Questions and Answers

If you are unfamiliar with working with an interior designer, you may have concerns about the costs involved with working with an outside professional, or even whether you can afford professional design assistance. At Interior Expressions, we believe in creating a lifelong relationship with our customers based on trust and value. With that in mind, we disclose our pricing structure up front so you know exactly how our business works, how we get paid, and what you can expect. We find that when there are no surprises, everyone wins.

Transparent Pricing

We charge for the services we perform in a number of different ways, depending on the project type. This may be one or more of the following methods:

Consultation Fees
Consultation Fees are charged for providing you with ideas, concepts, options, budget preparation assistance, shopping, etc. In these cases, you are paying for the time we spend with you and the assistance that we provide.

Design Services
Design Service Fees are charged when we utilize our experience and expertise to perform design work such as space planning, furniture or built-in design, remodel layout design, renderings etc. These fees would always be estimated for you in advance, and any need to exceed that estimate would be pre-approved by you.

Product Sales
We are an approved dealer for many brands and, like any retailer, there is a small and reasonable margin on the products that we sell.

Project Management Fees
If you so desire, we can act as your project manager. We could help you develop a scope of work for bidding purposes, manage the project on your behalf, coordinate trades, perform periodic job site visits, be at necessary installations, be available for consultations with you or any trade, and generally help ensure the project is completed as envisioned. For our time, efforts and expertise there would be a Project Management Fee, which is usually a fixed percentage of the project total cost.

Value For Money

Our services are valuable and our track record of satisfied customers shows that working with an experienced interior designer such as Interior Expressions leads to projects being completed on time, within budget and with better results than self management. Here are some of the things you can expect from us:

• Professional Design Expertise and Advice
  All of our designers are trained and experienced. With our team approach, your lead designer may call on specific expertise from others on our design staff, giving you the benefit of our collective experience.
• Direct Buying Power
  Most of the products we sell are purchased directly from the manufacturers, thereby keeping our prices very competitive.
• Access to our Pre-Qualified Professional Trade Partners
  We pre-screen any trade that we recommend. If we recommend a trade partner to you, you can rest assured that they will not only do a great job, but will stand behind their work.
• A helpful hand all along the way
  We will help communicate and coordinate with trades, installers, delivery, etc. We’ll keep you apprised of each step of your project to avoid unpleasant surprises.

We hope this helps you understand the pricing structure of our industry. We’ll be happy to answer any additional questions you might have – please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

We offer many product choices, and we have found it much more efficient for everyone if you come to the showroom first and look at everything we offer you. Plus, this gives you a chance to see and touch what you’ll be buying. You want to make the right decision on something you’ll be living with for the next 10-20 years, right?

Also, we have all our samples, supplier catalogs, etc. here. There is no way we could bring all that to your home. Then when we do come to your home, we can make sure we bring samples and catalogs right for your project. That way, when we visit your home, we already have potential choices in hand we can look at in your house. If you have a few photos of the space you wish to work on, please bring them to our first appointment- that is plenty for our designers to get a feel for what they’ll be working with. Fair enough?”

Yes, you should always have an allowance for the unexpected on remodeling projects. It is the seldom project where something unexpected doesn’t happen. We never know what we’ll find once we start tearing into walls, removing cabinets and such.

Our experience suggests a 5% - 10% contingency allowance should be built-in to your total investment. If you don’t need it, great! But you don’t want to have to cut corners elsewhere, or scramble to find the money, if something unexpected comes up.