but you do all the leg work. Good luck in your decision. Your home will be great and you and your family will really enjoy it.

Kristin, unfortunately that happens in all fields of work. There are always some people who think they are entitled to what you have.

Service businesses have a unique problem in that their time is money. When I was in Public Accounting we all “ate” hours because the firm had a budget for the client, and not only was it verboten to go over the number of hours, but to come in under was divine. Same in interior design/decorating when you are selling an intangible product like expertise and know how. In the end it comes down to trust. If you start with the premise that your designer is somehow padding your invoices unfairly then you are probably either working with the wrong person or you shouldn’t work with a designer at all.

The relevance comes from some insight into why these contracts are structured as they are, why it may at times seem unclear what the interior designer is doing that the client could not do themselves, and also gives some context as to whether $20,000 for services rendered is a lot or a little in the scheme of things. $20,000 is a significant amount of money, more than many people would spend, but in reality how does this relate to what such a budget may typically be. If you don't know what something costs, in general, you don't know how to judge. $3000 for a plumber to do something in your house in a little over a day may seem ridiculous until you find out that that's what the going rate is among plumbers in your area.

@pkp Back to your original question of whether it is a faux pas, what is expected - it doesn't so much matter what others expect as IDs, but that you and your ID are on the same page, that you each feel valued and respected.

You say that the contract makes it "seem" optional, can you share with us what the contract says? Also, have you had an open conversation with her saying that you would like to do most of the procurement yourself? You don't have to go into lots of details about the reasons why because as you can see from this conversation, people easily feel devalued by the details.

I would say that you want to make the purchases yourself, your understanding from the contract is that is ok, but you wanted to check in and make a plan so you are both on the same page and you want to make sure she feels adequately compenstated.

It is possible that they anticipated this job taking much longer and creating many more billable hours because they thought it would involve procurement. It is nice for them to know what you want so they can plan their time and income accordingly.

This is the reason I don't sell products to clients. I source for them and they buy themselves. Clear. Cut and dry.

While I don't believe that most designers are out to take advantage of clients, that doesn't mean that clients will not perceive that.

"She kind of made it seem like it's expected." If she had in her contract that it was optional and then later made it seem like it was expected, that is not a good thing. The client should be very clear, prior to starting what is expected of both the client and the designer.

That being said, I agree that there is so much hidden time that goes into a design. Click, click, click......2 hours have gone by without anything that looks like "progress" to the client. Then, there are all of the expenses that go into a business: insurance, attorney fees, accountant, a very large mac with all the ram you can get to run your 3d program that also costs $$$, plus the platform you communicate on.

Bottom line: try it yourself with zero experience and you get what result you get or look around and find a designer who you think will give you the best outcome for what you think is a fair price.

I would have another conversation with her and tell her honestly that you did not understand that you were obligated to purchase through her. Maybe you can come to an agreement that would make both of you happy.

That's the point, really, she can FORGO all discounts and simply make the purchase herself.

"Written into the contract was that we can choose to use the designer's procurement services as well and she would pass all trade discounts to us but markup the final price by 25% as her procurement fee. Even though the contract makes it seem optional,She made us feel like it was expected. And the amount of trade discount she gets is a little murky and she doesn't provide that info to us off the bat. We basically have to ask for each item we want, which seems excessive."

Seems we have two timid people.

Go back, come to a MUTUALLY firm agreement, or cut the cord.

I will add, unless you reach such agreement? Her discounts are really NONE of your business. Did she ask for a financial statement from you, ensuring your solvency ? Did she ask why you have a five bed house and are on Wayfair budget? Or wanting a 1500.00 "on sale" sofa? No. On all. Or that's my bet : ) to this point.

She's basically given you every way under the sun to help you get the house fully furnished , on a really tight budget. She isn't "volunteering" time - I don't blame her.

She SHOULD as a pro, have a commercial receiver. But you'd pay for that delivery too - despite having no huge boxes in your driveway. If she were purchasing wholesale? Rare is the source who will ship to your curb. ( sales tax issues )

Truly and before any more work is done?

