Do you ever find yourself watching one of the many home improvement shows or flipping through endless issues of House and Home Magazine or Architectural Digest and daydreaming that your home could look and feel like the ones on the glossy pages in front of you? Maybe you are tired of daydreaming and you’re ready to finally take the plunge and invest in making your home look and feel like your fantasy, but the how of achieving this feels extremely overwhelming. Hiring help makes sense, but first understanding whether an interior designer or interior stylist is the right fit is an important first step before you start calling professionals.
Interior Designers, stylist and decorators, share many skill sets that can help transform a space. The main distinction between the two is that interior designers focus in on the foundation of the space and build it to reflect the clients goals with the finishes being a final piece to the puzzle, while interior stylists or decorators generally work within the existing parameters of a space and breathe new life into it with furnishings and décor. Your first step as a potential client is to get clear on your project’s scope and be realistic about your budget. A few good questions to ask yourself could include: Does your current space function for you? Do you need walls moved, windows added, or new built-in storage solutions created? These items would fall under the purview of an interior designer who can work with you to consider the functionality, materiality and leverage their knowledge of building to enhance your space to support the way you live or work.
Interior designers work alongside contractors and other skilled trade professionals to ensure that all building codes are met and that safety and wellbeing, as well as the beautiful finishes that were selected are utilized correctly. At STILE we work with a vetted group of trades to ensure that we can deliver the best finished product while maintaining a meticulous attention to detail and without the fear of corners being cut which might cause safety concerns for you and your family in the future. We also have a skilled group of project managers in the interior design and contracting team to ensure that all of these important aspects are covered so you as a client can enjoy a virtually hands-off renovation process.
After the dust clears from the renovation the interior designer can implement the finish schedule that includes the paint colours, wallpaper, light fixtures, furnishings and everything in between which would have been selected by them and approved early on in the process. This final step is where a lot of the commonalities between interior stylist and interior designers occur because a decorator is more focused on the final look and feel of a space and less so on changing any structural elements to achieve the end goal.
Both professionals work alongside their clients from day one to suss out their needs and achieve their goals. Both create space plans and mood boards to communicate their ideas; they can create shopping lists, budgets and organize the logistics and installation of finishes. Here at STILE our design team is happy to tackle a full home design concept and construction plan along with the help of our contracting team, but we are also just as comfortable creating decorating plans and implementing them or delivering a roadmap for you, the homeowner to implement on your own and on your own schedule. Want to see how we can help? Reach out today to schedule a discovery call with our design team.