How to Choose an Interior Designer or Redecorator

Posted on February 6, 2010 by admin

What types of professional interior designers are available?

Have you heard of Interior redecorators? These professional interior decorators transform your home using things you have accumulated over the years. The end result is a balanced, harmonious space that reflects the personality of the people who use it. Many interior designers have added this service to their repertoire. Alternate terms for professional interior designers specializing in interior redecorating are interior redesigners, interior arrangers, interior stylists, one day decorators, visual coordinators or interior refiners.

What is a Certified Interior Designer? (from B&P Code Section 5800,5538)

A Certified interior designer is a competent design professional who is qualified to design, prepare, and submit any type of nonstructural, non-seismic interior construction plans and specifications to local building departments. Certified interior designers have demonstrated through education, experience, and examination their knowledge of the Uniform Building Code as it relates to space planning, life safety, flammability, and disabled access code issues. Most interior designers have a minimum four-year education. Many have Master of Interior Design degrees or other additional education in architecture or interior design. Interior designers who have many years experience may not have a Bachelors in Interior Design, but usually are well educated and have many years of qualified experience. All qualified interior designers will indicate that they have passed the NCIDQ (National Council for Interior Design Certification) examination and/or are registered/ certified/ licensed in their state.

How do Interior Decorators charge for their services?

Flat Design Fee: The client pays a flat fee for the professional interior designer’s services based on the design plan, time required, and scope of services.

Hourly Rate: The interior decorator bills a negotiated rate per hour.

Cost Plus Method: Professional interior designers charge a set percentage on all merchandise purchased and tradesmen’s services rendered.

Mixed Method: The client pays both a set percentage on purchases and a base design fee for hourly rate.

Per square foot: This method is used especially in new construction.

What to ask at the first meeting:

• Ask to see the interior designer’s portfolio, but remember that the designs reflect other people’s tastes,¬ not necessarily the interior decorator’s, and possibly not your own.

• Ask what size projects the interior designer has worked on, where, and what was the budget range.

• Ask how the established budget will be handled, and the kind of payment schedules the interior decorator requires.

• Ask about the types of services the designer can provide.

• Ask for a list of references.

What you may be asked at the first meeting:

It is a good idea to prepare for your first meeting with a professional interior designer by creating your own folder of clippings from magazines, catalogs, and books of design ideas that appeal to you.

You may also be asked some or all of the following questions:

• For whom is the space being designed?

• What activities will take place in the space?

• How long do you plan to occupy the space?

• What is your time frame for completing the project?

• What is your budget?

• Are you relocating or remodeling?

• What image do you want to project?

• What colors, style, and effects do you like?

• What are your objective and lifestyle needs?

• What is the approximate square footage to be designed?

If a professional interior designer, or anyone, for that matter, tells you the process is easy, stress-free, and will be complete in two weeks, they’re either lying or stupid. Don’t hire that person.

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Interior Design Course

Posted on February 4, 2010 by admin

Interior Designers use intrinsic artistic flair and specialized skills to improve the physical appearance as well as the practicality of any given space. Interior designers work towards improving the quality of any place including private homes, hotels, offices or hospitals.

Interior design courses are perfect for anyone who wishes to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to become an interior designer.

Online Degrees

Online Degrees are rapidly gaining popularity in this highly competitive age. The biggest advantage of enrolling in online courses is that students do not have to attend any predetermined number of classes unlike conventional degree courses. Students looking to gain additional qualifications are thus increasingly turning towards online degrees where enrolment can be done anytime and the courses are mainly self-paced.

Interior design courses give individuals the opportunity to enroll in a course and further their careers while they are already working and allow students to enroll in more than one course at a time, which increases their employability.

Interior Design Course Content

Interior design courses encompass many different areas. It helps budding designers gain the necessary skills of applying the concepts of form and function to any space. Many interior designers use specialized Interior design courses to branch out from general interior designing to work in a particular area of their choice.

Most online interior design degrees cover these important areas:

Definition as well as responsibilities of Interior Designing
Principles of Interior Designing
Elements of Interior Designing
Goals of Interior Designing
Process of Interior Designing
Scope of Interior Designing
Basics of all other creative designing fields
Relation between Interior Designing and other Designing

Professionals

Online Interior Design Degrees
Earning a degree in Interior Designing has never been easier. Online Interior design courses can be done by anybody who has the flair and aptitude for it. There is no need to worry about course timings, or the location of the Interior designing school. Any one interested in earning an Interior Design Degree has enroll for one online at any convenient time of the year and from any part of the world.

