Good morning Hadley Court readers, this is Leslie Carothers again, guest posting for my friend and client, Leslie Hendrix Wood, who is on vacation this week with her family.
Yesterday, I wrote a post, here, about How Designers Save You Money and today’s {long!} post will be about how to budget for your homes furniture and finishes, kitchen and bath, excluding the luxury, professional interior decorator, the processes involved in a luxury design job and the 2 main ways luxury, professional interior decorators charge, with specific numbers, so you come away informed and educated about how to start the luxury design process and will better understand how a luxury interior decorator is compensated for their artistic vision, their resource expertise and their project management services.
But before I start, I want to give designer, friend, writer and editor, Jason Oliver Nixon. the owner, along with John Loecke, pictured below, of Madcap Cottage… { don’t you love their logo? }
a special shout out, { see the rest of their eclectic and wonderful site, here } for sharing yesterday’s post with his wide array of friends in the design industry. Many other friends shared it too, or commented on it, after Jason shared it. Leslie and I both appreciate it so much and we hope, readers, that you will get to know Jason and John { who just purchased a beautiful, traditional home in High Point, North Carolina} by reading Charlotte, NC designer Lisa Herring Mende’s post about them, here.
What Investment, Per Square Foot, Should You Be Prepared To Make In Your Luxury Home, Excluding Hiring A Luxury, Professional Interior Decorator?
Overall budgets for new construction on top tier luxury projects can go as high as 25 million dollars, and once in a while, higher, but be prepared to invest, apart from hiring a luxury interior designer, for a normal, high end residential luxury home, depending on the square footage, somewhere within the half million to 5 million dollar range to see your vision fully realized. Of course, for many, this investment will be staged in over time, but this is accurate.
It’s been my personal experience, while working as a luxury designer for Roche Bobois for 10 years earlier in my career and updating this information to reflect today’s market, that the following price per square foot figures, excluding hiring a luxury interior designer, are normal for high end luxury residential projects like the one pictured below on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
150.00 per square foot for new furniture { it can be much more if antiques are involved },
125.00. per square foot for flooring and lighting,
75.00 per square foot for decorative paint finishes,
150.00 per square foot for custom cabinetry and built ins
75.00 per square foot for decorative accessories and art { it can be much more if fine art is being purchased for investment.}
New kitchens: $100,000 -250,000.00 complete with appliances.
Luxury master baths: $90,000 – 250,000, complete with fixtures
So now, how do luxury, professional interior decorators charge and what should you be prepared to invest?
There are two popular options and many times luxury consumers are confused – mainly because they don’t understand the process of interior design and also because the word *mark-up* has negative connotations with respect to overcharging. Nothing could be further from the truth and I’ll explore both options in detail for you, below.
And again, as you read the numbers below, remember that you can work with an interior designer in stages, completing one room after another – as your circumstances allow. Luxury designers are used to working in this way when clients want high end interior design services but aren’t able to complete the entire home at one time.
First, and gaining in popularity is the flat fee option which allows designers to charge for their creative vision and initial floor plan and then for you, as the purchaser of luxury interior design services, to decide, after that, how much more you want the designer’s involvement in your home, depending on your own resources and your own time and ability to manage multiple sub-contracted trades. Here’s how that works:
THE FLAT FEE OPTION:
Many luxury designers, like Leslie, charge an initial flat fee based on square footage, often in the range of 10.00-15.00 per square foot, for their creative vision and their initial floor plan and then other services are billed separately, depending on what you, as the client, desire. Designers that work this way often take a retainer up front for 1/2 to 3/4 of this amount with the balance billed 1 month before final installation. For instance, if your home is 10,000 square feet and your interior designer charges you 10.00 per square foot for their vision and initial floor plan, this is 100,000 and is normal within the high end luxury residential design industry.
Designers who work on a flat fee basis for giving you their artistic vision and an original floor plan will then also charge for the following services, depending on your requirements:
1. Furniture, Decorative Accessories and Art Procurement:
If your flat fee designer is sourcing and procuring furniture, art and accessories for you, they will usually work in one of two ways, depending on whether you want them to manage the entire process or whether you want to do parts of it, or all of it, yourself. Here are the normal associated costs for either do it yourself purchasing or managed purchasing. Furniture and decor item purchasing is a very small part of the overall luxury interior design process, but an important one.
a. Do It Yourself Purchasing
For this option, contracts will stipulate a charge of, normally, + 15% , for doing the research and producing the document [s] that enables you to find exactly what the designer is recommending, yourself. Designers will ask you for an additional retainer for this estimated amount, upfront, in addition to their creative retainer.
b. The Managed Purchase:
If you want the flat fee designer to manage the furniture procurement process from beginning to end, their contracts will stipulate that they will pass on to you their net wholesale cost + freight and crating + , normally, depending on the designer and the area of the country, 20-25% , for furniture and materials procurement which encompasses: the research and meetings necessary to get all furniture, art, decorative accessories and lighting specified and agreed upon, the managing of the paperwork associated with placing your orders, the follow up required with specialty vendors on each individual order and the troubleshooting for any delays or delivery issues that arise.