Go get on a mutual page, or slip away to go it alone.

I felt uncomfortable using a designer whose significant part of billing came from procurement because there wasn't enough transparency about how much actual items cost. I want the Affordable Care Act version of ID where I understand exactly how much things cost, what I'm getting, what "the insurer pays" and what I pay. I'd rather pay a higher hourly design fee so the designer is adequately compensated for their time. It would conversely suck for them if an item they ordered required a ton of extra leg work but was not a very high cost item and they hardly made any money off of it.

One designer I met charged time and % for procurement. Others only charged the % for procurement whether it took half an hour of time or four hours of time.

Luckliy, I was able to have good and clarifying conversations with all of the designers before hand so I really understood their methods of working and billing. It really helps to have clarity about this at the get go. There is nothing worse than having a sour relationship and a designer who isn't enjoying working on your project and a project and client who is irritating the hell out of a designer by penny pinching.

Did she ask why you have a five bed house and are on Wayfair budget?

1. I think people do this a lot. People expect to live in a house a decade or more, and often do. Their furniture needs may be more variable. Moreover, houses appreciate (usually) and furniture depreciates (immediately and significantly). Or, they chose to use all of their funds to buy the most house they could afford, and are tapped out. Moreover, home purchases are financed at a low after-tax rate of interest over 30 years, and furniture is not.

2. Rude, much?

Wow Jan! Wayfair budgets are bad? Brutal. Condescending.

Also some folks showing they’ve never priced out stuff on Wayfair either.

I don't think Jan is wrong that Wayfair is a budget choice, especially among the small subset of homeowners that hire IDs. I just looked at their 10 best selling sofas, and some are under $300 and none over $1000. I think those numbers speak for themselves. They certainly do for anyone who has hired an ID.

However, there are many legitimate reasons why people chose budget furniture and they should not be put down for doing so.

The $1000 sofa, is a disposable item in my neighborhood. Folks doing residencies, two year graduate programs etc, don't bother to take parents' old furniture from the basement, or people don't have that anymore. They move in in July, a truck pulls up with brand new furniture, they furnish their apartment and two years later some of it gets taken but the sofa and the mattresses almost invariably end up on the sidewalk because they don't want to rent something large enough to take it.

They think they may be doing someone a favor by leaving a couple years old. probably decently taken care of sofa out on the sidewalk. But they aren't: they get rained on. Some homeless person takes the cushions and renders it useless and then this happens.

I am kinda with Jan on this one. People buy the most expensive house they can afford and then fill it with the cheapest furniture they can tolerate because they are maxed out. $300 for a sofa in 2023 would be like someone in 1970 paying $45 dollars for a sofa. Our parents were not paying $45 for a sofa, especially if they lived in a nice house. They probably weren't buying $200 sofas either (the equivalent of $1500 today.) They were spending more on durable goods.

People are entitled to spend what they want on furniture or whatever else.

I know people who live in a very humble house with low-priced furniture and drive a really expensive car. Their choice.

I also have had many clients who have a high-end sofa that they hate, but it was so expensive they feel like their only choice is to get it recovered and be married to it the rest of their lives.

Back to the original question.....as pointed out by some, designers all charge differently: take a retainer and bill by the hour, flat price for the entire service, or a hybrid of the 2 where the design is a flat fee and the procurement and project management stage is hourly.

Some require in the contract that the client purchase through them. Others do not.

I am sorry that this was not clear to you from the start. It should be clear as a bell. Consider this a learning experience. For this time, I would be honest with the designer, have a discussion and then do what you think is morally fair.

Next time, I would talk to several designers and determine with whom you are comfortable, within your budget and will bring stellar results.

Wayfair has sofas for over 20k listed. Not sure how you are searching.

You think I never buy something on Wayfair? You would be dead wrong. I bought a little accent bench for an entry yesterday! Why? Because it was Uttermost, and at wholesale and with shipping add? I wasn't going to save much, and I have to get it from my receiver - I pick up or pay him to deliver.

Is this WF purchase ever a sofa? No. I'd far rather drag a client into a CONSIGNMENT store and recover something decent. Btw, If there's a 20 k sofa on Wayfair? Someone is dumping a showroom sample.

