At one time or another, virtually everyone has acted as an interior decorator or designer. Who hasn’t rearranged the furniture in a room, picked a paint color for the walls, bought a sofa or considered what kind of window treatments to install?
Given the commonplace nature of these activities, it’s clear that interior design touches all of us in a very direct way. Getting the furniture arranged just right can make or break a room’s appearance, and a major piece of furniture that is uncomfortable or wrong in a room will be a source of irritation until it’s replaced. The shade of paint on our walls is more than mere aesthetics; it can lend a room a range of traits–making it appear warm or cool, energetic or serene–and affect the emotional and psychological well-being of its occupants.
The fact that we aren’t always successful in our interior-designing efforts is one reason we use decorators and interior designers, but there are many more.
Some people are unsure of their taste and don’t know the first thing about how to decorate a home. Considering that a few pieces of decent furniture can add up to thousands of dollars–and the really good stuff can approach or surpass six figures–others don’t want to make costly mistakes. Or many are just too busy and scattered to undertake and complete this type of endeavor on their own, especially if it’s a large-scale project.
Then there’s the status factor. “Frequently people will want to hire a certain designer because a famous person or high-profile friend used them, they’re a huge name or they’ve been published frequently. They think those factors will lend some sort of halo to their project,” says Linda Coleman, owner of Portfolio, a Chicago firm that matches up clients with interior designers and architects.
Nate Berkus, an up-and-coming Chicago interior designer, tells the story of a client who spent months trying to track him down because she wouldn’t give a haughty friend the satisfaction of being asked his name, which would ostensibly allow her friend to take the credit for discovering him. Though the would-be client had met Berkus at the friend’s party to show off the place, she could remember only that he was young, based in Chicago and his first name started with an “N.” After calling designers with the right first name from the phone book and grilling receptionists, she finally found him and hired him to do her home.
But the great majority of homeowners are not that competitive. “Most people choose a decorator because they love someone’s house and want the same type of place for themselves, or they want to collaborate with someone to ensure the success of their project or keep from making expensive mistakes,” says Leslie Linsley, author of 45 books on interior design, including most recently “High Style, Low Cost Decorating Ideas” (St. Martin’s Griffin).
Cheryl Kling, an interior designer with the Northbrook-based firm Susan Fredman & Associates, had a daughter whose friend’s mother admired Kling’s house. But the mother always told Kling that she couldn’t afford her services–until a second marriage substantially increased her resources and allowed her to hire Kling to do her new residence.
Though exact statistics aren’t available, hundreds of thousands of professionals make their living redoing our homes and millions of homeowners use them. The mere mention of the word “decorator” or “interior designer” will usually conjure up specific emotions and opinions in each of us.
One Lincoln Park woman, who has gone through three designers over the years, vehemently maintains that “most of them are way too expensive, don’t make good on their promises and often talk you into buying something that just isn’t right because it’s expensive and they make their money that way.” She has $4,000 worth of faux leather wallpaper sitting in her garage to illustrate her points; she plans to donate the paper to a local school for art projects.
Though horror stories abound, they usually don’t stop anyone from taking the plunge and hiring a design pro. Even if it doesn’t work out, chances are a homeowner will try again. Coleman reports that 40 percent of her clients are looking for a rematch because something went wrong the first time, while Linda Cohen, who runs Designer Previews, another Chicago firm that matches clients and design professionals, says, “About 30 percent of my clients come here because they’ve had horrible experiences in the past.”
How can homeowners hedge their bets and get the right pro for their wants and needs the first time around, or even somewhere down the line after a failed relationship or two? It’s a lot like finding a spouse, say the experts, a mating game. Some matches are carefully orchestrated by the pros who specialize in pairing up designers and clients, such as Cohen and Coleman. Others are made by vigilant research on the part of the homeowner and are based on budget factors or a design philosophy. Still others are made by luck or chance.
