5 Things I Wish Every Homeowner Knew
Every designer has a version of this post. Communicate clearly. Budget for surprises. Trust the process. All true, all useful, and none of it is really what I think about when I'm standing in someone's home. So here's my actual list, the five things I wish I could say to every homeowner before we ever start, not because they're clever, but because they're true.
1. Safe Isn't the Same as Good
I can always tell when someone's picked the safe option out of fear rather than actual preference. The neutral sofa when they lit up talking about a bold pattern. The predictable tile when a bolder one made them stop scrolling. Safe photographs fine and feels like nothing.
The rooms people end up loving are almost never the safe ones. They're the ones with a real decision in them, a pattern, a color, a piece with some history, chosen because it was actually right, not because it was hard to get wrong. If something scares you a little and you can't stop thinking about it, that's usually the answer, not the risk.
2. I'm Not Here to Confirm What You Already Believe
Some of my favorite moments in this job are the ones where someone almost says no to my suggestion and then doesn't. Twenty-four years of doing this teaches you things a homeowner, however thoughtful, generally hasn't had the occasion to learn. If every recommendation I make gets measured against what you'd already have picked yourself, you didn't really need a designer. You needed someone to agree with you.
That's not a criticism, it's just honest. The value I bring is precisely the part that's unfamiliar.
3. The Real Version of Your Life Is More Useful to Me Than the Tidy One
I ask where the mail actually piles up. Where you actually stand when you're on the phone. Whether the formal dining room gets used or just gets dusted. People often want to describe the version of their life they wish they were living, and I understand the instinct, but it doesn't help me design anything real.
The house that photographs well and the house that actually works for you can be the same house. They're only guaranteed to be the same house if I know the truth about how you live in it.
4. You Don't Have to Be Renovating a Whole House for This to Be Worth It
I think a lot of people assume hiring a designer means a six-figure renovation and a year of their life. It can mean that. It can also mean two hours in your home and a clear answer to one question that's been bothering you for months, a paint direction, a floor plan you're not sure about, a room that's never felt right and you can't say why.
Some of my favorite projects were exactly that size. There's no threshold you need to cross before this becomes worth doing.
5. The Best Decisions Are the Ones Made Next to Each Other
Almost every expensive design mistake I see wasn't one bad decision. It was several reasonable decisions made in isolation, a tile chosen on its own, a sofa ordered separately, a light fixture picked by whoever happened to be standing there when the electrician asked. Each one seemed fine. None of them were made in relationship to the others.
That's the actual value of working with someone who's holding the whole picture, not that I have better taste than you, but that I'm making every decision against the same finished home in my head, so the tile relates to the floor, the floor relates to the cabinetry, and none of it gets chosen in a vacuum.
Why I'm Saying This Out Loud
I've been doing this for twenty-four years, and every one of these came from a real project, a real conversation, a real moment where I wished I'd said this earlier instead of after the fact. None of it is a sales pitch. It's just what I actually believe, after this many houses and this many people trusted enough to let me into theirs.
If any of this sounds like where you are right now, I'd love to hear about it.
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