The real point is one: Over and over and over comes this issue of what is the DESIGNER paying for what she is showing me, suggesting?

Here is the answer: What are YOU paying as the designer shows you the item she priced TO you? Do you love it? Is the price acceptable to you?

This is no different than your grocery or any other shopping venue. You don't go into your supermarket - pick up a blueberry crumble top coffee cake and ask.......... Hey! I need to know what you paid for this thing! I'm not sure I am getting a value!

To which I say: If you can make a coffee cake better, cheaper, go to the fruit aisle, and baking aisle and go home and MAKE one. : )

I will turn myself inside out to get a client a result in a timely manner, a way that suits where we are going in look, with quality and longevity in mind. I'm not going to eat a clients budget chasing my ass for a 49.99 lamp for ten damn hours, when I am staring at the perfect lamp for ten times that price tag!!

None of us beg a client for their business. Here are the terms, here is what I will do for you and you will love it when we are done. You trust me to deliver a result, and I trust you to pay for it. P.E.RI.O.D

Everything else is bull $%^^$#. PS.....................

This room? One of an entire first floor re do? On a time crunch and with zero custom upholstery available in less than 35 weeks? The couch and the two Hickory Chair chairs? Consignment. Recover. Because you can not make a room with nowhere to sit. Does my upholsterer hate me now? Yes. Did I make a lot less money with this approach? You bet. So please....... do not bite the hand/s that may be feeding you. Feeding you well. PS. The lamps cost more than the chairs before re do. By a factor of 15.

Traditions refined · More Info

Oh...........The Dining table......also consigned. Stickley and very, very, very f.i.n.e Hepplewhite /inlay. For all the reasons above. No longer even produced.

Apologies for the rant, but honestly. ......? No one is forcing anyone to work with, forge a relationship with... anyone.

Traditions refined · More Info

You get the designer, so you need not.........do this:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6357105/what-to-include-in-a-guest-bedroom#n=3

This is all about discretionary spending.

Nobody is making fun of the poor kid who can't buy a school lunch, what is being questioned is how the money is being apportioned. People get criticized for spending "too much" on something all the time, but question if maybe someone is not spending enough on something it's like you're punching nuns.

Say you have a major event and you have budgeted $1000 to get ready and go to this event. Do you budget $900 on getting your hair done and professional make up and then say "Oh, I only have $100 to spend on a dress and shoes, lets buy this designer knockoff online for $49 when the real dress is $490 and hope for the best, it gets here two days before the event!"

Do you spend $900 on a dress and say "Oh I have to get my hair cut by the beauty school and a home perm and dye job, Fingers crossed"

Do you spend $900 on a chauffeured limo and show up wearing whatever you slept in last night?

Well of course, this is America and you are free to spend the $1000 however TF you feel like it. And it could all turn out fine. But reasonably you would apportion appropriately between appearance, dress, transportation and so forth

I don't know if there is much value in spending so much of the design budget (whatever "so much" is), for services when it leaves you with not much budget for actual product.

Well said palimpsest….and ‘punching nuns’ made me laugh.

Very pretty rooms Jan!

Last comment…pkp - do you like the design from the designer? Either way, just have a heart to heart about your concerns and I’m sure you’ll see a way through.

My family has a bunch of grandkids/great grandkids that are in the first time home buyer stage of life (25-30). Between the rising student debt ratio and the rising price of homes it is really tough to get into a home much less hire an interior designer and furnish a home with nice furniture.

I am impressed that they have been able to buy a home at all. I think back to when I bought my first home, I was 35, living in Southern California and found a home for $140,000. It was a stretch to buy that house. We didn't have the disposable income to hire a designer and I had to buy furniture one piece at a time as I was able to afford new. I bought high quality furniture so I wouldn't need to buy it over and over, but I wouldn't have been able to furnish the whole thing with even lower quality furniture right when we moved in. We would have had to sit on boxes if we didn't already have some furniture.

