1. You expect your designer to be a magician:
Often clients who have binged on design shows have a false expectation of what executing a build or renovation really looks like. They’ve been fed a fictitious ‘reality’ tv show to set the stage for their design journey without realizing how much reality was edited out of the show.
From both a time and financial investment perspective, these shows are not remotely accurate reflections of the real-life investments required to bring a project to full fruition. It’s the Cinderella story of design-led to make people feel like it’s the real deal, and there’s nothing worse than working with a client who expects you to wave your magic wand when budgets and timelines aren’t in alignment with their fantasy exceptions.
2. You insist that your designer works around your past design mistakes.
These kinds of clients have done all the leg work, they’ve narrowed it down to precisely what paint chip code to use, They’ve sourced their wallpaper, and all the large pieces of furniture and now they want a designer to pull it together for them. Now, we understand that there are a lot of people who know what they like, so they tackle it themselves. However, they often get halfway through a project and become overwhelmed with the task of pulling everything together. A daunting task if significant mistakes have been made along the way, making design cohesion a near impossibility.
No matter what kind of design help they have, unless there are some corrections made, there is no way to piece together their poor choices to make their space sing in harmony.
If these clients are amicable at reconciling that they may need to spend more money to rectify some pitfalls, then these clients can be advantageous to work with. However, when a client is always ‘right’ and refuses to let go of some significant eyesores and dated perspectives, there is absolutely no hope for an exceptional design.
Humility is essential for both the client and designer to work together in harmony. If your designer ever makes a mistake, if they’re a good one, they will own up to it and make it right, not force a client to deal with it and compromise the design. A good client will do the same.
3. You have entirely unrealistic expectations.
I once had a woman inquire about working together who wanted a beautiful Parisian style apartment but refused to let go over her 1990’s large dining set and insisted on having a slipcovered sofa. All the photos she showed me from magazine clippings were beautifully executed luxurious spaces. She had a budget of $30K to do a 1200 SQ FT apartment when the reality is that she would need at least $160K to get the look and quality she wanted. She wasn’t flexible; she wanted it all but without the sacrifice and investment required to make it happen, which, as you can imagine, is a hopeless situation.
Needless to say that it’s essential to be realistic about what’s involved in making your vision a reality. We don’t expect our clients to be experts in estimating all the finite details of designing a dream home, but we do expect our clients to be reasonable with their expectations.
4. You’re sentimentally attached to most of your furniture:
Clients who have a handful of existing furniture pieces that they don’t particularly enjoy but are sentimentally attached to and want to work around them.
As much as I love beautiful antiques, there’s nothing more painful than having to try and work with substantial and daunting pieces that don’t work at all echo the spirit of a client's design direction. It’s no different than asking a stylist to dress you for a Gala while insisting that you wear your mothers 1980’s blazer with overstuffed shoulder pads when what you want is a Grace Kelly inspired gown. Really, no different. So stop limiting yourself and your designer, if you want a spectacular outcome, it’s going to require that you let go of everything that doesn’t align with the vision.
Differ to rule #1
5. You’ve gone through dozens of designers already.
This is always a tough one as we’ve had some brilliant clients who’ve had to let go of a past designer for various reasons. One of which is often not feeling heard is the top of the list, or having a designer force their design biases is another. However, some of our worst nightmare clients were the ones that came to use with tall tales of difficult designers, only to later find out that they were the ones that got fired.
It’s incredibly rare for me to fire a client. I do my best to assess if I’m a good fit for a potential client and the like at our complimentary meeting and interview process before a design proposal is drafted. However, I had to let one go last year, which was impossible to satisfy and incredibly rude to my team.
In addition to her challenging demeanor, she was also incredibly reluctant to commit to a design direction, making even the most basic design decisions difficult. What should have taken three months to execute, took over a year with countless hours lost trying to satisfy her constant indecision at no end in sight, we had to let this client go.
8. You want to run your design concept past all of your friends for their approval before approving anything with your designer.
A good designer will model a design tailored to you. They will go through an interview process to asses your values, likes, and dislikes. They will want to know where you love to travel, what textures and colors resonate with you. How you like to entertain etc. Their job is not to satisfy your book clubs' design biases or to create a design that will resonate mediocrely with everyone. You know what they say, try and appease everyone, and you’ll make no one happy, and we happen to agree.
Whoever is involved in the purchasing and decision making of your project should be present at all design meetings. Anyone else opinion really shouldn’t matter, and if you need your best friend’s approval and design advice on your every decision, perhaps you should hire her instead.
Now, don’t get me wrong. We are thrilled when our clients are so enthused with their design that they want to bring a friend to the final design meetings to show them how stunning their home is going to be. Still, it’s an entirely different story if you want to have your friend weigh the balance of your design when all the hard work has been completed.
7. You want to touch everything before buying anything:
Most reputable designers aren’t keen to design with the restrictions of what’s readily available on a retail floor. Especially in a city with little diversity and limited selection. Unless you LOVE grey everything, don’t expect a designer to be able to blow your socks off with an incredible design if you’re not willing to special order.
Sure, it’s one thing to want to see the quality and test a few pieces of a manufacturer before placing that large order. Still, if you’re the type only to buy what you can touch and smell in person, you are limiting your designer, and if you want to feel absolutely everything before you have the confidence to buy it, you may be best to go shopping solo.
8. You want to price hunt everything online:
One of the perks of working with a designer is to have access to items that’s can’t be found on overstock.com or Wayfair. Nothing is appealing about a home that looks like it was a mash together of a few trips to Home Sense and some online surfing. Don’t you want your home to be unique? Hard to replicate?
Sure, you may be able to find some of your designers' suggestions online, but keep in mind that the price you see in the shopping cart often doesn’t reflect duties, tariffs, brokerage fees, shipping, and delivery. Even when I’ve had clients purchase items online for less, by the time they arrived, their savings were often less than 5%, and in some cases, there were no savings at all, and that’s the best-case scenario. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed budget misers exasperated when something arrived damaged or defective, and they were the ones stuck having to deal with the claim process, repackaging, and return shipping. There’s a lot to goes into processing every client's order to ensure that they get the best experience possible; there is a cost involved in managing the finite details for them so that if things aren’t perfect, we can rectify that on their behalf.
9. You like to Micromanage Every Detail
The clients that come into a design meeting with a detailed layout of what they want with very little room for input are often the clients that are looking for an ego boost more than an actual designer. The reality is, no reputable designer is going to be keen about putting their name on your project when they’ve not
It’s like hiring an incredible divorce lawyer and then presenting a full case that you prepared and expecting them to risk their reputation by present your case in front of the jury.
Rather than micromanaging and questioning your team, do the leg work at the beginning to ensure that you’re confident that you hired the right people. Otherwise, you may as well do the job yourself.
The clients that are best suited for the design process are those that have opinions and preferences but aren’t afraid to be exposed to new concepts and ideas. They are excellent communicators and value time, quality, and expertise.
10. You want your designer to play favorites
It’s not uncommon for couples to have disagreements when designing a home together. Frankly, is nearly unheard of to have a couple that always sees eye to eye. However, a good designer’s job is to create a spirit of collaboration, not compromise.
Don’t you want your partner to love coming home as much as you do? Yes, a good designer also knows when to call out a stinker of an idea when it happens (preferably in a playful kind of way) and sometimes, it ‘s better to have your designer be the judge when there’s a disagreement, or at the very least have a solid sounding board for when you’re at an impasse. It’s one of the perks of working with a designer. They are there be the best advocate for you and your design, not to play favorites.