There are several advantages to the homeowners who use the matchmaking firms. First, the business practices of the designers–the sources they use for their goods and services, and the contracts they present to their clients–are carefully scrutinized by these firms to protect customers from fraud, incompetence or unpleasant surprises. For example, different designers can have different fee structures or contracts, which can be confusing or ambiguous, notes Coleman. Some designers have hourly fees, some charge for travel and shopping time and some add markups or work off retainers.
“A homeowner may pick a designer who seems to have lower fees and smaller markups on paper, but that may not be the case when everything is accounted for, and that homeowner will feel stung once the bills start coming. I make sure the fee structures are clearly articulated, and the homeowner understands them.”
The professional design matchmaker is also able to decipher the homeowner’s vision and help articulate it, notes Cohen. “They often don’t know what they’re looking for, or understand entirely what they want to do or what the scope of their project is,” she points out. “These are the kind of issues we talk clients through.”
Personalities are also a critical part of the picture. Finding a design pro “who has a personality that meshes with a homeowner’s can sometimes even be more important than contract and fee issues,” says Cohen.
Mark Epstein, a Chicago financier, became good friends with Susan Fredman on a yoga retreat, and used her several years later to help him resolve design issues in his apartment because he liked and trusted her. Chicago marketing consultant Erica Regunberg interviewed three designers to work on her kitchen, but ruled out two because of personality conflicts. “They were too cut and dried and had no sense of humor, so I didn’t feel I could work with them,” she explains.
Psychologists confirm the importance of personality. “A designer is the person who is going to translate your personality into your home and help you express yourself vis-a-vis your interior. It’s imperative that they not only understand you, and what you are trying to express, but that you feel comfortable with them,” says Judy Wilen, a Chicago clinical psychologist. “They must have a personality you can relate to and communicate with, or you won’t be able to work with them.”
Without compatible personalities, a design relationship can founder. “You really need to have an exceptional rapport with your designer so they understand what you want and how to make you comfortable in your own home,” says Joanne Eckstut, co-author of “Room Redux: The Home Decorating Workbook” (Chronicle Books) and a Manhattan-based interior designer who heads the firm The Roomworks.
Ironically, looks don’t count, say the experts. “You can show a client a fabulous portfolio of a designer’s work, but picking a designer based solely or mostly on these pictures is not wise,” says Coleman. “A good designer is able to do work in a range of aesthetics.” Since many homeowners don’t take this into account, Coleman believes it is a point in favor of design matchmakers. They can help clients understand how a designer can interpret the aesthetic that is right for them, she notes.
But “when a homeowner ascribes to a specific philosophy, it is important to find a designer who matches that specific point of view,” says Eckstut. She founded her firm on the philosophy that design should be accessible and affordable to everyone, and works with people on any budget. She works with clients around the country, sending them photographs and booklets that exhaustively detail the work so they can shop for items themselves if they wish. She also gives her card to clients so they have access to trade-only suppliers on their own, and splits her discount with them.
Careful research can turn up a design pro to fill anyone’s needs, but it takes time, patience and a true understanding of one’s own desires and needs.
Elizabeth Copeland of Highland Park is a case in point. She spent months analyzing what she was looking for and interviewed eight interior designers before settling on Susan Fredman. “While someone I connected with was extremely important to me, they also had to understand what I wanted, have a lot of experience with new construction and possess the right kind of vision,” Copeland says. “I didn’t want them to try to lead me in a direction I didn’t want to go in, but I also didn’t want them to let me push them around.”
Copeland was equally adamant when it came to contracts, fees and modus operandi. “I wanted to work with someone on a flat fee, everything had to be spelled out and I needed someone who is no-nonsense,” she explains. “I’m not one of these people who can mosey around the (Merchandise) Mart. I know what I want, I want to look at three or four options, then pick it out and be done with it.”
Of course, a homeowner can always hope luck will lead to the perfect pro, yet there is a good amount of subconscious assessment that goes into matches made this way, notes Wilen.
Sheryl Markman, owner of a Chicago consulting firm, interviewed several noted Chicago designers when she moved here from Dallas six years ago, but was put off by the fussy and overblown projects they showed her. When she noticed Berkus picking out fixtures at a lighting store, she watched how he worked, noticed how he was dressed and realized they had the same sensibility and asked for his card. “The only other person I ever met by chance is my husband, and that worked out well too,” she quips.