There are no deadline pressures and no time wasted traveling long distances. Online Interior Design courses can be done from the convenience and comfort of your home. All established online courses have qualified professionals who are on hand, often 24/7 to help you with whatever help you may need.

Online Interior design courses are excellent for experienced interior designers as well as newcomers to this career. It offers them a flexible learning schedule where students can pick and choose one or many different specialized topics and earn degrees in all of them simultaneously.

This means students can choose to earn their various degrees in as short a time as possible if they wish to start off on a career or are looking to branch off into a specialized area. Alternatively students can take as long as they want to if they have other time constraints, which could be due to a whole host of reasons including health reasons or frequent traveling

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Increase the Value of your Primary Asset with a Home Improvement Loan

Posted on February 2, 2010 by admin

Homeowners can benefit greatly from choosing to obtain a home improvement loan using the equity in their current home as an asset to secure the loan. As a way to obtain funds that may be tax deductible for home improvements or a complete remodel, choosing to use a home improvement loan to acquire the necessary funds for home repairs and renovations is a smart financial choice. As an additional benefit, because most home improvement loans are secured with your current home, you do not have to have great credit to be approved by a lender. Of course, unsecured home improvement loans are also available; however, because these loans are not secured by your home, homeowners with poor credit may have more difficulty qualifying for approval.

The purpose of a home improvement loan is to provide funding for the completion of home repairs, improvements to your home’s functionality, improvements to your home’s energy efficiency, home improvement projects that will update your home and increase the value, or a complete remodel of an existing residential structure.

Some homeowners choose to use home improvement loan funds to complete projects on their own, while others opt for working with a contractor, particularly for larger home improvement projects. Lenders that provide home improvement loans generally do not restrict how the funds can be used, other than requiring that they must be used for home improvement projects, which provides a great deal of flexibility for the homeowner to choose which projects to complete on a self-directed timeline.

In most cases, a homeowner’s most valuable asset is their home. Homeownership is an important part of building personal wealth and is generally where the bulk of an individual’s or couple’s wealth lies. Therefore, responsibly using the wealth you have built through the equity you have in your home is crucial to your financial success and continuing to solidify your financial foundation. Obtaining a home improvement loan to complete home repairs or undertake projects that will increase the value of your home is a solid investment that can increase your financial stability by enhancing the value of your primary asset.

Applying for a home improvement loan is a simple process that begins with obtaining a free, no obligation quote online. Obtaining a free quote allows you to determine how much you are qualified to borrow and how much you can afford to borrow prior to obligating yourself to a contract with a lender and beginning your home improvements.

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Take Out One Home Appliance Insurance Policy And Save For Your Next Gadget

Posted on January 30, 2010 by admin

When you have splashed out on a shiny new home appliance and you’re standing at the checkout, more often than not the helpful assistant will ask if you want to extend the standard warranty on offer in case something goes wrong with the item you’ve just bought. You stand there and think about how much you love your new fridge/washing machine/deluxe coffee machine and perhaps nine times out of ten cave in and take out the extended warranty?

Well it seems the average consumer is not making a savvy purchase decision when they take out this extended warranty – it can add a considerable amount on to your purchase price and when you take out the extended warranty on more than one appliance, you can see how the cost would really add up. You might not have considered it before, but home appliance insurance could be the one policy you are missing that saves you money in the long-run, and protects your new and well-loved home appliances.

Insure Your Home Appliances

Think how many appliances you have – if you have just got married or moved house you will probably have many more than previously, and they could be high value items. What’s more, all of us use our appliances extremely frequently – most households use their washing machines on average three times a week, and that figure will be much higher if you have a large family – we would all be lost without our white goods. So, it makes sense to look around for the best quote for home appliance insurance.

It’s true that a warranty comes as standard on most appliance purchases, but this doesn’t last long and unless you go for the extended warranty on everything you own – which would be costly – your best bet is home appliance insurance. It commonly covers fridges, freezers, washing machines and dishwashers as well as household items such as televisions, lawnmowers and stereos, and the type of cover can range from insurance provider to insurance provider. However, you can be sure most home appliance insurance policies offer new for old replacements, a 24-hour repair service and approved list of repairers, and accidental damage cover.