That same house now has a Zillow estimate of $823,000. Incomes have not kept pace with housing prices. Actually, incomes have not kept pace with any prices. I know a lot of people who could afford an interior designer 15 years ago who would not be able to afford one today.

I am renovating a home and am watching every dime. I earn good money, house is paid for, no debt, but I am nearing retirement and have to be concerned with the rising costs. Did I save enough for retirement? I didn't plan on grocery and other expenses tripling in cost. I am doing the work I can do and hiring out as little as possible.

I don't have a chart of grocery costs, but I went to Costco this past weekend and walked out with a $400 basket of food and toiletries. I can tell you that 10 years ago my Costco trips were $100- $200.

I'm not going to knock anyone for needing to keep to a budget. Only the insanely wealthy are not worried about where things are going.

Wayfair may have a sofa for 20k, but if you look at a list of their most popular sofas, as well as an article by them recommending same, most sofas they sell are squarely under $1000, and a lot under $500 which is dirt cheap and, I will assert, can only be a piece of junk . Did you, or anyone you know or ever heard of, spend 20k on a Wayfair sofa? Guessing no.

It has its place, but it is certainly not in the realm of the fine furniture one would associate with using an ID. Not sure how this can be controversial.

I hear what you are all saying but also think a gold ID, who is doing the shopping too, would be open to sourcing things from multiple locations. People also can have things from Wayfair mixed with much nicer things from different stores.

I do not disagree with that in theory, but IME with ID, they never did that. They always recc high end, to the trade, custom things. Because you know what, usually those things are nicer. And they also usually make for a better portfolio for them.

Well, when it comes to ethical buying practices, maybe it's very difficult to not buy your underpants made by someone who makes enough to live in one of those dog cage hotels in China. But one does have a choice about buying a $300 sofa made by near slave labor when they can also afford the services of an interior designer which is a discretionary luxury. They still make furniture in America.

I got into a discussion about this on Facebook when a mistakenly priced $99 knock off of a $6000 chair was causing a feeding frenzy. (It was supposed to be $999). I said "If this was the real price, how could you justify buying something at 1.6% the price of a real one, knowing that this is basically made at slave labor wages?" And I was actually told Who cares what happens in some foreign country, and even slaves have a job, a roof over their heads and food". Yeah, okay then.

Just something to think about the next time you find something on a website that has incredibly low prices on designer-look furniture or goods

As if we don't have enough tangents on this thread, I will bite on that one. Firstly, the retail price at which something is available is not necessarily an indication of the working conditions of the labor force who produced it. Labor is also exploited to make high end goods, and cheap goods may be close outs or loss leaders.

I do think it behooves all of us, on moral grounds, to care about our fellow man. But, having visited many lesser developed countries, we also need to think about exporting our standards and values without understanding the society -- its risks, options and limitations -- to which we are exporting those values and standards.

As an aside, too, may we also be as concerned about US workers ... the impact of the gig economy on healthcare and retirement, the ability to join a union, as well as agitate for a higher minimum wage in some states.

Thoughtful consumerism is one tact, but it may be more impactful for investors to let corporations know that this matters to them (ESG) and for voters to let lawmakers know that they care about how our foreign policy and trade policy impacts lives around the world.

I don't think all of us committing to stop buying cheap stuff is that impactful ... especially as the rest of the world is buying too.

Well said, @palimpsest

As a consumer I'd much rather pay more money for a quality product made ethically (whether in the US or elsewhere) than a cheap knockoff made with slave labor. As a designer, I feel the same way when I specify products for my clients, but ultimately it's their decision.

Oh I agree that price is not really indicative of whether the labor force is being exploited or not. I am not sure that someone who sews off-the-rack Chanel or those weird $6000 outfits from Nordstrom that people post is being paid more than someone who sews for Gap, and they may make less than someone who makes the relatively inexpensive clothes produced by allegedly living wage Los Angeles Apparel, where a pair of men's underpants at $10-14 is more expensive than Hanes, but less than designer.

But I think that one has a better idea about furniture or kitchen cabinets or whatever that are made in America vs. coming from China.

