How to Choose an Interior Designer: 8 Questions to Ask Before You Sign

Choose an interior designer by their documents, not their pictures. Ask to see a finished drawings album from a past project, check that the fee and deadline go into the contract, find projects in their portfolio close to your size and budget, and ask what happens when they make a mistake. Style matters less than people think. Process matters more.

Most guides say "look at the portfolio and check the chemistry". Both are fine and neither protects you. A beautiful portfolio shows that a studio can make beautiful renders. It says nothing about whether a builder can turn them into a real room.

The 8 questions

1. "Can I see a drawings album from a finished project?"

This is the single most useful question. A render takes a day. A set of construction drawings — walls, electrics, plumbing, ceilings, tile layouts, a specification with part numbers — takes weeks, and it is what your crew will actually work from.

If the answer is vague, or you get three more renders instead, you have learned what you needed to know.

2. "What exactly is included in the price?"

A rate per m² or a flat fee means nothing without a list. €30/m² for visualizations alone and €30/m² for a documented project are different products. Ask for the list in writing. Our own is on the pricing page: €35/m² for layouts and visualizations of every room, €50/m² with drawings and specification, €80/m² with two months of support on site.

3. "Are the fee and the deadline in the contract?"

"About six weeks" is a hope. A date in the contract is a promise. The same goes for the fee: if scope changes, the contract should change too, in writing. Budget drift is the most common complaint about design projects, and it starts with a price that was never fixed.

4. "Have you done a project like mine?"

Not "a nice project". One like yours: similar area, similar budget, similar type of building. A studio that mostly does 400 m² villas will treat your 70 m² apartment as a small job. Look for your size in their portfolio. Ours lists area and city for every project — the portfolio has small apartments next to houses, filterable by type.

5. "How many layout options do I get, and how many revisions?"

The layout is the cheapest place to change your mind. Moving a wall on a plan costs a line on a screen; moving it on site costs a wall. Good studios build revisions into this stage on purpose. We give two or three options and redo the layout up to three rounds until it works.

6. "Who will work on my project, and will they stay until the end?"

Freelancers rotating through a project is how details get lost. Ask whether the team is in-house and whether the person who starts your project is the one who finishes it.

7. "What happens if there is an error in your drawings?"

Every project has errors. The question is who pays for them. The answer you want: the studio fixes its own mistakes and aligns the fix with your builders at no extra charge.

8. "How do you check that the build matches the design?"

Drawings don't enforce themselves. Ask how supervision works: site visits, photo reviews, direct contact with the crew. Remote supervision through photos and video at agreed stages works well, as long as someone actually compares each stage with the drawings.

Red flags

• The price appears only after "a detailed brief", and the brief costs money.
• The portfolio has only renders, no photos of finished rooms.
• Fees are a percentage of your construction budget. The designer earns more when you spend more.
• Everything is "custom" and nothing is specified by part number. That means your builder will choose.
• Pressure to sign this week.

What matters less than you think

Distance. A studio in another city or country can run your project fully remotely, if the process is built for it. We have done 1,172 projects in 48 countries that way.

A signature style. You are hiring someone to design your home, not theirs. A studio that shows range is usually listening.

Awards. Nice to have, and usually for projects with a budget ten times yours.

A simple way to compare three studios

Put their answers in one table: price for your area, what's included, deadline, number of layout options, revisions, supervision, what happens with errors. The studio with the lowest number rarely wins once the columns are filled in. The one with the clearest answers usually does.

Frequently asked

Should I pay for an initial consultation? A short call to discuss the property and give you a price should be free. Paid consultations make sense for specific advice, not for a quote.

How much time should I set aside? About an hour a week for calls and approvals. A 100 m² apartment takes 4–8 weeks from first layout to finished drawings.

Is an interior designer the same as a decorator? No. A decorator works with finishes and furniture. A designer can move walls and redraw electrics and plumbing. For a renovation, you need the second.