Keep Your Home Ticking Along

Where would we be without our fridge freezers? How could we cope with dirty clothes and no TV? Househould items such as these are integral to the running of our daily lives, and a home appliance insurance policy could save you a stressful few days if any of them were to break down.

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How to Become an Interior Designer

Posted on January 28, 2010 by admin

You love to bring a theme to a room, to make things look just so. Perhaps friends who visit your home make remarks about wishing they could hire you to fix up their place or that they never know what goes with what. If you seem to be a natural at interior decoration, why not become an interior designer?

There are steps you can take that will ease you onto the road to becoming a professional interior designer, bringing your passion to life.

The terms interior designer and interior decorator are often used interchangeably. Both generally mean that you will create a pleasant space in the dimensions given that you won’t make major structural changes in the house. This is important as actually altering the configuration of a house, or a room, may need a permit, license and there may be other red tape which involves building contractors and other professionals.

That said, if you want to do interior decoration for a living, the following considerations may be of help.

Education and training:

While you may be able to hang out a shingle and proclaim yourself an interior designer, you may also not have too many clients. In general, people looking to hire you will want to know where you received your education. There are a lot of schools out there, many of them reputable. However, be sure to do your research before you pay for a series of classes that will never do anything except take your money.

Training will likely be more important than the mere fact that you’ve been educated in interior decoration. While it may take longer, getting a job with an established interior designer may make things easier for you in the long run. Not only will you make a salary (though just starting out may mean the salary is rather small), you will learn on the job and receive real-world training.

Prepare a portfolio:

No matter what you do, a prospective employer or client will want to see what you can do, in a range of interior design options. Can you create a chic country look? How about a warm, modern feel? How can you prove it? This is where your portfolio comes in. When you work on an interior decoration project, you’ll want to take lots of pictures, have them organized and easy to go through. Your portfolio will sell you, so make sure it’s a tool that shows off the best you have to offer.

Practice:

Your home is your personal showcase. Try different looks within it, just to see what looks good. While you may have found the perfect interior decoration for your living room, try switching things up. While it may not be the look for you, someone else may like it. Plus, you’ll have the chance to step back and figure out why something doesn’t look right—or why it looks great.

Tap your friends for help. There’s no reason you can’t offer your interior design services to friends, as long as you get to take pictures of the finished product for your portfolio. Be sure to take before-and-after pictures to showcase your interior designer talent as you create a wonderful living space. If cost is a problem, try using what is currently there or find different, cheaper options, like moving furniture from other rooms in the house.

Network:

Attend home shows as an interior designer. Take your portfolio, dress up a corner of the booth, or raffle off a free interior design consultation. Your name needs to be out there in order to create a business.

Try and visit home shows even if you don’t rent any space. Introduce yourself to the various participants and hand out business cards. Get in touch with established interior designers; ask them how they got started, if they have any tips for someone just starting out. Usually there is plenty of business in an area to go around. Talk to builders and contractors, offering interior decoration for their model homes.

Make sure you have good business cards. They are often your longest-lasting impression on potential clients, and a badly designed card doesn’t fill people with confidence that you’ll do great interior decoration. You don’t want to be a nuisance, but giving your business card when you are introduced to someone is a good way to get your name out there.

Specialize:

What type of interior design do you want to do? If you want to work on office buildings, building a portfolio of cozy bedrooms will not help you much. If you want to create wonderful interior decoration on a shoestring budget, talking to a contractor who works on multimillion dollar homes will likely be a waste.

Continue to learn your craft:

Even if you take every step known to man to become an interior designer, if you forget to continue learning your craft, you will likely not get far. Interior design changes regularly. Trends alter, offices and homes change, and you should be prepared to adjust. Subscribe to interior design magazines, join a group of decorating professionals, make sure you watch trends– basically take steps so that you and your work never become stagnant. Only in this way can you offer fresh ideas to your clients.

There isn’t a quick way to be an interior designer, particularly if you want to be a good one. However, the above steps will hopefully ease your way along that path. Above all, be sure to enjoy your chosen profession, for that’s the best way in which you can always please yourself and your client.

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