Why People Should Hire an Interior Designer
Guest Blog Wednesday, August 1, 2012 at 9:00AM 
Irwin Weiner ASID - The first design project I ever did - now over 20 years ago - was helping decorate the home of friends of my parents in South Africa. Financial difficulties forced them to scale down. Using their good-quality furniture and art, I created an interior that was a lot better than what they had expected. It was so successful, in fact, that they were able to feel that their move was not as much a "social decline" as they'd anticipated.
I did for them what I still maintain a good interior design project should do for any client: create a stage set to live in that is so beautiful, that it enhances your life. It's a little grandiose, I know, but it's a worthy goal nonetheless.
My first design project was a great opportunity for me, too. Even though I wasn't being paid, I realized that it was a good chance to gain my first referral. When I asked the wife what she thought of the interior I'd completed, she said that she particularly loved that it didn't look like it had been "decorated," and she was happy to know that her friends would feel the same way.
When I pressed her on that remark, she confided that hiring a designer made her feel inadequate, both in terms of her taste level, as well as it being somewhat of an unnecessary luxury. One could say that it was like the extravagance of hiring a trainer at the gym when all one needs is self-discipline and a bit of research. And most people think that they've got good taste, so why hire an outsider to design your home?
I'm often confronted with similar thoughts from people who express a disdain for the interior design industry. There are many people who don't have good taste, they can afford to hire a designer, but they elaborately justify not using a professional. One of my favorite Why I Won't Hire An Interior Designer rationales is "Interiors are like Art, and I don't need to know much about it; I only need to know what I like."
Now that I'm older and more exerienced in my profession (of which I am very proud), when I meet people who profess the reluctance to hire a professional, or demean interior designers as a whole, I now have a few stock responses.
