How much is a interior designer? (floor, paint, kitchen cabinets, colors)

[Surfertx]

What do they usually charge and what service do you get?

I basically need a interior designer to take a look at my house (interior) and give me ideas and tips. No remodeling just furniture and decoration ideas. Mainly for my living room but also set the tone of my entire house.

[Retire in MB]

I would hire a decorator on an hourly basis. Depending on your area, it could be from $50-500/hour. Many have a minimum of 3 hours. When you interview them, set the scope and any remodeling/purchase budget. For your appointment make sure you can give the person your undivided attention, send the kids and husband out (unless you think their ideas would be helpful). I once knew someone who had a decorator come in for a consultation and spent the entire time taking care of her kids and answering phone calls - then she complained that the decorator didn't understand what she wanted.

[Surfertx]

Thx!

[Robyn55]

A fair number of furniture retailers offer "free" design services. Like Ethan Allen (when it comes to mid-range price furniture):

Free Design Service

Other retailers of home furnishings - everything ranging from floor coverings to kitchen cabinets - offer design services too.

When I've hired interior designers in the past - I have pretty much gone with hourly pricing. They did charge north of $100/hour and had much higher minimums than 3 hours. Then again - I was talking about doing whole houses/condos/offices from scratch.

Note that I personally would find "ideas and tips" kind of worthless in the absence of specific product recommendations. So I think your first order of business is figuring out what kind of furniture you're talking about - and what your general budget is. Are you talking a Rooms to Go budget (don't recommend) - Ethan Allen budget - or Knoll budget? What style are you looking for? What colors are interested in? Keep in the back of your mind that if you're rearranging furniture/things on walls/etc. - that you may be looking at a new paint job - floor coverings or similar.

I would also play around with a design program a little before meeting with anyone. There are some good free ones out there these days:

Arrange-a-Room

If you're not good at describing what you're looking for - you can find tons of pictures here:

Houzz - Home Design, Decorating and Remodeling Ideas and Inspiration, Kitchen and Bathroom Design

The more input you give a designer - the better your results will be. BTW - if I were going with an independent designer - I would check out his/her work on line first. Various designers have various styles. You don't want to work with a designer whose tastes run to the traditional if you're looking for contemporary (or vice versa). Robyn