2. Working Drawings:
Flat fee designers will charge for all working drawings and changes to working drawings. This cost varies widely, depending on whether they are doing it themselves or having their assistants do it, so please inquire.
3. Project Management
Flat fee designers charge for home visits, meetings, visits to labor resources, visits to factories with you, calls with labor resources to follow up, calls with materials vendors to follow up and tradeshows that they attend with you – just like a lawyer, they will charge you for project management on a per hour basis, normally 150-250.00 per hour, depending on the area of the country and whether or not they have an associate doing this work or not.
4. Installation
Flat fee designers charge separately for installation. On the day of installation, you are free to decide if you need your designer there to oversee delivery, set up, styling and installation or if you feel competent to do this yourself. This fee varies widely by area of country and designer, so I will not give any estimates here, but please inquire with your designer.
There are many other services flat fee designers charge for that go into the process of interior design, but this type of payment system is gaining in popularity with both designers and consumers who prefer to know their investment up front and to be able to pick and choose from a designer’s menu of services.
I highly recommend that, if one of your desires is to have your home be the ultimate in beauty, comfort and function, or if you desire to have your home published, you empower your luxury designer, if you can afford it, to complete your project beginning to end so that the expression of their creative vision, that you’ve renumerated them through the initial flat fee retainer, can be fully realized on your behalf. The above room was designed by architect Gil Schafer, as featured in Architectural Digest and photographed by Eric Piasecki. It’s so artfully done- to me, it represents the epitome of how a luxury designer/architect can help you lead a more gracious life.
THE MARK UP AND HOURLY OPTION:
Still a very popular and common billing system for many professional, luxury interior decorators is the mark up and hourly system. These 2 words *mark-up* are ones that most newer luxury purchasers of design services misconstrue. *Mark up* has nothing to do with *charging too much*, it is simply the original way and still one of the main way’s designers have available to them to be being fairly compensated for their artistic vision and their initial floor plan.
The designer that works this way will also still charge you hourly, normally 150.00 – 250.00 per hour, for all the processes involved in interior design as outlined above, but they will be in control, with your approval every step of the way, of the entire procurement process for you, beginning to end, thus insuring that your vision and theirs, after having listened carefully to you, is fully realized to the best of their ability.
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And if, after reading this, you’ve decided you want to work with a luxury, professional interior decorator, but can’t afford it now, please note that many luxury interior decorators also offer *Design For A Day* type services now, to augment their larger, longer-term projects, and these services usually cost approx. 1500-5000. per day, depending on the area of the country and the designer.
This can be a very affordable way for you to experience what a difference a luxury interior designer can make, quickly, in giving one area of your home a quick, fresh lift – especially with spring coming. And speaking of that, if you missed Lynda Quintero – Davids guest post on spring cleaning for charity donations last week, please click here.
One interior designer that is a friend to both Leslie and I is Denise McGaha, who lives in Dallas, and is currently offering Design On A Deadline services to her luxury clients. You can read more about that, here , on her new website and the project below is one of Denise’s newer projects on her site. Isn’t it lovely?
I hope my guest post today and the one yesterday have helped to educate and inspire you to take the long view when investing in luxury design. The results are breathtaking when you give luxury decorators the freedom, time and budget to do their very best work for you and trust them to have listened carefully to you, and then to use their vast expertise and network of resources to create a home for you that exceeds your wildest imaginings… the home of your dreams.
Leslie Carothers
for
Leslie Hendrix Wood
Decorator
Chancellor Interiors
Midland, Texas
Founder and Editor In Chief
https://hadleycourt.com
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Image Credits where not already noted:
Image 1: http://www.housebeautiful.com/decorating/colors/demattei-wade-browns-0308#slide-9
Final image: http://architecturaldigest.com – work of Ike Kligerman Barkley Architects, PC