For years, Jennifer Choub resisted following her mother’s advice–namely to hire her interior designer, Jessie Davison of Imagination & Co. in Lake Bluff–because “I’m not as conservative as my mother and was looking for something totally different,” she says. She finally gave in and tried Davison, only to realize that the designer could do any style and had several qualities that made her superb at the job. “She’s a great listener, is very interested in my input and is perceptive at pulling everything together,” says Choub. Of course, Choub may also share some personality traits or the same outlook as her mother, which would help explain this successful client/designer relationship.
The ability to pick and choose interior designers is a relatively recent development. Interior designers didn’t really exist as we know them until the 20th Century, and were used only by the wealthy until the second half of the century.
“Historically, most interiors were put together as a natural part of building structures,” explains John F. Pile, author of “Interior Design” (Harry N. Abrams). It wasn’t until elaborate structures were developed for the aristocracy that the idea of designed interiors, “comparable to a fashionable costume as an expression of wealth, power and taste, emerged,” he explains. “The design professions began to take form in the Renaissance, and this led to a more personal way of thinking about design of every sort.”
In their 1897 book “The Decoration of Houses,” Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr. attribute the rise of interior decoration to the fall of warfare as a way of life. When at war, men who lived in castles camped in tents, and decorations were portable. Once life became more secure, “portable hangings were . . . replaced by architectural ornament” and “the architecture of the room became its decoration,” they wrote.
Some architects took a total approach to design quite seriously. In the 18th Century, renowned British architect Robert Adam saw to “every aspect of his projects from soup to nuts,” points out Alexa Hampton, the daughter of the late New York interior designer Mark Hampton and head of his design firm. Adam would design the interiors and furniture of his buildings and developed a noted personal style that was based on the Georgian tradition but incorporated many design elements from the Roman excavations that were being done of Pompeii at the time.
But by the time Wharton and Codman wrote their book, the “designing of . . . mouldings, architraves, and cornices has become a perfunctory work, hurried over and unregarded” by the architect, “and when this work is done, the upholsterer is called in to ‘decorate’ and furnish the rooms.” Designers of that day were “specialists in putting together interiors in the various traditional styles such as Louis XIV, XV or XVI, Tudor, Georgian, Colonial or even modernistic,” Pile points out.
Many decorators were also dealers: buying and reselling furniture and rugs, doing the on-site work needed in a project, which could amount to nothing more than painting or hanging drapes, he notes. For this reason, the term “interior designer” became preferred over “decorator” for those who took a professional approach, he notes.
What did change at the time Wharton and Codman wrote their book was the attitude toward period style, explains Hampton. In “Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century,” a book written by her father in 1992, he pointed out that “the importance of idiosyncratic personal taste” became a point of view that had been previously ignored. While the 19th Century “successively loved all of its revivals . . . the 20th Century pulled the cork,” he writes. Period style gave way to style, period. The age of name interior designers, the sort who had strong personal points of views that were noticed, absorbed, imitated and even modified, was born.
According to Mark Hampton, Elsie de Wolfe claimed to be the first interior decorator. Though architects, upholsterers and others had imposed their taste and will on clients throughout the ages, Hampton did consider de Wolfe, whose talent in the field of interior design was definitely a wave of the future, the first interior designer in the modern sense of the word. She had worked in the field for more than 50 years when she died in 1950 at the age of 85. Other name designers followed, including Syrie Maugham, Billy Baldwin, Dorothy Draper, John Fowler and Hampton himself.
Today, interior design has come a long way and is a respected field filled with many creditable, well-educated pros. It isn’t necessary to be royalty, or even wealthy, to afford the services of a talented interior designer. And it clearly isn’t necessary to be wedded to an interior designer forever, a point to keep in mind as we do our homes today and our wants and needs evolve.
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Resources, page 92.
Pg. 14: Christian Astuguevielle chair and reproduction period chair-Holly Hunt Showroom, Merchandise Mart.