To each their own. I try not to play the moral high ground game and not judge people.In honesty I don’t find American products superior most of the time. It’s also fairly easy to discern where something was made and make a choice. And again most online retailers don’t just have a $300 sofa range although that keeps getting shared here.

I was looking in my local area and found something else interesting. Small city, Amish area, so we don't have a lot of interior designers, have to go to the cities around us to find someone.

In PA Interior Designers are not required to have a license.

What I noticed is we have both interior designers who point to their education and certifications, and seem to do nuts to bolts design and many others that I assume don't have a 4 year degree in interior design and often only offer home staging, room planning, organization, color coordination and have a name like Julie's interiors, The Frugal Decorator or Ambiance by Amy. There are also a few that work with contractors to do full renovations but still don't offer any evidence that they have a 4 year degree or any type of interior design certification.

Even here on Houzz the Pro category is Interior Designers and Decorators.

What are your thoughts on Degree vs non degree?

20 out of 50 states require certification to call oneself an interior designer rather than an interior decorator. ASID lobbies continually to increase the number of states where certification is required. There is actually a lot of technical education that goes into the designer degree although I feel like a lot of residential practitioners don't use a lot of the technical training and technically do a lot of decorating. One of my design instructors in interior design school was not an interior designer, he only called himself an interior decorator, because his degree was in some other allied arts. But he worked in an architecture firm and did a lot of technical design actually, but I think he got a lot of on the job training because he was married to the principle architect.

Although I have the credentials (and don't use them) I don't think the degree makes any difference on your esthetic sensibilities, you don't usually get graded on your esthetic choices in school. So if you are primarily involved in decorating completed interiors I don't think the degree is all that important. If you are designing lighting, electrical, millwork, built ins, and floorplans, I think the training is important. We spent a lot of time doing actual interior architecture in the program I went to.

makes me think of Beekeepers' Wife, she was in PA and I think non-degreed.

I'm chiming in late, but I'm in this situation now. Just paid an architect $27,000 for a from-scratch design for a 3000 sq ft home. He did a site visit and extensive topography analysis, as it's 17 acres in the mountains. He took all of our ideas and we went through many iterations. He listened, modified, listened, and modified. There is no plan I could have ordered off of the internet that could have sufficed, even with modifications. All details for cost were discussed with him upfront.

We are working with an exceptional custom home builder who can make modifications to the structure, if needed. (yes, additional cost, but that's expected).

I've thought about working with an interior designer for selecting paint colors, flooring, etc. I'm 62 and have most of the furniture and household things I need. I will need sofas and some bedroom furniture. Should I expect to pay a designer what I would pay an architect? What I want from an interior designer is interior design. Following up on orders, deliveries, etc., well, that's a personal shopper, which does not require a degree and doesn't command that type of salary. I think I would prefer the approach Sabrina Alfin suggested. Give me ideas and links to buy. I will gladly pay you for your exceptional taste and for creating a cohesive look. I may want to spend $600 on a sconce and use only the best Benjamin Moore paint, but I may want to use some pretty good looking $4 drawer pulls from Amazon. I am looking for design, not a logistics coordinator.

If you are buying furnishings from scratch for an addition or new build or just starting over, having everything go to an ID’s receiver’s warehouse is really a necessity. The ID is responsible for the condition of everything and coordinates returns when necessary, and everything is safe and accounted for until installation day. Having things delivered to the customer or home piecemeal is something my ID would not agree to. He helped me with two previous homes and with the furniture layout on this one. We were just about to start on fabrics for curtains when his mother came to live with him and he could no longer work on our project. I soldiered on alone with the furniure plan and our house is fine as it is but I know it’s not as nice or functional as it would have been with his expertise and access to trade only goods. Our next move — whenever that may be—will come with a full service ID plan and execution.

It depends on the designer. Some offer only full-service design, and there are a myriad of ways that they charge for this service. Many are as pricey as architects. Others may offer consultation only, and charge hourly, with a mark-up for trade purchases. If you're buying retail, the designer may give you advice on what to buy, and then you do the legwork. These designers/decorators are probably less expensive than the full-service designers.

Not touching the third rail again : )