“That Rug Really Tied The Room Together.” -The Dude

A common misperception about Interior Designers is that they pick out colors and couches. While they can do those things, they do so much more. Interior Design involves studying design, planning spaces, using CAD to plan spaces, knowing building codes, and much more. Interior Designers can work for interior design firms, architecture firms, large corporations, or as independent contractors. Many business owners and homeowners will complete renovations without the advice of an Interior Designer, and, in doing so, miss out on their expertise and experience, leading to non-optimized or otherwise problematic spaces. Three reasons homeowners and businesses do not consult with an Interior Designer about their remodel or space are access, familiarity, and cost. Depending on where you live, there may not be many Interior Designers close enough to provide consultation. Additionally, many people are not familiar enough with the benefit that Interior Designers provide. Finally, many business owners and homeowners do not want to pay the additional cost of an Interior Designer. But what if there was easy, inexpensive access to Interior Designers?  If you have a home, an office, a room, or a space that you do not know what to do with or how to design and decorate it, a video call with an Interior Designer that allows them to see the space and allows an individual to get one-on-one, on-demand consultation could help in making the space more functional. Below are three use cases for on-demand video calls with Interior Designers.

Space Planning

There is a room off of the kitchen and you are not sure what to do with it. Make it a dining room or make it more of a living room area? How should the furniture be arranged? Many homeowners have that one area in their home that they cannot seem to arrange furniture in a way that makes sense, or cannot seem to keep it organized, or cannot find a good use for. For some people, this does not bother them. For others, it preoccupies their minds. For those that have a space in their home that they cannot figure out what to do with, there are professionals that figure out what to do with awkward spaces for a living. They are called interior designers and they specialize in designing spaces. However, not everyone knows an interior designer that they can call for a consult or wants to hire an interior designer just to help them figure out how to make that awkward space functional. And that is the key. The issue is not big enough (like a remodel would be) to justify hiring an Interior Designer, but it is big enough that it continues to bother the homeowner. So the space stays awkward. However, an on-demand video call with an expert, an interior designer, would be perfect for a quick and inexpensive consultation from a professional to finally make that awkward space functional.

The Remodel with Missing Finishing Touches

A family from a flyover state is remodeling their home. The home is located an hour and a half from the closest city. There are towns nearby and they were able to find a general contractor that would take care of the remodel. However, they are missing one key element to help them make sure that they get the most for their money: an interior designer. They plan to knock a couple walls down and an interior designer is key for helping them plan their new spaces and to ensure all the finishes tie the design in their head together with the work done by the contractors, especially the finishes. In between their home and the city is a lot of farmland and good people, just not any interior designers. A good-length on-demand video call with an interior designer would be perfect as an inexpensive alternative to not including an interior designer in the remodel. The consultation from a professional helps to avoid two things. First, taking design advice from the contractor and, second, bringing the entire design together so that the family does not have a brand new home and really nice finishes that do not all go well together or make the design and house feel broken up.

Integrating a Home Office

How many people saw some of the most intimate places of their coworkers’ homes over the past year during meetings on Zoom and Webex? Bedrooms, living rooms, and everywhere else we normally consider the private or intimate areas of people’s lives. The video and web conferencing services implemented backgrounds – the blurred background, the seasonal background, the holiday background, but going from seeing whether a coworker made their bed today to a blur or a holiday background suddenly seemed cold and distant. No matter how you feel about what is in the background during a video conference call, the point is that there is an opportunity for better home offices. The hard part is many homes were not designed with space for a home office leading to some awkward and even uncomfortable locations (a NYtimes.com article from Sep 2020 reported an increase in neck pain and back pain in chiropractic patients). An on-demand video call with an interior designer would be perfect for a quick and inexpensive consultation to set up a well-designed and comfortable home office. There is hope that people will return to work but the pandemic demonstrated to many employers that working from home should be or can be an option for more employees. This means that many employees will need to keep a home office, making a well-designed and comfortable home office a permanent area in homes across the globe. The consultation from a professional through on-demand video call will ensure a well-designed and comfortable space for the permanent home office.